IT’S RAINING CATS! HALLELUJAH! (1887)
******************************************************************************************************************************** Brownstone Detectives investigates the history of our clients’ homes. The story you are about to read was composed from research conducted in the course of one of those investigations. Do you know the history of YOUR house? ******************************************************************************************************************************** It once rained cats on Grand Street. The felines were tossed and dropped rather dramatically from the rafters of a playhouse in Williamsburgh. When the Society For the Prevention of Cruelties to Animals got wind of the act, they decided to buy a ticket to the show, “Soap Bubble”… IT’S RAINING CATS…HALLELUJAH! In Williamsburg, in the late 1800s, there existed a show hall which sat in the middle of Grand Street between Bedford and Driggs avenues at No. 166. Known for a time as the Grand Street Museum, it had a run of only five years between 1885 and 1889. But the Museum made the papers in 1887, for a cruel cat storm that played out upon their boards… In the latter part of 1887, a show by the name of “Soap Bubble,” was making its debut in the district. Although it wasn’t creating much of a stir, it so happened that a letter about the show was received at the offices of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The letter made a serious accusation, referring to “cruelty to cats” that was being “exhibited nightly” during the play. The writer, who noted he’d spent an evening at the theatre, stated that during the first act a “large number […]
THE LONG SLOW DEATH OF REID SQUARE (1870)
******************************************************************************************************************************** Brownstone Detectives investigates the history of our clients’ homes. The story you are about to read was composed from research conducted in the course of one of those investigations. Do you know the history of YOUR house? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Laid down by the Brooklyn street grid commissioners in the 1830s, Reid Square was a planned park that was to be comprised of two of Brooklyn’s city blocks in the Town of Bedford. Named after the owner of the farmland that the once-future park was to grace, Philip Reid, Reid Square never ended up being developed. The Square was to be bounded by Reid and Stuyvesant Avenues and Halsey and MacDonough Streets. Macon Street, which, for all intents and purposes, would have passed directly through the square at its center, was to be closed at that point. In 1869, however, as the park had been laid out but not improved, the Committee on Opening Streets of the Brooklyn City Common Council met and proposed a resolution to “draft an act to the Legislature to close Reid Square and lay down Macon Street from Stuyvesant to Reid aves.” This proposal was adopted and later in April of 1869, the Legislature passed the act, dooming Reid Square to an historical footnote. It is quite probable that powerful real estate speculators at the time forced the planned public square into its stillborn state, allowing the properties on these streets to be broken up into lots and then sold at auction for development purposes. Follow @BrownstoneDetec […]
SOLVING YOUR BROWNSTONE’S I-CARD MYSTERY
******************************************************************************************************************************** Brownstone Detectives investigates the history of our clients’ homes. The story you are about to read was composed from research conducted in the course of one of those investigations. Do you know the history of YOUR house? ******************************************************************************************************************************** One of the many weapons in the arsenal of the New York City old house detective is an official city document known as the I-Card. Many homeowners have heard of them, few know what they are, and even less have ever seen one. The reason is simple – the I-Card was never meant for public consumption. WHAT IS THE “I-CARD”? The I-Card is a paper record that the City of New York used, starting in 1902, for documenting the required building improvements of tenements and multiple-dwelling buildings, and for regulating the use of these type buildings. The I-Card came about around the turn of the last century when the “progressives” started focusing on building codes, sanitary conditions, and safety issues in the tenements. The Tenement Act of 1901 regulated these issues, requiring old tenement building (pre-1901) to bring their buildings up to this code and post-1901 buildings to be built according to the provisions in the new Act. So, the city came up with a way to track the required improvements that certain buildings had to have made. (The “I” in “I-Card” refers to “improvements made” on a structure after its construction.) What was being regulated here? Primarily things like making sure that a tenement had proper and adequate fire-escapes and […]
THE “GREAT UMPIRE” FANS WEE WILLIE (1922)
******************************************************************************************************************************** Brownstone Detectives investigates the history of our clients’ homes. The story you are about to read was composed from research conducted in the course of one of those investigations. Do you know the history of YOUR house? ******************************************************************************************************************************** When we research the histories of our clients’ homes, we inevitably uncover stories that tell part of the narrative of our neighborhoods. Today, we present a short piece on a ballplayer who was once so famous – and such a great player – that he was nicknamed “the Brooklyn Astor” for what he was paid to played for a Brooklyn ball club. This was Wee Willie “Hit ’em, where they ain’t” Keeler who predicted his death at moments after the strike of midnight on New Years Eve. ************************************************************************************************ Hall of Famer Wee Willie Keeler, known for his “hit ‘em where they ain’t” strategy, was “born and bred” in the “Eastern District” of Brooklyn. As a matter of fact, he lived at two particular addresses – and went to school and played ball at another two – all within today’s Bedford-Stuyvesant. Keller, who played primarily for the Brooklyn Superbas and the Baltimore Orioles from 1892-1910, was referred to as the Brooklyn Millionaire when he retired. Keeler had been the first ballplayer to be paid $10,000 a year. He died, though, a pauper, living in a dim second floor apartment at 1010 Gates Avenue and having never married or sired a child. In ill health toward the end of his life, he grew […]
A CURE FOR WEALTH ON CLINTON AVE (1895)
******************************************************************************************************************************** Brownstone Detectives investigates the history of our clients’ homes. The story you are about to read was composed from research conducted in the course of one of those investigations. Do you know the history of YOUR house? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Along an avenue shaded with tall oaks and plane trees once sat the home of a rich old recluse who’d been swindled of nearly all of her life’s savings in her declining years. A “tumble down” and “badly dilapidated old three story frame house,” the structure “stood forlornly upon the lot at 439 Clinton Avenue in Fort Greene,” noted the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. The roof of the house was “surmounted by a queer little cupola, and the whole structure looks as if it might fall in at any moment.” In short, the Eagle sardonically noted, the house looked as if the owner, Mrs. Caroline Barry, had lived in it ever since the death of her husband “without either painting it or repairing it in any way.” The Eagle was likely going a bit over the top with regards to the house’s condition, as it seemed much out of place situated between stately structures of brick and brownstone all along Clinton Avenue. But as the house has been gone for more than 100 years now, it is impossible to know what its actual state was for certain. What we do know, though, is what it looked like from a drawing done by the newspaper and from Sanborn Fire Insurance maps. From the […]
CONEY’S 6 M.P.H. COASTER OF FEAR (1884)
******************************************************************************************************************************** Brownstone Detectives investigates the history of our clients’ homes. The story you are about to read was composed from research conducted in the course of one of those investigations. Do you know the history of YOUR house? ******************************************************************************************************************************** When we research the history of our clients’ homes, we always come across the odd, the interesting, the unbelievable, and the ironic. Sometimes, though, we come across the FUN! In 1884, the original Coney Island thrill-ride was born – its first roller coaster – The Switchback Railway. No, it did not utilize a “90-degree vertical drop, followed by a 100-foot loop and a zero-gravity roll, along with dives, hills and a corkscrew — all within two minutes,” as the current Thunderbolt does. It did not reach speeds of 55 miles per hour. And it did not cost $10 million to build. The Switchback Railway, though, was the first roller coaster designed as an amusement ride in America. It was the coaster that sparked the first wave of the roller coaster mania in the United States. And it warranted LaMarcus Adna Thompson, the creator of the unprecedented coaster, the title “Father of Gravity.” Based upon a coal-mining train that had started carrying passengers as a thrill ride in 1827, to ride the Switchback set you back a mere 5 cents. Riders would climb a tower to board the large bench-like car and then were pushed off to coast 600 feet down the track to another tower. And its speed? Just over 6 […]
