HOW TO MOVE A ROW OF BROWNSTONES (1905)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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 was called “one of the most unusual examples of housemoving” ever. Up until 1905, no one had ever attempted it. And it was moving two rows of five Brooklyn brownstone houses together, as a row each, one, across the street, and one across a block AND a street. Contractors, experienced in the business, had – to this point – only moved much lighter frame houses, even rows of frame house. But a row of brownstone houses? Impossible! Over a course of several weeks, though, two rows of brownstone houses were jacked up, stabilized – and then rolled away. These same brownstone houses now sit across the street on Jefferson Avenue – as though they had always been there. MAKING WAY FOR THE EXTENSION It all started in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, when the State of New York decided it needed more room for an extension to an armory it owned on Sumner Avenue. The armory, bound by Sumner Avenue on the west, Putnam Avenue on the north, and Jefferson avenue on the south, could only expand in one way – into two rows of brownstones. Behind the armory, on Putnam Avenue, sat a row of brownstones from the 1880s, while, on Jefferson Avenue, a more recent vintage of brownstones […]
HAS YOUR BROWNSTONE BEEN BURGLED? (1881)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** New York City brownstones are veritable repositories of History. For many owners of these august “brownstone-fronts,” their homes are undoubtedly amongst the quintessential vessels within which their collective past has accrued – and has infrequently been recorded (if recalled). Ironically, it is the relatively transient nature of our brownstones’ owners (the median period of ownership of a brownstone is 15 years) that causes this history to become scattered to the ages – as one family moves out and a new family takes title to the home. Thus, with each changing of the guards, a fresh new forward-looking history begins. The “disappearance” of this history, however, serves to shackle any lineage of owners that exists, causing a sort of historical amnesia that allows your home to compare meanly with similar others in your neighborhood (esp. when placing a value on your home – or putting it up for sale). SAVING YOUR BROWNSTONE’S CRIMINAL HISTORY? Most burglaries throughout New York City history, we can be certain, have gone unreported. While most of those that do reach the attention of the police, never make it in into the papers, there are a goodly percentage of burglaries, however, that were not only reported to the police but received vivid and colorful coverage – unwanted as […]
THE RAREBIT FIEND OF 23 MIDDAGH ST (1906)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** At No. 23 Middagh Street in Brooklyn Heights, in the early 20th century, lived the veteran actor, John P. “Jack” Brawn, who starred in upwards of 24 motion pictures. Most notably, he starred in the first ever trick motion picture, 1906’s “The Dream of a Rarebit Fiend.” Brawn lived on Middagh with his wife, Ethel Brooke Ferguson, who had been his leading lady on stage and whom he married in 1903. THE DREAM A trippy movie, “The Dream of a Rarebit Fiend” is about a man, played by John P. Brawn, the titular “fiend,” who has an all-too-real dream after consuming a large meal of Welsh Rarebit. His dream, rather a nightmare – the result of an upset stomach, the film implies – was likely supposed to represent the penance that could expect to be paid for the sin of gluttony connected with living a life of overabundance. The director of the short film, Edwin S. Porter, based the film on a comic strip, using it as a vehicle to present his mastery of the technical aspects of film-making, which displayed a good deal of hands-on special effects work – double exposures, miniatures and other camera trickery. Few cinema-goers, it is certain, would have seen a picture like this at the time. […]
THE “TAXPAYER” COMETH (1930s)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** We all know what a brownstone looks like. But, do you know what a “TAXPAYER” is? Most would consider the term a reference to a person who “gives to Caesar what is Caesar’s.” While that is true, we are referring to a type of building that was labelled with the term almost 100 years ago in the wake of the Depression. AN ECONOMICALLY-DRIVEN ARCHITECTURAL STYLE Shortly after the start of the Depression, as larger structures (apartments, flats, &c.) did not bring the return on investment during this period, New York City land owners often built temporary 1- or 2-story buildings on their lots to cover their property tax. They would rent the low-rise properties to business owners who would operate their businesses out of the structures, collect rent from the one resident, and pay the taxes. Always meant to be temporary until the end of the Depression, it was always the idea that property owners would demolish their taxpayers at the end of the bad economic times – to be replaced with multi-story structures that would bring in higher rent rolls. Not all of them were destroyed, however, and thousands can be seen throughout New York City today. Follow @BrownstoneDetec Share ———————————————————————————————————————– The Brownstone Detectives Brownstone Detectives is an historic property […]
DODIE VAN PELT & THE FROZEN ROOSTER (1888)
******************************************************************************************************************************** Brownstone Detectives investigates the history of its clients’ homes. The story you are about to read was composed from research conducted in the course of one of those investigations. ******************************************************************************************************************************** The following story appeared in a 1944 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, although this apocryphal tale likely appeared in many other editions of many other newspapers. It is an urban legend – one that explains an historical event in terms that would help the modern-day reader understand – concerning the all encompassing nature of the Great Blizzard of 1888. DODIE VAN PELT AND THE FROZEN ROOSTER “Dodie Van Pelt flung wide open his door and stamped out into the clear frosty night. Three days in his Park Slope mansion had put him in a fine temper. A hearty 60, he chafed and ranted at the howling wind and blinding snows which had kept him indoors from his work. “So on this night of March 15, 1888, when the velocity of the wind had diminished, Dodie walked down the hill and into the street. “He breathed the air so full of ozone and grumbled bitterly about the lost three days as he passed between the huge drifts of snow that bordered the roadway and towered 20 feet above his head. Halfway down the hill he paused, attracted by a forlorn rooster buried to its neck in a snow mound. “Grunting he knelt to lift it and found himself stroking the weather vane atop the First Unitarian Church. (“The Story […]
SPEEDING DRIVER, OVERTURNED CAR (1931)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** The guilty one was evident. The accident was seen by at least 40 trolley riders, several automobile drivers, and a number of pedestrians, on Bergen Street near Bedford Avenue. It was around 8 p.m. on A Friday. A laundry truck had been motoring east on Bergen Street when its chauffeur, possibly eager for the weekend, attempted to pass a trolley car ahead of him that was going (too slow, likely for the chauffeur) in the same direction. As the laundry truck cleared this trolley car, however, its chauffeur became suddenly aware of a westbound trolley car bearing down on him in his direction. There was no time or space to change direction of the automobile and the two vehicles collided at a relatively high rate of speed. The force of the collision threw the truck into the path of the eastbound trolley that the chauffeur had just tried to pass, which also ended up striking the laundry truck, itself. It was unknown whether the laundry truck chauffeur was injured as he didn’t stick around long enough, fleeing the scene, according to the police, about as soon as his truck had found its final resting place. According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, nine passengers on the two Bergen Street trolley cars were […]
