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 […]
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 […]
THE SURVIVAL OF WOOD FRAME HOUSES (1904)
It doesn’t matter whether you view the “before” or the “after” image first. Either way, it can come as a shock how much the facade of a building can change over time. In 1904, when the houses were about 30-40 years old, the estate of Harold Dusenberry was selling four of them – Nos. 405, 407, 407A, and 409 Monroe Street. The four 3-story frame dwellings ended up being sold to an “investment company.” Comparing this picture to the current image from Google Maps below, here are five major differences we’ve noticed: 1) The house all the way to the left, No. 405, has been torn down and replaced with a “Fedders” mansion. 2) The other attached wood-frame houses, which still exist, have had their original details stripped or covered over the years. 3) Most of the cornices seem covered with vinyl siding. 4) The ornate porches have been stripped of their wood. 5) And their iron fences, though mostly present, are missing gates and sections. What other differences do you see? Follow @BrownstoneDetec Share ———————————————————————————————————————– The Brownstone Detectives Brownstone Detectives is an historic property research agency. Our mission is to document and save the histories of our clients’ homes. From our research, we produce our celebrated House History Books and House History Reports. Contact us today to begin discovering the history of your home.
FOOLING THE UNDERTAKER, PT. II (1900)
(Continued from Part I of Fooling The Undertaker) The first time that Park returned to Ralph Avenue for his Miss Twaddle, the watchful Twaddle boys were there to meet him. They refused to allow Miss Twaddle to see Park, and so he returned home both frustrated and empty-handed. Park knew he would have to find a way to outsmart the Twaddle boys. None of them was married, and so it was clear to him that they didn’t understand true love. Hardcastle, the undertaker (and Park’s former boss), was another obstacle to overcome – he, too, had never married. And while Park was sure of Hardcastle’s eagle’s eye, he was just as certain that Hardcastle’s hearing had not been cured a few years ago by Dr. Copeland’s quack patent medicine. So, when Park returned the second time in late May of 1900, he had already planned their escape, guiding Miss Twaddle’s actions and informing her where to meet him. Miss Twaddle would tiptoe down the stairwell, being exceedingly quiet. When she reached the door, she would walk in the opposite direction of Hardcastle’s parlor and down Macon Street toward Saratoga Square. On this second visit, Park was successful. Meeting up with Miss Twaddle, he spirited her away with him – and away from her life on Ralph Avenue. The two had “eloped” in grand fashion, making their way to a church far enough away from Ralph Avenue that they could marry without interference – which they did – that day. Afterwards, […]
FOOLING THE UNDERTAKER (1900)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Among the many thriving shops that lined busy Ralph Avenue at the turn of the century was a single story storefront at 159 Ralph Avenue. Just up from Macon Street, it stood amongst the avenue’s tailors, bakers, butchers, paper-hangers, plumbers, and pharmacies, dealing in bereavement and mourning. Hardcastle Brothers Undertakers had been in the neighborhood for almost as long as there had been a neighborhood. When a local resident died, it was usually Robert K. Hardcastle’s business to have them removed to his undertaking salon where he would prepare them for their wake and subsequent burial. Hardcastle was of Scotch-Irish descent – a bit bull-headed, very stubborn, and quite recently deaf. But he was a respected member of the community for the role he played in it, and the work he did for the families here. Hardcastle prepared and buried a good number of the people who died on Macon Street and the surrounding streets at the time. His business was steady, as people were constantly dying, so, other than a bit of advertising he did a few years ago for Dr. Copeland’s patented Hearing Treatment – he had little need to advertise his own undertaking services. It was all word-of-mouth. In 1900, though, a small piece of newspaper fluff about an employee […]
ATLANTIC TERMINAL – 1910 vs. 2018
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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 found a photograph taken at the “Atlantic Avenue subway entrance,” circa. 1910, and superimposed it onto an image taken from the same location, circa. today (courtesy Google Maps). The old picture shows an elevated railway and streetcar tracks in the background – the elevated railway is now underground and the streetcar has been replaced by city busses. If you look closely at the train cars, you can see that they are open on the sides, showing the time of year the photograph was taken. Also telling of the period (and the time of the year) are the boaters that the men are wearing – they were en vogue in mean’s spring/summer fashion at the time. There are also a couple of policemen, looking very much like London “bobbies” or “Keystone Cops” with their distinctive helmets. Notice anything else? Follow @BrownstoneDetec Share ———————————————————————————————————————– The Brownstone Detectives Brownstone Detectives is an historic property research agency. Our mission is to document and save the histories of our clients’ homes. From our research, we produce our celebrated House History Books and House History Reports. Contact us today to begin discovering the history of your home.
A TREE FALLS ON PROSPECT PLACE (1901)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** On the night of July 11, 1901, Brooklyn experienced a “Wind Storm” that knocked down a number of trees. One of those fallen trees crossed Prospect Place between 5th and 6th Avenues. One man “barely escaped the fallen tree, with the outer limbs grazing his body.” The storm must not have done much damage, though, as this picture – in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle – was the only reference to it. Just a little over a week earlier, though, trees were falling faster than Brooklyn home prices in 2009, when a wind storm killed two men at Coney Island and caused extensive damage at Parkville (a suburb then just west of Kensington). “Great trees, four and five feet in circumference, were uprooted and hurled across fences and into yards where gardens were the pride of the household,” noted the Eagle. “When the strong winds swept across the open fields between Coney Island avenue and the Ocean Parkway between Franklin avenue and Avenue D,” the Eagle continued, “it carried away with it four frame cottages being erected by the Morris Construction Company.” When the skies had finally cleared, the locals would view the distruction – the suburb was “full of wreckage. Every street was full of fallen trees…” Follow @BrownstoneDetec Share ———————————————————————————————————————– […]
THE “GOODFELLAS” OF CUMBERLAND STREET
One of the Brownstone Detectives’ first House History Books, No. 231 Cumberland Street: The Story of a House, tells the story of an 1852 antebellum frame home just steps from Fort Greene Park. It’s an action-packed tome, replete with treachery, “poudrette,” “small art,” SROs, and the gangland figures from “Goodfellas.” Here is a brief timeline of the history of this single landmarked property, matched up with “spreads” from the book: THE HISTORY OF A BROOKLYN HOUSE The land beneath which No. 231 would someday rise, started out as a tobacco farm owned by the first Italian immigrant to New York, Pietre Cesare Alberti. The farmland would eventually be built upon in 1851-2, when builder John Ross constructed a row of three homes there. First owned by a woman with a tragic history, a melodrama involving treachery, another man, and an infant daughter – which became the gossip of the newspapers of the time – No. 231 was rented out throughout the the 1850s and 1860s, in addition to many returning Civil War veterans, to merchants and their small families. One of those merchants featured prominently in the founding of the Lafayette Avenue Presbytery Church. Before this, however, he had begun his interesting career as a Night Soil Man – starting a company which, amongst other “agricultural” endeavors, collected human excrement from the backyard privvies of Brooklyn, selling this “compost” to Long Island farmers as the appropriately – if euphemistically – named “poudrette.” The property was then owned by an immigrant, […]
THE “SCREAM” OF MACON STREET (1907)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Female “personators” seemed to bring out the passion in folks back in the day. Maybe there was less sexuality involved in the whole dressing-as-a-woman thing. Or maybe it was simply a matter of sexuality not mattering at all. Or, as some say, it was everything. But when “The Great Eugene” took the stage – and he took the stage always as a woman – men, in particular, seemed to find themselves singularly rapt in attention and admiration at the spell that the talented female personator was casting over them. BUILDING THE PERFECT IMPERSONATOR The Great Eugene, otherwise known simply as Eugene, was named Eugene D’ameli as a child. He was born on Manhattan in 1836, and, according to The New York Dramatic Mirror (the Broadway rag of the time), he made his first debut at the tender age of 17, playing what he would end up playing the rest of his career – a “prima donna” – a persona which “he improved and perfected until it was considered the best of its class.” His partner, “Johnny” Unsworth, of 700 Macon Street, recalled Eugene’s beginnings in the minstrel theatre. “Because he was so small and slight and built somewhat like a woman Gene started female impersonations, always in black face, as a […]
THE BLOOD BUBBLING IN SARATOGA FIELD
(The picture above shows one of the last years – 1912 – that Saratoga Field was used for skating – or any sports, for that matter – as the entire lot would be developed later that year. The image shows the “first skating” of 1912 in Saratoga Fields. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Mon., 8 January 1912.) After Saratoga Park was built, the block due east of it – formerly used as a the horse market which sat across the street from the Halsey streetcar stables – became know as Saratoga Fields. This large lot which abutted Broadway, Halsey and Macon, became the stand-in location for circuses through about 1905, and then for assorted sporting events afterwards through early 1912. Because of its proximity to Saratoga Park, though, for a number of years after the park’s construction, Saratoga Field continued to be referred to as Saratoga Park. Run by the Saratoga Amusement Company (for circuses and assorted sports from the early 1890s), they had two main draws, from the people living in the community, to pay the rent. In the winter, they provided skating facilities to the masses, by flooding the field and making a huge outdoor skating rink, which was extremely popular throughout the winter. In the summer, the company improved the lot for use by semi-professional baseball teams, which flourished in this part of Brooklyn. There were countless ball teams from the area which vied to defeat one another on a daily basis – and the competitions were covered keenly […]
