BUTCHER, BAKER, UNDERTAKER (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? ********************************************************************************************************************************As the sleeping giant that is Bedford-Stuyvesant’s Ralph Avenue begins to awaken from its slumber, it is tempting to take a look back at some of the businesses that once lined this bustling thoroughfare. STUYVESANT EAST OF YORE The eastern section of Stuyvesant was alive with industry in the late part of the 19th and the early part of the 20th centuries. As houses had recently been built along the main streets, stores, schools, and churches had gone up along the avenues and on corners, dotting the landscape with their offerings. The neighborhood, after its initial build-up in the 1890s, became completely self-sufficient in terms of goods and services. Residents of Macon Street, like those from the other streets in the neighborhood, found themselves surrounded by a variety of offerings that would allow them – and their servants, in some cases – to satisfy the needs of their families easily and quickly. THE BUSTLING BUSINESS CORRIDOR THAT WAS RALPH AVENUE Starting in the late 19th century, Ralph Avenue became a busy local business corridor filled with a wide variety of shops and stores that suburban families needed to support households of consumers. Since its inception, the avenue had public transportation, in the way of horse-drawn omnibuses and then later a streetcar line, […]
THE METAMORPHOSIS OF A BROOKLYN BLOCK
After showcasing some serious open-air ball playing, Saratoga Field was about to go indoors. There it would bear witness to a number of more diverse activities – dancing, fighting, and dreaming. But not necessarily in that order. By 1912, the owners of the block that Saratoga Field had utilized would realize the cash potential of developing the grounds for its marketing to commercial investors. Accordingly, they divided the land up into lots and sold it all off to real estate developers. Shortly afterwards, three new entertainment businesses would appear on the block – the Broadway Boxing Arena, the Halsey Theatre, and the Arcadia Dance Hall, all just across the street from the Brooklyn Rapid Transit (BRT) carbarn and Saratoga Square. THE BROADWAY ARENA The Broadway Arena (also known as the Broadway Sporting Club and the Broadway Exhibition Association Building) sat next to the Halsey Theatre (an alley in between), operating for close to 40 years. It was built around 1912 and had a capacity of 4,500 people. It would become Brooklyn’s top fight arena in the 1930s and 1940s, exhibiting the boxing skills of some of the country’s more well-known fighters, such men as Al Tiernan, Arturo Godoy (who fought Joe Louis in 1940), and Pete Sanstol. By 1951 the Broadway Arena was closed, the victim of competition from the television set. Its last boxing match was held on 29 November 1951. THE HALSEY THEATRE The Halsey Theater, a 2,100-seat theater, which originally presented both vaudeville and silent movies, was […]
SURVIVING THE ATLANTIC AVENUE “CUT” (1920)
O! What a difference 90 years makes. The Long Island Rail Road (L.I.R.R.) “Cut,” which divided the eastward and westward sides of Atlantic Avenue, was a much more scenic feature back in the day. In this photograph taken looking eastward from Howard Avenue, a small family walks with a baby carriage at the lower right, and a woman, above them, looks out of the window. Shoppers along with residents of the houses fill the sidewalks, as they run errands, talk with one another, and take in the streets scenes, themselves. These scenes were representative of the entire stretch of the avenue of the time. As the automobile came into prominence, though, and repair shops and filling stations began congregating along the avenue, the people began to disappear, along with their residential buildings, the latter of which were really not that old at the time. Sadly, none of these buildings appear to be standing today. Notice the number of ornate Victorian-era wood-frame houses that were in existence then. Also, notice the cast-iron fencing that the L.I.R.R. used to keep pedestrians from falling – and drivers from plunging – down into the “cut.” Unfortunately, for a number of motorists driving in the direction of the tracks, this fencing was of little help. With the low height of the old cast iron fence that lined the “cut,” many night-time drivers had a difficult time realizing – as they perpendicularly approached the “cut” in the dark – that there was actually no path between […]
UMBRELLA WEEK…ALREADY? (1920)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** If it was October of 1920, then you knew it was National Umbrella Week…right? Yaaaaaaaa……riiiiiiiiiiight…… At the very least, they were celebrating the occasion down at 114 Court Street. A product of the post-war marketing boom, “National Umbrella Week” was never celebrated again after 1920. But it was good while it lasted. Maybe it sold an extra umbrella or two. Who knows? THE BROOKLYN UMBRELLA COMPANY Today, we know 114 Court Street – that squat, 2-story, brick building in downtown Brooklyn – as a pizza joint. Back in 1919, though, it housed the Brooklyn Umbrella Company. The company sold umbrellas and they fixed umbrellas. This was back in a time when umbrellas were an investment in inclement weather – not throwaways cheaply mass-produced in China. Offering “linen gloria” and “union taffeta,” they sold “umbrellas that are a pleasure to carry.” Owned and operated by Isaac Smith Strong, The Brooklyn Umbrella Company started manufacturing umbrellas at this location around 1895. They finally closed up shop just a few years before the beginning of the depression, after which the location became a beauty shop and then later a restaurant. THE STRONG UMBRELLA Strong, himself, though, produced umbrellas well before 1895, but under his own name at 170 Fulton Street, and then later at […]
AFTER “NEGRO,” BEFORE “COLORED,” Pt. II (1920)
(Cont.’d from last week’s “After ‘Negro,’ But Before ‘Colored,’” Pt. I.) The permit for the “colored” Macon Street block party was revoked by the City at the last minute. Apparently, the white residents on Macon Street between Reid and Stuyvesant avenues, “who have been disturbed by the prospect of a block party there tonite for the benefit of a negro church are now at ease.” “The permit,” the July 1920 Brooklyn Eagle story noted, “which had been issued for roping off the block party” was revoked by the Highways Department, whose officials explained that Lucy Mayers had presented a petition from a number of residents on the block, asking permission for the party to be held.” However, as the residents of the block were predominantly white, when “some of them heard of the block party to be held for negroes they presented a counter petition with 140 names, a majority of the residents of the block, to the department, which then revoked the permit.” Police at the Ralph Avenue station said that “they had never been notified of the permit and they would have objected to the party,” if it had been held. The article does not say if the police meant that they would have objected to a party held by “colored folks” that was objected to by white residents, or if they would have objected to a “colored” block party, in general. The block party’s church committee stated that they were “returning the money for tickets bought for […]
REMEMBERING BROOKLYN’S UNDEAD (1922)
“Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” So reflected Mark Twain to a reporter with William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal in 1897, after the New York Herald had incorrectly reported that the famous writer had passed away while in London. While journalists are taught from their very first story to “trust but verify,” the U.S. military, though, has never fostered suffering compunction from such mistakes made. So it was when reports were being dispatched back to the U.S. during the First World War. While the adjutants of these military units, whence the reports originated, were doing their best to keep track of deaths and injuries, it can be imagined that quite a few names were inadvertently added to one or the other of the lists. After the Great War, accounts of American soldiers often surfaced, of their having previously been added to the list of the war dead, and then having shown up quite healthy – and with plans to continue living for many years to come. Such was the case with one Brooklyn man, Anthony Pentola, who, upon returning to the U.S. after fighting in the Great War, learned that not only had he been reported amongst the war dead, but that, he subsequently realized, his greatest and most substantial proof against the correctness of this report – his appearance one day in the War Department – was woefully insufficient in reversing the departments’s bureaucratic march toward its repeated lionization of him as an American patriot for […]
“SWEATING” HALLOWEEN TOYS IN 1921 BROOKYLN
How this toy worked is quite simple, but apparently, at least according to this ad in the October 31st, 1921 edition of the New York World, it was a “most substantial and amusing toy to delight the little ones.” The ad further noted that the Halloween Toy Sensation, the Jack O’Lantern “Awheel,” was “7 inches high,” and was a “faithful reproduction of the old time country Jack o’Lantern in the real pumpkin color.” In reality it was simply a locally mass-produced means of making money off of an annual holiday. The toy was probably made of wood which was placed on a base with wheels and hand-colored by some young ladies in a sort of “sweat shop” somewhere in Brooklyn. As a seasonal item they were probably produced quickly in a carpentry shop and assembled at a rapid pace – then the girls likely learned how to hand color the “faces” as they went along. “Awheel” was an old word which meant to travel by auto or bicycle and was used in a similar fashion to “afoot.” This Jack O’Lantern, obviously, was traveling by wheel – “to the delight the little ones.” And at 10 cents a piece, it sounded like a deal. Follow @BrownstoneDetec ———————————————————————————————————————– The Brownstone Detectives This story was composed from research performed by The Brownstone Detectives. Allow us do an in-depth investigation of your house and its former owners and produce your very own House History Book. Your hardbound coffee table book will include an illustrated […]
