THE HERO OF THE HALSEY STREET FIRE (1911)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Late in 1911, on a brisk early November morning, a fire broke out in the ground floor store of a 4-story corner apartment building across the street from Saratoga Square Park. It quickly spread, engulfing the entire building. Smoke pouring out of the store on the ground floor of 801 Halsey Street was first seen by a streetcar motorman, William Coffey, who, thinking quickly, began to clang his streetcar gong to arouse the sleeping inhabitants of the building. Coffey and his conductor, along with their six passengers, descended from the car and rushed to the building to do what they could do to assist in evacuating the residents. The fire had apparently started on the ground floor on the Halsey side of the building in a stationery store run by Wolf Bialik. Next door was a grocery store operated by Ernest Seemeyer. The flames then quickly “shot up the dumb waiter shaft to the roof, mushrooming out on each floor.” DETECTIVE O’HARA TO THE RESCUE Across the street, at No. 98 Howard Avenue, a 37-year-old police detective, Irving A. O’Hara, upon hearing the street car gong, had begun dressing quickly and rushed across the street to assist. By this point, the three families living in the building had made it out […]
A CARIBBEAN HISTORY OF BED-STUY (2014)
“There is more serendipity in heaven and earth, Horatio, than is dreamt of in your philosophy.” Although that is not an exact quote from Shakespeare, it is close enough for my purposes. It very adequately lends a certain je-ne-sais-quoi to a chance experience I had a few years ago here in Bedford-Stuyvesant. FINDING AUNT CAR It was 2014, I found a posting on a genealogical site by a woman searching for information about a relative of hers named Caroline Gill. Since, at that time, I had been researching the lineage of my home – a 120-year-old brownstone in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn – I knew that one of the previous owners of my house went by that name, so my interest was piqued. I responded to the APB-like message and gave what information I had, hoping for an exchange. As it turned out, that poster, Stacey Maupin Torres, had more information about Caroline than I had ever found. This she began to share with me in what can only be described as pages of beautifully descriptive prose. I could tell that there was love in her words and I consumed them with an avid interest. In one of her emails, though, she casually mentioned some information that I was sure that she didn’t know I already possessed. She told me that her “Aunt Car” had lived in a beautiful old brownstone at 738 Macon Street in Brooklyn – the house my husband and I had been living in for […]
OL’ MAN LEFFERTS HAD A FARM, E-I-E-I-O (1874)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Above is a section of the 1874 Beers Map of the City of Brooklyn focusing on the 25th Ward, drawn up before much was built in what would someday become the eastern section of Stuyvesant Heights. Development in this section, the 25th Ward, would intensify around the 1890s. As you can see from the map, there are a lot of names on it. They belong to the men who had previously owned the land as part of their farms. Around those names are drawn the former property lines of their farms. Thus, this map is called a “Farm Line” map. Now, if you can locate where you live on this map, you can see the name of the farmer who once owned the land your house sits on today. (If your house is not on this map, it is most certain on others. Let me know and I will help you find it – and your farmer’s name.) How many farmers you can see on this map? 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 […]
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 […]
THE FILTHY STREETS OF STUY HEIGHTS (1891)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** “I have lived in Macon Street since Nov. 28, and there has not been a soul to clean that street during that time.” It happened then as it does now – people complain about the condition of their streets and their neighborhood, in general. The above quote was from 1891, back when Stuyvesant Heights was in the throes of a major construction expansion. Apparently, there were construction materials everywhere – filling the streets and clogging the sewers. “There are at least a thousand tons of sand and stone in the street with grass growing all over it,” the same commenter noted. “The sewer is filled up with sand.” It got so bad for this section of town – due to the relatively unregulated construction industry – that every time there was a heavy rain storm, the article continued, residents’ cellars were “flooded with one or two feet of water.” Ironically, our current 21st century Mayor’s Office declared a few years ago that the streets of Bedford-Stuyvesant were among the dirtiest in the city. Specifically, the office noted that the cleanliness of 15% of our streets was “unacceptable.” Now that Bed-Stuy is a built-up section of our city, maybe we don’t have much of an excuse for the filth. But it must […]
“GROUND TO PIECES” IN THE CUT (1914)
Martin Conly was the first to die by the cut in 1908. He and a boyhood “chum” were back from Coney Island at about 1 a.m. when the automobile they were traveling in ran into the low iron guard rail. Conly, the son of a prominent Brooklyn Democratic ward leader, was thrown from the vehicle and onto the tracks below. He was killed instantly. The Long Island Rail Road, which was not held accountable in court for the death, would later remove the light iron fencing and replace it with a thick concrete wall to prevent the same thing from happening again. Just a month later, though, before they could eradicate the danger – it happened again. Five young men, enjoying a “joyride” in a “large touring car,” heading north on Howard Avenue toward Atlantic Avenue, plunged into the wide trench and landed on the tracks “25 feet below,” just as a train was scheduled to pass. It was 2:10 a.m. It wasn’t until 27 December 1914, though, that an automobile would plummet into the cut while a passing train “ground to pieces” a man and his automobile. It had been traveling south on Howard Avenue towards Atlantic Avenue, when it crashed into the iron fencing. Unfortunately, the Long Island Rail Road had not found it necessary to build the same type “re-enforced” concrete wall on the north side of the cut (as it had on the south). MITIGATING THE CUT Today, the mitigation is noticeable – but just barely. […]
BROWNSTONE DETECTIVES IN THE NY POST!
“Because Brooklynite Brian Hartig delves into the history of old New York homes every day, he comes across a few ghost stories,” wrote New York Post writer, Emily Nonko. Hartig, who creates House History Books containing the full histories of his clients’ Brooklyn houses, was told recently that his house was haunted by a benign spirit. (Read the rest of the story at the New York Post website.)
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 […]
THE RETURN OF AUNT CAR (2013)
A few years ago, I found a posting on a genealogical site searching for information about a person named Caroline Gill. One of the owners of my house went by that name, so my interest was piqued. I wrote and gave the poster what information I knew, hoping for an exchange. As it turned out, that poster, Stacey Maupin Torres, had more information about Caroline than I ever did, which she began to share with me. In her reply, though, she casually mentioned some information that she didn’t know I already had. She told me that her “Aunt Car” had lived at 738 Macon Street in Brooklyn. As I read her message, I began to realize that I had not divulged to her that I lived in her aunt’s old house. So, imagine Stacey’s surprise when I told her that I was writing to her from that very house! After this revelation, every email we wrote to one another seemed to be pages in length. Stacey would tell me details about her Aunt Car’s and Uncle Henry’s lives (they lived at 738 Macon Street in the 1950s and 1960s), and I would tell her what 738 Macon Street is like now, and send her pictures of the house – including invitations to come and visit. Stacey told me that, in the 1960s, she had lived in Queens and had been to 738 Macon Street with her family many, many times. Her Aunt Car, she explained, had had large family gatherings […]
