MATTHEW FOGARTY’S LAST DRINK (1885)
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.
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For some, there is no better way to die than while asleep or drunk.
For Matthew Fogarty, it was the latter.
Leaving a saloon on the corner of Manhattan avenue and India Street on 31 September, 1885, a “Wednesday morning,” Fogarty “fell to the sidewalk and struck his head against a projecting stone, fracturing his skull.”
And the papers back then were pretty blunt about the information and its presentation – the headline reads like the title of a poem or popular story.
It is difficult to imagine such a piece being published in today’s papers – or a paper taking such a playful tone in the presentation of such a tragic event.
But this was what sold back then and people loved to read it.
Fogarty was taken to St. Catherine’s Hospital at the corner of Bushwick Avenue and Maujer Street, a distance of some two miles.
Had the horse-drawn ambulance been waiting outside the saloon for Fogarty, and had it moved at a good clip of 15 miles per hour, it would have taken about 8-10 minutes for Fogarty to get help.
It was likely, though, that it took some time for the ambulance to arrive, then calculating in the 10-minute trip to the hospital, and other factors such as loading Fogarty onto and off of the ambulance, carrying him into the hospital, and the inevitable wait, then it
could have taken about an hour or more before Fogarty saw any sort of medical assistance.
Also, considering how badly Fogarty’s head may have struck the pavement in his fall, it is possible that, even had he cracked his skull on the very hospital steps, he may well have had no chance of surviving once in the hospital itself.
Fogarty had worked as a potter during his life and had been living at 182 Kent Street in Greenpoint. He was “one of the oldest residents of the Seventeeth Ward,” according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and had come to the U.S. from Ireland around 1850. According to the paper, he was “well known” in the Seventeeth Ward.
Fortunately for his sister, “to whom he was greatly attached,” she reached the hospital “a few moments before he expired.” It is not recorded whether he was conscious.
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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.
