A WILLOW GREW IN BROOKLYN HEIGHTS (1938)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** (In September of 1938, one of the deadliest and most destructive tropical cyclones to hit Long Island, New York, “The Long Island Express,” wrecked havoc on the peninsula and much of Brooklyn, as well. In addition to killing 682 people and damaging or destroying more than 57,000 homes (causing property losses of $4.7 billion in today’s dollars), the hurricane knocked down innumerable trees. One of the more famous trees to lose its life in that storm was a willow tree of unknown age which sat in the yard of Brooklyn Heights’s No. 57 Willow Street. Some claimed that it was this tree that gave the street its name.) *********************************************************************************************** From the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Mon., 31 October 1938 (by columnist Maxwell Hamilton): “At the rate timber fell around us during the Hollywood hurricane last September (ed.’s note-“The Long Island Express” was one of the deadliest and most destructive cyclones to strike Long Island, New York), it would have been a flagrant case of playing favorites to select any one particular crashing tree and honor it with front-page billing. And yet, if the evidence gathered by our secret agents is worth any salt at all, it would appear that we all missed up on one leafy upheaval that was genuine news. We […]
