“LIFE IS BUT A DREAM” (1894)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** (From The New York Herald, Wed., 7 March 1894.) “LIFE IS BUT A DREAM.” So wrote Morris Cohen to his mother before he killed himself. Morris Cohen, thirty-five years old, committed suicide at his residence, No. 109A Bergen street, Brooklyn, yesterday afternoon by shooting himself in the heart. For a weak past, Cohen has complained of not feeling well. He believed the grip had attacked him. At noon yesterday he returned to his home from his place of business, No. 143 Smith street. He was met at the door by his mother, to who he said that he was going to his room to lie down. He asked her to call him at two o’clocl. At that house his mother went to his room and foudn him on the bed. In his right hand, tightly clutched, was a .38 calibre revolver. His clothing was covered with blood. The suicide had sent but one bullet into his body and this, from all appearances, had caused instant death. On the dressing case in the room was a letter written by Cohen to his mother as follows: “Life is but a dream.” My dream is o’er. I am going crazy to lie in a silent tomb. Dear mother, don’t shed a tear or wear […]
SPEEDING DRIVER, OVERTURNED CAR (1931)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** The guilty one was evident. The accident was seen by at least 40 trolley riders, several automobile drivers, and a number of pedestrians, on Bergen Street near Bedford Avenue. It was around 8 p.m. on A Friday. A laundry truck had been motoring east on Bergen Street when its chauffeur, possibly eager for the weekend, attempted to pass a trolley car ahead of him that was going (too slow, likely for the chauffeur) in the same direction. As the laundry truck cleared this trolley car, however, its chauffeur became suddenly aware of a westbound trolley car bearing down on him in his direction. There was no time or space to change direction of the automobile and the two vehicles collided at a relatively high rate of speed. The force of the collision threw the truck into the path of the eastbound trolley that the chauffeur had just tried to pass, which also ended up striking the laundry truck, itself. It was unknown whether the laundry truck chauffeur was injured as he didn’t stick around long enough, fleeing the scene, according to the police, about as soon as his truck had found its final resting place. According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, nine passengers on the two Bergen Street trolley cars were […]
SNOW DAY ON BERGEN & FLATBUSH (1888)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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. ******************************************************************************************************************************** Although today was merely a dusting in comparison to the Blizzard of 1888, it gives us an opportunity to look back on what the aftermath of a real snowstorm looked like. In the inset black & white photograph, we see men clearing snow outside of a coal & wood store after the blizzard at the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Bergen Street. We’ve included a Google Maps view of what that corner looks like today. The Coal & Wood shop is now a Gino’s Pizza at 218 Flatbush Avenue. Follow @BrownstoneDetec Share ———————————————————————————————————————– The Brownstone Detectives Brownstone Detectives is a property research agency. Our mission is to research, document, and save the histories of our clients’ historic properties. From this research, we produce our celebrated House History Books. Each book is fully cited, featuring detailed narratives and colorful graphics, and is designed to bring the history of any house to life. Contact us today to begin discovering the history of your home.
CSI: MURDER ON THE PARK SLOPE? (1893)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** When a badly decomposed body was discovered in the basement of a tony Park Slope brownstone, two of Brooklyn’s best detectives were put on the case. THE SETTING “Thomas Dempsey a retired merchant, who lives with his young wife and mother in law in a handsome brown stone house at 248 Garfield place, near Eighth avenue, rushed into the Bergen street police station in a fluster late yesterday afternoon,” reported the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, declaring “that he had just found his servant Edith lying dead in the basement of the laundry.” Dempsey was in an anxious state, the paper noted, observing that he wanted “the body removed without delay as it was badly decomposed and also to have the fullest investigation possible made by the police.” THE WEEK BEFORE THE DISCOVERY Mr. Dempsey, with his wife and mother in law, departed for a vacation trip to Asbury Park on 9 August 1893. They left the house and a pet pug dog in charge of Edith Moe, “a middle aged genteel looking woman” of 35, who was “of a very nervous disposition and who seemed dreadfully afraid to let her friends know that she was living out.” Mr. Dempsey’s mother-in-law, it was learned, had hired Edith, so Mr. Dempsey did not know […]
