“IT BURNED WELL” (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. Do you know the history of YOUR house? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Have you ever left something aboard a subway car and wondered what happened to it? The Metro Transit Authority has an entire “Lost & Found” room devoted to articles that were forgotten on their property. In it, they hold items discovered (or turned in) on their trains and buses for “three months to a maximum of three years, depending on the estimated value of the item.” If your item is not retrieved within this period of time, it is either auctioned or, if it is in poor condition, sent for disposal. Back in the late 19th century it appears that disposal was the only method employed. FOUND ON THE BRIDGE Well, apparently, the Brooklyn Bridge being so new in 1885, having so recently opened, and being so popular with the public, the accumulation of so many disparate articles on the “cars” was likely a phenomenon that had not presented itself before. As such, there was no program designed to locate the owners of the materiel left on trains and street-cars. It was simply summarily destroyed. According to a reporter for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle that year, a “great assortment of odds and ends which have been picked up on the bridge cars and promenade during the past year were cremated in […]
