WHEN SARATOGA AVENUE WAS YOUNG (1899)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** We’d never seen this 1899 picture before – the cobblestones of Saratoga Avenue – taken from Macon Street looking north. To the left you see the gates of the 3-year old Saratoga Square Park and to the right, what was known then as Saratoga Field. A few years before this shot was taken, you would have seen the circus and the various Wild West shows of the time camping out on these two blocks, attracting crowds of people from miles around to the neighborhood. In the distance, you can see the elevated Brooklyn Rapid Transit track, known around this time as the Broadway Elevated, which had opened in 1893 and was a 2-track line at the time. That’s right – no express! And staring back at you are some of the folks who lived and played in the area. It appears from the shot that they were positioned by the photographer. They’re all standing still and upright. Across the street from the park (on the right side of the photograph) would soon be built the Arcadia Dancehall, a “modern dancehall for working girls,” where the modern dances of the day – such as the Bunny Hug and the Tango – were forbidden. Vice President Calvin Coolidge and Teddy Roosevelt’s son, Theodore, […]
THE LOST ART OF MOVING HOUSES (1900)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** An article in the 28 March 1900 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle caught our eye the other day. It detailed an old practice of moving houses, and it took place in a time when the economics were such that their transport to another lot made more fiscal sense than tearing them down wholesale. In this story, however, the time it took to move this particular house took a toll on the neighboring residents. And, at one point, they gathered to tear the house down, themselves… THE HOUSE IN THE STREET The story took place in the early part of 1900 in Flatbush at the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Linden Boulevard. The subject was a frame structure that was being moved from that corner, although not quickly enough for local residents who protested the house’s temporary location on Linden Boulevard. And by “on Linden Boulevard,” we mean on the actual roadway itself. “A frame building stands in the middle of Linden boulevard, at its junction with Flatbush avenue. The building bears the sign of Vanderveer & Williamson, real estate agents,” the reporter started his story. Vanderveer & Williamson, we discovered – through combing the newspaper’s archives – were Adrian Vanderveer and Adrian N. Williamson, who had, by this point, had […]
