HOW TO MOVE A ROW OF BROWNSTONES (1905)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** It was called “one of the most unusual examples of housemoving” ever. Up until 1905, no one had ever attempted it. And it was moving two rows of five Brooklyn brownstone houses together, as a row each, one, across the street, and one across a block AND a street. Contractors, experienced in the business, had – to this point – only moved much lighter frame houses, even rows of frame house. But a row of brownstone houses? Impossible! Over a course of several weeks, though, two rows of brownstone houses were jacked up, stabilized – and then rolled away. These same brownstone houses now sit across the street on Jefferson Avenue – as though they had always been there. MAKING WAY FOR THE EXTENSION It all started in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, when the State of New York decided it needed more room for an extension to an armory it owned on Sumner Avenue. The armory, bound by Sumner Avenue on the west, Putnam Avenue on the north, and Jefferson avenue on the south, could only expand in one way – into two rows of brownstones. Behind the armory, on Putnam Avenue, sat a row of brownstones from the 1880s, while, on Jefferson Avenue, a more recent vintage of brownstones […]
THE BABY FARM OF UTICA AVENUE (1890)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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 red flags began to go up slowly – one by one – as babies began to die. After Annie Smith, 1 month and 14 days old, it was wee Cora Tanner, just 7 days old. With two infant deaths being reported within the same month from a private residence at 126 Utica Avenue, Inspector Corcoran of the Department of Health was detailed to look into the matter. THE INSPECTION Arriving at 126 Utica Avenue, Inspector Corcoran discovered a “two story frame structure in which are available for maternity and nursery purposes four small rooms and an attic apartment.” Tending this facility, according to the Brooklyn Standard Union, was a Mrs. Emily V. Wilson, her daughter, and a nurse. Onsite, though, was also one baby and five women “patients.” Corcoran asked Mrs. Wilson to show her license, upon which request “she produced two documents given her by the Department of Health.” The first, dated 12 September 1886, granted permission to board four children at 100 Utica avenue, while the other bearing the date of 18 June 1888, permitted her to keep six children at 795 Herkimer street. She had no license for 126 Utica Avenue. At this point the inspector asked to view the house’s register, “which the law requires of […]
HORSEWHIPS, HARLEYS & HEROES ON CLASSON
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** “Every house has a story to tell.” That is how the Brownstone Detectives visualizes every structure, building, and house – as historical repositories for their human narratives. And the Brownstone Detectives, a for-hire historical research team, has investigated many of the stories that are a part of these narratives. And Brownstone Detectives has literally seen them all – from accounts concerning a house’s residents (unrequited love, murder, discrimination, &c.) to those involving the buildings themselves (explosions, fires, hidden rooms, &c.). “If you’re sitting in an old house right now – anywhere in this country – the human drama that’s taken place all around you would surprise the heck out of you,” said lead detective Brian Hartig. …NOW TO THOSE HORSEWHIPS… To give an example of the veritable goldmine of stories linked to every Brooklyn house, the detectives recently scratched the surface on a row of four connected tenement buildings in the Prospect Heights section of Brooklyn. The brick and brownstone tenement buildings at Nos. 820-832 Classon Avenue display a cross-section of the colorful tales that newspapers used to cover in their beats. In fact, due to the transient nature of the residents of these specific buildings over the 120 years of their existence, these structures hold an even larger number of the […]
TO DENY A “COLORED” BLOCK PARTY (1920)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Block party season upon us. It is a time of blocked-off streets, replete with the sounds of children happily playing, the smells of barbecues up and down the block, and carefree feelings of the beginning of summer. But this is also a time to remember some freedoms that were not always available to certain citizens – those freedoms for which struggles were necessary that they may be obtained. As such, it is instructive to remember how one group of people was often at the mercy of the whims of another. This story tells a tale that took place in 1920 when block party permits were not always so easy to obtain, particularly when the freedoms of those in the minority were proscribed by those in the majority… THE TRICKLE STARTS… In the mid-1930s, after the “A Train” had been extended into Brooklyn, African-Americans began to move in large numbers from Harlem into Bedford-Stuyvesant. Although the Eighth Avenue Express was the vehicle for that migration, the impetus was a desire for less crowded neighborhoods, more plentiful jobs (at the Brooklyn Navy Yard), and better housing conditions. The trickle that started this migration, though, began about 10 to 20 years earlier as African-American professionals of southern and Caribbean descent made their way to […]
