A STREET GROWS IN BROOKLYN (1845)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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 growth of brownstone Brooklyn took place over a great many years. The long contiguous lines of rowhouses rocketed skywards across the city through the economic good times, as well as – at a less robust pace – through the many debilitating recessions. But rocket they did, leaving the footprints of the many contractors and builders who changed the landscape of Brooklyn into a City of Houses. Another mark that the contractors and builders left – although one not as celebrated today – was the complicated system of flagging, pipes, sewers, cisterns, streetlamps, and sometimes trolley tracks, that lined the streets and led to those very rowhouses. Each delivery and receiving system that connected each rowhouse to the city was an important step toward the development of the city. Before each row of houses was constructed (and sometimes while they were being constructed, or even soon afterwards), the development of each street and neighborhood was an important part of attracting the homeowners to Brooklyn. THE BIRTH OF BOERUM HILL Boerum Hill had only recently been planned for with a street grid system that would develop alongside of a vast network of sidewalks, sewers, street lamps, gas lines, and water mains. At this time, however, in the 1840s, it barely resembled such […]
