NAKED BOY, CITY FOUNTAIN (1898)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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 a scene perhaps repeated multiple times in a year by countless naked little boys. In June of 1898, however, one little “naked fugitive” was accosted by a “fat policeman” in the fountain of New York’s City Hall Park. Here is how he got away. BATHED NUDE IN CITY HALL PARK “An altogether naked boy of perhaps 12 years and a fat policeman with clothes to spare furnished joy for the people in City Hall Park last evening, at about half-past 6 o’clock,” began an article in The Sun. “The boy had been splashing around in the pool around the fountain. The park loafers were roused to comment with some animation upon the young man’s bravery and lack of modesty.” Apparently, in a time when such boyhood antics were looked down upon with quaint – even for the time – disapproval, for some reason, passersby “could’t avoid smiling tolerantly as they looked the other way.” ENTER THE POLICEMAN “The big policeman who came puffing from Park row took no such amiable view of the young man’s crime. For years,” The Sun continued, “small boys have been given to jumping into the fountain with all their clothes on.” A naked boy, however, as the paper implied, was rare. “A hundred voices […]
