THE BOMBING OF BROOKLYN HEIGHTS (1892)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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 just past 1 a.m. on a cool Saturday morning in the tony Columbia Heights section of Brooklyn. The police reserves of the Second Precinct, under the able leadership of Sergeant Joseph Carrougher, would soon be arriving on the scene. Carrougher’s desk sergeant had just awoken him out of a deep sleep at the Fulton Street police station. The sergeant had looked at him gravely in the dark of the room. “Somebody exploded a dynamite bomb on Willow Street.” “GROTESQUELY DRESSED, THE RESULT OF A HURRIED TOILET” When Carrougher arrived on the scene, he found Officer Seymour, “a portion of whose post was the scene of the explosion,” along with “a crowd of citizens” busily disturbing the crime scene. It was not too troublesome, however, having this crowd of citizens, “grotesquely dressed, the result of a hurried toilet,” tromping about the evidence. So long as they did not take anything that would assist in apprehending the guilty party. But many at the scene that night had begun amusing themselves “by digging out the fine white powder of the cobblestone with their penknives,” taking away samples. Sgt. Carrougher had seen it all in his 25 loyal years of dedication to the force. And while there were a number of clues that […]
“BLOWN TO PIECES” ON MACON STREET (1916)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** On a warm summer morning in 1916, five people were killed and “more than a score were injured” when a masonry building on Macon Street was “blown to pieces” in a gas “explosion” occurring shortly after most of the building’s inhabitants had left for work for the day. Authorities were still attempting to determine who may have been in the building at the time of the blast, but the source of the explosion was believed to be a gas leak from the cellar of the building. THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS NOW This story was written more than 100 years ago, in 1916. The explosion, which fractured many Brooklyn lives, took place in the middle of Stuyvesant Heights at the corner of Macon Street and Sumner Avenue (now Marcus Garvey). Similar in detail to the East Village gas explosion of a few years back, only the time and place has changed. Both the buildings were residential with stores on the ground levels, and the 1916 explosion, itself, was also caused by a gas leak. Apparently, gas leaks have been leveling buildings since buildings were being plumbed with the element. In 2015’s explosion, the gas in the building was used for heating the apartments and the building’s water. In 1916, the gas […]
