MONKEY SHINES AT No. 72 ST. JAMES PL (1889)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** A monkey in Victorian Brooklyn was not the most unusual sight to behold. In fact, the furry little creatures had been roaming the streets of the city since the introduction of the organ grinder. What was unusual, however, was waking up to one that was in “undisputed possession” of your house. ACT I – THE CREATURE APPEARS One Sunday morning in the summer of 1889 at the residence of Mr. William C. Mellins, No. 72 St James Place, Brooklyn, and in that of his next-door neighbor, lawyer William H. Morse, a disturbance of a sort took place. The 2-story and mansard brick residences of Messrs. Morse and Mellins sat, at the time, in a very rustic setting. They were “in the middle of a little block of five buildings, which have vacant lots on either end and a fruit orchard in the rear.” Well, late on a Saturday evening, Mellins happened to be drawn to a sound at his second-story front window. When he went to investigate, he looked toward the sounds, which appeared to be coming from his window. What he saw caused him to wonder if he were seeing things. There returning his gaze was a monkey clinging to his windowsill, looking into the room. Then, as quickly as […]
THE FIRE AT NO. 382 PARK PLACE (1903)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** All new homeowners begin their “home” journey with a blank slate. This is especially true in the case of owners of very old properties. They have very little information about the history of the structure they will be living in and nothing at all about the people who once lived there. When we meet with clients for the first time and reveal an important historical event involving their house, they begin to realize a very important historical tenet: Each house has a history. For one house, that history may include a tale about a runaway child. For another it could be a bankruptcy that led to a foreclosure on the home, followed by the family’s ignominious departure in the wee hours. For yet another, it may be a fire that almost destroyed the entire house that they had just purchased. For No. 382 Park Place, it was the flames. “THE FIRE CAUSED MUCH EXCITEMENT…” In a newspaper article accompanied by a picture of the firemen fighting the conflagration, the known details were spelled out – from the person who was home to how the fire was reported and what damage was done. “Fire broke out late yesterday afternoon in the house at 382 Park place and the work of the firemen […]
TRAPPED IN A BILLYBURG FREEZER (1902)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** If you stepped into a walk-in freezer and the door slammed shut on you – how long do you think you could hold out? In this day and age, such a scenario certainly plays itself out on the mental movie screen anytime we step into one. Such accidents happened enough that the freezer companies began to make safety locks allowing those trapped so to be able to escape without outside assistance. Back in 1902, however, you were – literally – on your own. THE SALOON AT GRAND AND GRAHAM H.H. Myers, a German saloon keeper, had moved recently from Manhattan to Brooklyn to open up a new saloon in the Dutch Town section of Williamsburg at Grand Street and Graham avenues. In his new place he “had things so arranged that he kept his beer barrels in an ice box in the cellar. One Saturday night in 1902, Myers had a thirsty crowd about the place, “all of whom were demanding more beer.” When one keg went dry, Myers descended his cellar stairs and entered the ice box to “put on” a new one. Myers had his set up such that the pipes leading from the beer taps behind his bar led down to the ice box in the cellar, where […]
