WOMAN ON A LEDGE AT No. 97 MACON ST (1953)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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 houses have a history. Those of a certain age clearly have it in spades. One part of any house’s history are those incidents that occur without planning or preordination. They can be unpleasant to know. One of those unplanned incidents, is the housefire of unknown origin that spreads uncontrollably through a residence. One such fire which spread throughout a building, took place on a cold January day in 1953 in a rooming house on Bedford-Stuyvesant’s No. 97 Macon Street. FROM A SINGLE-FAMILY TO A ROOMING HOUSE By 1953, Bedford-Stuyvesant’s brownstone stock was ageing – and it was not doing so gracefully. A large percentage of this section of Brooklyn’s brownstones had passed their semicentennial and were still wired and plumbed as they had been when they were constructed. While many of them had been maintained through the first 30-40 years, as earlier owners moved out and were acquired by owners who began to rent out rooms, however, these newer owners put little money into their maintenance, preferring to squeeze as much profit as possible out of their rent rolls. The Depression-era programs of redlining and blockbusting brought many unsavory characters into the business of making money through the purchase and management of brownstones in black-majority sections – as well as […]
