THE DAY RIOTERS STORMED BROOKLYN (1895)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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 above picture shows the New York State militia shooting a man on Halsey Street, near the corner of Broadway. You can see the recently erected elevated train line at the end of the block.) In 1895, Halsey Street near Saratoga Park had become a war zone. The Brooklyn Streetcar strike had begun on 15 January, and before the week was over the agitation would be in full force. The strike, which began with a walkout, would quickly devolve into a pitched battle between the Knights of Labor and streetcar workers on one side and the streetcar line owners, the police and the New York State Militia on the other. The main focus of much of the strikers’ attention in this part of Brooklyn, though, was the Halsey Street Rail Road Barns. These, located near the corner of Halsey Street and Broadway, were where the streetcar line stored its cars, quartered its horses, and from whence the line’s streetcars were dispatched. After the workers had called the strike, 5,500 of them would walk off the job for better conditions. The streetcar line owners (the lines were privately owned and operated at the time) countered this strike by calling in scabs who would attempt to operate the streetcars in the workers’ absence. […]
