SNUFFED OUT IN A BOWERY WINE CELLAR (1917)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** When we discovered a set of NYPD archive photographs showing the aftermath of a murder in the wine cellar of a Bowery tenement, it came attached with just a street address as a clue. Armed with this information, we started our investigation, tracking down the story of the murder from newspaper archives. We present that story – and these original pictures – to you today. This brief story details exactly what allegedly happened and how the subject came to be discovered murdered in his wine cellar. The story is from the New York Tribune of Friday, 19 January 1917. – The Brownstone Detectives “The telephone bell in Dominick Bononeolo’s undertaker’s shop, at 294 Elizabeth Street, rang at 7:30 last night. The undertaker himself responded in his soothing tones. “‘Go down cellar,’ commanded a harsh masculine voice, ‘and see that everything is well with Dominick.’ “The undertaker tried to explain that an hour before he had seen Dominick Maestropaolo descend into his wine cellar beneath the undertaker’s shop and that he had seemed in the best of health. The telephone had gone dead, however, except for central’s thin query. “Bononeolo’s son, Giuseppe, who is about twenty year old, went down. One of the iron doors was open. A flickering gas flame set […]
HAS YOUR BROWNSTONE BEEN BURGLED? (1881)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** New York City brownstones are veritable repositories of History. For many owners of these august “brownstone-fronts,” their homes are undoubtedly amongst the quintessential vessels within which their collective past has accrued – and has infrequently been recorded (if recalled). Ironically, it is the relatively transient nature of our brownstones’ owners (the median period of ownership of a brownstone is 15 years) that causes this history to become scattered to the ages – as one family moves out and a new family takes title to the home. Thus, with each changing of the guards, a fresh new forward-looking history begins. The “disappearance” of this history, however, serves to shackle any lineage of owners that exists, causing a sort of historical amnesia that allows your home to compare meanly with similar others in your neighborhood (esp. when placing a value on your home – or putting it up for sale). SAVING YOUR BROWNSTONE’S CRIMINAL HISTORY? Most burglaries throughout New York City history, we can be certain, have gone unreported. While most of those that do reach the attention of the police, never make it in into the papers, there are a goodly percentage of burglaries, however, that were not only reported to the police but received vivid and colorful coverage – unwanted as […]
THE STOOL PIGEON & THE HOLDUP (1931)
(The New York Police Department has several thousand photographs of crime scenes available online at the City’s Department of Records. Many of them are gruesome. But they are great pictures for doing research. The picture in this blog post was taken after a holdup at 729 4th Avenue in 1931. Although the pictures usually have limited or poor information associated with the photos, after a bit of some rudimentary research, we can usually find the whole story in old newspaper archives. Finding these, we are able to piece together the story behind the photograph.) THE STOOL PIGEON & THE BODYGUARD The picture above (the black & white inset photograph) is the scene of a holdup, which took place at 729 4th Avenue, Brooklyn, on 16 May 1931. Two men were shot during the event, but before it took place, another – providential – event occurred, which stymied the holdup and caused the arrests of the three men. Chile Acuna, whose revelations pried off the lid of police vice squad conditions (read about it here) was arriving home at 740 4th Avenue around 11:30 p.m. on 16 May 1931. His wife and their two kids were with them. So was their bodyguard, Patrolman William F. O’Brien. THE HOLDUP Noticing the vehicle at the curb of the drugstore across the street, O’Brien observed what happened next. He saw three men exit the vehicle while the fourth remained at the wheel. As the three men approached the drugstore, O’Brien told Acuna: “Run upstairs […]
POLICE COMMISH LIKES THE LADIES (1915)
When Brooklyn’s Deputy Police Commissioner Godley laid eyes on the beauties in the newspaper spread, he couldn’t contain himself. He wrote to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle to offer them police protection. “It is unusual for us to offer police assistance, since we ordinarily have enough work to do for all of the policemen we have and a good many more, but I am sure that you will need it after publishing photographs of but four of the beautiful young women of Brooklyn.” So, he made the following offer: “We shall be glad to furnish whatever protection may be necessary even to the extent of calling out the entire force.” The Eagle, in response, offered a poem, the last two stanzas of which we offer here – the first of which comes in the voice of the Deputy Commissioner Godley himself, followed by an answer from the newspaper: “If harm seems to threaten those charming young misses; We’ll keep them in Brooklyn, where nothing but bliss is. But why publish four, when you know that is hardly Fair to other Brooklyn girls? – Yours truly, Godley.” “Dear Godley” – (The Eagle makes haste to respond) “We note your advice, so please don’t despond; Send us lots of photos of beauties – don’t stint ’em; Be assured that The Eagle will be glad to print ’em.” Five years later women would begin to be taken more seriously. No longer just beauties to be gawked at in newspaper spreads, in 1920 they would […]
