A RAILROAD FOR PARK SLOPE’S 8TH ST. (1904)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Few of today’s Park Slope residents know about them. In early February of 1904, however, they suddenly appeared on Eighth Street between Prospect Park West and Eighth Avenue, an industrial omen in a white shoe neighborhood. These dark and foreign objects were a set of iron railroad tracks that had been – overnight – inserted coarsely into a place where they did not belong – residential suburbia. The block where these alien metals and wood had descended, had just barely been settled recently with homes (and even more recently with families). It had just seen itself partially developed with a row of eight upscale apartment houses on the north side of the street and 12 two-story & basement limestone houses on its south. With the recent spate of construction, there were – at the time the tracks appeared – a mere four families that had purchased “handsome houses” on the block, which they had taken possession of at “fancy prices.” Now, those with an interest on the block were showing “great alarm.” With the appearance of the tracks, residents fully expected their properties to be “ruined in value,” causing them to begin considering selling them at a discount and to ignominiously leaving the neighborhood. The builder of the limestones, Sen. William […]
SO A TAXICAB JUMPS INTO A FOUNTAIN… (1909)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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 Brooklyn woke up one April morning in 1909, there in Prospect Park Plaza’s “Electric Fountain” sat a little blue taxicab. To many, the thing appeared as though it had always belonged there. Some wondered whether they’d simply not noticed it all along. But others realized that something was wrong. Something was certainly wrong. THE CASE OF THE IMPETUOUS TAXICAB It seems as though the Grand Army Plaza has always had a fountain. But back when the plaza was called Prospect Park Plaza and it encompassed a larger amount of land, that fountain was much larger and took up much more space. The fountain was then what was called an “electric fountain,” and after it was installed it would attract people by the thousands each year when the lights and the water were turned on. One year, after the winter had passed and after the water was supposed to have filled the reservoir, with the jets darting, and the lights dancing, the fountain sat silent. So, as popular as the fountain was to Brooklyn, the reporters of the city had descended upon Parks Commissioner Kennedy about it’s inactivity. And in the midst of the hubbub – came the crash. HOW IT ALL CAME ABOUT It was 11:30 on a Sunday night […]
