TRUST ME, I’M A…SHOEMAKER? (1900)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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 the doctor’s office at 635 Herkimer Street early in 1900, you would have been greeted with the kindly smile of Dr. Walter C. Falk. Dr. Falk would have listened to your heartbeat, asked you a number of questions in a slight German accent, charged you an office visit fee, and then, after disappearing and the reappearing from a back room, prescribed you any number of medications – which he would, of course, sell to you directly. Over the coming weeks, your ailment may or may have not gone away. If it did, it was most certainly not due to the medication for which you paid and took faithfully. For you see, it was very soon discovered that “Dr.” Falk, who had only been in town for approximately eight months, was not a doctor at all. He was a “shoe cutter.” “DR.” FALK, I PRESUME? Falk noted on the 1900 Federal Census that he had been born in Germany in 1848. He was 51 years old at the time and was currently a lodger at the boarding house at 635 Herkimer Street, where he lived with seven other men and a small family. An 1892 New York State Census record, though, showed him living in the town of […]
