HOW TO MOVE A ROW OF BROWNSTONES (1905)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** It was called “one of the most unusual examples of housemoving” ever. Up until 1905, no one had ever attempted it. And it was moving two rows of five Brooklyn brownstone houses together, as a row each, one, across the street, and one across a block AND a street. Contractors, experienced in the business, had – to this point – only moved much lighter frame houses, even rows of frame house. But a row of brownstone houses? Impossible! Over a course of several weeks, though, two rows of brownstone houses were jacked up, stabilized – and then rolled away. These same brownstone houses now sit across the street on Jefferson Avenue – as though they had always been there. MAKING WAY FOR THE EXTENSION It all started in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, when the State of New York decided it needed more room for an extension to an armory it owned on Sumner Avenue. The armory, bound by Sumner Avenue on the west, Putnam Avenue on the north, and Jefferson avenue on the south, could only expand in one way – into two rows of brownstones. Behind the armory, on Putnam Avenue, sat a row of brownstones from the 1880s, while, on Jefferson Avenue, a more recent vintage of brownstones […]
“BLOWN TO PIECES” ON MACON STREET (1916)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** On a warm summer morning in 1916, five people were killed and “more than a score were injured” when a masonry building on Macon Street was “blown to pieces” in a gas “explosion” occurring shortly after most of the building’s inhabitants had left for work for the day. Authorities were still attempting to determine who may have been in the building at the time of the blast, but the source of the explosion was believed to be a gas leak from the cellar of the building. THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS NOW This story was written more than 100 years ago, in 1916. The explosion, which fractured many Brooklyn lives, took place in the middle of Stuyvesant Heights at the corner of Macon Street and Sumner Avenue (now Marcus Garvey). Similar in detail to the East Village gas explosion of a few years back, only the time and place has changed. Both the buildings were residential with stores on the ground levels, and the 1916 explosion, itself, was also caused by a gas leak. Apparently, gas leaks have been leveling buildings since buildings were being plumbed with the element. In 2015’s explosion, the gas in the building was used for heating the apartments and the building’s water. In 1916, the gas […]
INSIDE SUMNER ARMORY – BASEBALL! (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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Back in the day, in addition to drilling the troops, our national guard reserve units used to utilize our armories the way we all hope they’ll be used again one day – for exercise and fitness. Here at the 13th Regiment Armory (formerly known as the Sumner Armory on Sumner Avenue [now known as Marcus Garvey Boulevard] between Jefferson and Putnam Avenues), a number of the men chose up sides and played a game of baseball – inside. By the mid 1870s, “baseball already was popular in most big eastern cities and remained so throughout the nineteenth century,” noted “The Great Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Major League Baseball” By David Nemec. “The ball was softer, the fielders never wore gloves, the bases were closer together and sliding was taboo–otherwise spectators saw much the same display of skills they did during the outdoor season.” Views of the armory (which was built in 1891, according to Save Bedford-Stuyvesant, in order to replace an armory in Flatbush) from the outside are all too easy to come by. But shots like these (drawings, rather), depicting the layout of the structure from the inside, appear much less often. Originally, according to the New York Times, “(i)nside the headhouse, the administrative section at the front of the armory, […]
