“ANYTHING FER THANKSGIVING?”
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Before there was Halloween “trick-or-treating” – there was another tradition in Brooklyn: Thanksgiving “begging.” A STORY ABOUT CHILDREN PANHANDLING IN BROOKLYN Most people have never heard of this custom, but that is because it ended sometime in the 1940s or 1950s here in the northeastern part of the U.S. But in the process of doing research on a brownstone for a Brownstone Detectives House History Book, we tracked down a former resident who, during her interview, and to our great surprise, began telling us about this defunct holiday. “In the morning we were dressed up as hobos, in whatever old clothes our parents gave us,” said Patricia O’Neill who used to live at 738 Macon Street in the eastern section of Bedford-Stuyvesant, “and we went from door to door saying, ‘Anything for Thanksgiving?’ “They used to give us a dime or an apple.” O’Neill (Loftus at the time) remembers the custom well. Where she grew up in Bedford-Stuyvesant, all of the kids dressed as hobos and they spent the morning of Thanksgiving Day carousing the neighborhood “begging” for food and money from their neighbors. THE HISTORY The custom which started around 1870 may have a connection to Martinmas, the feast day of St. Martin of Tours, patron saint of beggars and […]
