IT’S RAINING CATS! HALLELUJAH! (1887)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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 once rained cats on Grand Street. The felines were tossed and dropped rather dramatically from the rafters of a playhouse in Williamsburgh. When the Society For the Prevention of Cruelties to Animals got wind of the act, they decided to buy a ticket to the show, “Soap Bubble”… IT’S RAINING CATS…HALLELUJAH! In Williamsburg, in the late 1800s, there existed a show hall which sat in the middle of Grand Street between Bedford and Driggs avenues at No. 166. Known for a time as the Grand Street Museum, it had a run of only five years between 1885 and 1889. But the Museum made the papers in 1887, for a cruel cat storm that played out upon their boards… In the latter part of 1887, a show by the name of “Soap Bubble,” was making its debut in the district. Although it wasn’t creating much of a stir, it so happened that a letter about the show was received at the offices of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The letter made a serious accusation, referring to “cruelty to cats” that was being “exhibited nightly” during the play. The writer, who noted he’d spent an evening at the theatre, stated that during the first act a “large number […]
DRUNKS, URCHINS & FAST YOUNG MEN (1853)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** “Ragged little boys, with dirty faces, trousers out behind, who sleep in coal boxes on door mats and stoops, pitching pennies and searching in the gutter.” So began a letter to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1853 from an anonymous reader known simply as “Atlas.” Atlas was wondering why theater in New York did not spring from everyday life – as he saw it. And what he described painted a picture of Brooklyn life that has long drifted away, although it is still with us in other formats. Here are the characters that Atlas saw in Brooklyn in 1853: “Older boys with lips pouring out terrible oaths, disgusting obscenity, the fumes of penny cigars and cheap rum. “Old men tottering from dilapidated vermin-infected tenements, to smoke and drink at some low-roguery, whose greasy, fancy-colored decanters are so enchanting to every Godforsaken drunkard. “Slouchy, course-looking servant girls emptying slops into the gutter, and with pail in hand, stopping to exchange ribaldry with an idle neighbor, and retail scandal about the infidelities of their mistresses. “Faded women, with low-necked dresses, who indulge in very liberal views about virtue and chastity, with painted cheeks and brassy looking countenances, searching for verdant countrymen, to indulge with them in beastly licentiousness. “Lazy wives, with frouzy uncombed […]
