SPEEDING DRIVER, OVERTURNED CAR (1931)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** The guilty one was evident. The accident was seen by at least 40 trolley riders, several automobile drivers, and a number of pedestrians, on Bergen Street near Bedford Avenue. It was around 8 p.m. on A Friday. A laundry truck had been motoring east on Bergen Street when its chauffeur, possibly eager for the weekend, attempted to pass a trolley car ahead of him that was going (too slow, likely for the chauffeur) in the same direction. As the laundry truck cleared this trolley car, however, its chauffeur became suddenly aware of a westbound trolley car bearing down on him in his direction. There was no time or space to change direction of the automobile and the two vehicles collided at a relatively high rate of speed. The force of the collision threw the truck into the path of the eastbound trolley that the chauffeur had just tried to pass, which also ended up striking the laundry truck, itself. It was unknown whether the laundry truck chauffeur was injured as he didn’t stick around long enough, fleeing the scene, according to the police, about as soon as his truck had found its final resting place. According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, nine passengers on the two Bergen Street trolley cars were […]
SO, A TROLLEY WALKS INTO A BODEGA…. (1931)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** We’ve all heard the famous opening line to the joke. But this one really happened. Rather, the streetcar “rolled” into the business, but only after jumping its tracks. This incident took place on 7 July 1931, at the corner of Putnam and Nostrand avenues in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. Fortunately, no one was killed, although six people were injured. Unfortunately, though, streetcar accidents had become a common occurrence in the days after streetcars stopped using horses for propulsion. And this was all too evident in Brooklyn, for within the past week, alone, four other streetcar crashes had occurred, injuring a total of 31 people. As a matter of fact, this was the final straw for Brooklyn’s D.A., who ordered an investigation into the “six B.M.T. trolley car accidents in the past few weeks.” His intention was “to determine whether or not there is cause for criminal proceedings.” It would have been understandable among many Brooklynites of the period if there were talk about returning the streetcar to the horse. For another story we’ve written about streetcars jumping their tracks, click HERE. Follow @BrownstoneDetec Share ———————————————————————————————————————– The Brownstone Detectives Brownstone Detectives is an historic property research agency. Our mission is to document and save the histories of our clients’ homes. From […]
