TRAPPED IN A BILLYBURG FREEZER (1902)
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.
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If you stepped into a walk-in freezer and the door slammed shut on you – how long do you think you could hold out?
In this day and age, such a scenario certainly plays itself out on the mental movie screen anytime we step into one.
Such accidents happened enough that the freezer companies began to make safety locks allowing those trapped so to be able to escape without outside assistance.
Back in 1902, however, you were – literally – on your own.
THE SALOON AT GRAND AND GRAHAM
H.H. Myers, a German saloon keeper, had moved recently from Manhattan to Brooklyn to open up a new saloon in the Dutch Town section of Williamsburg at Grand Street and Graham avenues. In his new place he “had things so arranged that he kept his beer barrels in an ice box in the cellar.
One Saturday night in 1902, Myers had a thirsty crowd about the place, “all of whom were demanding more beer.”
When one keg went dry, Myers descended his cellar stairs and entered the ice box to “put on” a new one. Myers had his set up such that the pipes leading from the beer taps behind his bar led down to the ice box in the cellar, where he was able to keep his kegs ice cold for his patroons.
While he was at work exchanging the kegs, among came the Italian who was employed about the place as a bootblack and general utility man. This man saw the ice box door open and, knowing that it was always kept closed, banged it to with a slam and threw over the handle, securely locking it.
LOCKED IN HIS ICE BOX!
After the fresh keg had been tapped, Myers turned to go out, but “the Italian had done his duty well. Kicks, pounds, bangs and shouts did no good, and Myers was kept a prisoner in the cold.”
Soon he began to shiver. He felt he was becoming numb. His suffering from the cold became more acute every minute.
Realizing that his calls for help were not being heard upstairs, he was “about to say goodbye to the world.”
But then an idea struck him.
After all, he thought, he might “use the beer pipes as a sort of wireless telephone.”
So, over to the keg he went, and pulled out the tap.
Then, he waited.
THE THIRSTY CROWD TO THE RESCUE!
Upstairs, the thirsty crowd started an uproar when the beer suddenly ceased to flow.
“What’s de matter wid de beer?” the saloon’s German patrons shouted.
“Pipe’s broke, I guess,” said the bartender, as he slowly lighted a candle and proceeded to follow the pipes, looking for the leak. But there were none to be found and the crowd that followed him was “as much at sea to understand the strangeness of it all.”
“Look in the ice box,” one man finally suggested.
“Aw, what fer?” said another; but the suggestion was acted on, and Myers was pulled forth, almost blue from the cold.
The crowd that watched him appear from the freezer wouldn’t believe its eyes, some of the more superstitious thinking that he was an apparition.
POSTSCRIPT
Myers, when recounting his near-death experience, noted that he “couldn’t pass an ice wagon or an ice box without turning pale.”
Meanwhile, he added, the former bartender and the shine artist at the saloon are looking for jobs.
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Brownstone Detectives is an historic property research agency. Our mission is to document and save the histories of our clients’ homes. From our research, we produce our celebrated House History Books and House History Reports. Contact us today to begin discovering the history of your home.
