WHEN BUSHWICK MET OCEAN HILL (1923)
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?
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“Ocean Hill” was still settling softly into the Brooklyn lexicon of place names as a working class suburb in 1923.
Bushwick, on the other hand, was already very well-known in the borough for its German breweries and beer gardens.
But where the two met – and they met, all right – there were SPARKS! (…or maybe a bank or real estate office….)
This snapshot was taken at the intersection of Broadway and Hopkinson Avenue (later to be renamed Thomas S. Boyland Street). The building there on the corner in 1923 held the Bushwick National Bank and Frederick W. Erdtmann’s real estate offices.
The Bushwick National Bank came into existence the same year that this photograph was taken – probably the reason for the photograph and the patriotic bunting all around the building; the bank ended up merging with the Globe Exchange Bank in 1929, and so had a short life of about six years.
Frederick W. Erdtmann, a realtor who lived at 868 Macon Street and then above his real estate offices in this building, had filed for bankruptcy in 1913 before this photo was taken. He was back in the real estate business by 1919 and did well for himself in the 1920s.
Who the old woman and the young man in the 1923 picture are we will never know, but doesn’t it look like she is on her way home from shopping?
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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.
