WHERE WAS THIS PICTURE TAKEN? (1924)
Calling all junior Brownstone Detectives!
Today we have a mystery for you to solve! We invite you to come along with us as we grapple with another enigma – discerning the exact source and location of a common celluloid snapshot!
EXAMINING THE EVIDENCE
Have you ever come across an old family photograph and wondered when and where it was taken?
You study the dog-eared snapshot and a few things immediately stand out:
• A woman leans against an iron fence.
• Behind her is a distinct-looking row of buildings.
• A streetcar whizzes by in the background.
Not much to go on, you decide, and so you think, “There must be thousands of places where this could have been taken!”
And there are.
But there are also many ways of whittling that list of places down and possibly even finding the exact spot where your family member (and the photographer) stood when that picture was taken.
And all it really takes is a little deductive reasoning, my dear Watson!
So, put on your junior Brownstone Detectives caps, set your brains to “quizzical,” and let’s go on an adventure together – through Brooklyn of the “Roaring ’20s”!
ANALYZING THE CLUES
First of all, we must analyze the clues we’ve listed above. Since this is a family member, we already have some background information about the woman in the picture.
The woman is your great-grandmother, Sarah Bilson, and she was married to Harris Bilson. They had two kids, one of which was your grandfather Artie Bilson. You know that your Grandfather Artie worked for many years as a theatrical agent on Broadway.
And you know that in the early part of the last century they all lived somewhere in our humble borough of Brooklyn, N.Y.
Let’s study the picture a little more and see what else we can deduce:
• The woman in the picture is middle-aged and dressed in a style reminiscent of the 1920s.
• The rowhouses behind her are likely from the late 19th century, probably the 1890s.
• The streetcar “whizzing” behind her appears to be of a 1920s vintage.
Have we missed anything? Direction of the sun, shadows, other environmental indicators?
Study the picture for a while and begin to consider next steps, sources of information, ways of determining where our photograph was taken. With that and the information above, you should have enough to get you started.
NEXT WEEK
If any of you junior Brownstone Detectives, following the clues and using simple deduction, determines a solution to our mystery, then let us know what you’ve come up with. If not, then next week we will walk you through how we marshaled our resources and determined exactly where Sarah Bilson was standing in our photograph.
Happy Hunting!
———————————————————————————————————————–
The story you have just read was composed from extensive historical research conducted by The Brownstone Detectives. We perform in-depth investigations on the historic homes of our clients, and produce for them their very own House History Books. Our hardbound books contain an illustrated and colorful narrative timeline that will bring the history of any house to life. Contact us today to begin discovering the history of your home.
