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 […]
“SHAKESPEARE’S GHOST” AT 437 HALSEY (1889)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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 Brownstone Detectives investigates the histories of our clients’ old houses. In the process, we have come across no small number of incredibly juicy stories featuring the houses and their lineage of occupants. Every once in a while, those stories – as stories sometimes do – feature a topic we rarely wade into – the paranormal. While most properties we investigate do not involve the supernatural, it is even rarer still to find an old brownstone that comes with a thoroughly debunked ghost story. No. 437 Halsey Street – in the Bedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn – is one of those houses… ***************************************************************************************************** In late 1889, during a strong snowstorm in the City of Brooklyn, word began to get around about the “haunting” of an apartment house at the corner of Halsey Street and Lewis Avenue, along with its complement of frightened and fleeing former residents… “…the snow was blowing everybody in doors yesterday,” started the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, setting the scene for its readers of “an ambitious little ghost story-started out on its career of making trouble. The “trouble” mentioned in this story was the reaction that the rumor of ghosts in the apartment house had engendered. It brought to the sole remaining occupant of the structure a whole host […]
THE LION COMIQUE OF 276 CARLTON AVE (1930)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Fred Roberts was known in the “seventies” as one of the great comic singers of the variety show. He sang the topical and comic songs that were then popular, often making them well-known himself. Brought over from London by the legendary Harrigan & Hart, Roberts had been known in the English music halls as a “Lion Comique” – a music hall character that was the heart throb of the Victorian era, holding the same cult status as today’s boy bands. According to The Victorian Music Hall: Culture, Class and Conflict, the songs the lions comiques sang were “hymns of praise to the virtues of idleness, womanising and drinking.” In Roberts’ songs, he “deliberately distorted social reality for amusement and escapism.” One critic in the late 19th century remarked that the Lions Comiques were “men who set women just a little higher than their bottle.” Roberts was to be Harrigan & Hart’s answer to the popularity of the famous impresario, Tony Pastor. He soon had a string of hits that were “hummed and whistled around the town” from the 1870s through to the early 20th century when he retired. Roberts’ first song, “Oh, Fred, Tell Them to Stop,” was such a huge hit that he decided to stay in the U.S. and […]
SPRING BRINGS THE BEAN SHOOTERS (1863)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** There were a LOT of bad little boys in Brooklyn in the 19th century. Sifting through old issues of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the Standard Union, and other Brooklyn papers, I come across evidence of this on a daily basis. Of all the crimes that I see having been committed, one of the most common – and interesting – is the work of the “bean shooters.” When I was a kid I had a bean-shooter myself – and I did the same thing. There were a lot of broken window panes in my neighborhood – some I was found guilty of breaking – and most others of which I got away scot free of any blame whatsoever. (There was always the suspicion, though, that I was the culprit.) But I digress. Let’s rewind, though – further back to the mid- to late-1800s, and take a look at the work of my fierce little boy predecessors. BEAN-SHOOTING IN 19TH CENTURY BROOKLYN While sling shots (or often called “slung shots”) were a constant presence in the hands of gang members and criminals (they were outlawed by the New York State Legislature in 1849), it seems that the use of such a device by boys, with any degree of consistency, did not come until […]
ARRESTED FOR SELLING BICYCLE OIL (1896)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** In 1896, bicycling was so enormously popular that Brooklynites were being arrested for it. So much so that “wheel” shops made it a practice on Bedford Avenue to stay open on Sundays in open violation of the “Sunday law” which prevented businesses from operating on that day. In April of that year, Detective Brady of the Fourth Precinct was sent on a mission to do something about this infringement upon decent society. Churchgoers living in the Bedford Avenue section – the primary bicycling route back then – were the most vocal complainers, informing the police that, at 1082 Bedford Avenue in particular, not only “are goods disposed of, but that the repairing department of some of these establishments are in full blast all day Sunday, and workmen are kept busy fixing up disabled wheels.” Armed with this information, Brady took a Sunday trip down the busy avenue – perhaps on his bicycle, to ensure he played well the part of the wheelman – to investigate. Arriving at the address in question, he “found the store of H.L. Wilkens & Co., at 1082 Bedford avenue, open and business being carried on.” Approaching a worker at the store, in order to have evidence against the establishment, Brady purchased a bottle of bicycle oil. […]
EXHUMING THE GARDENER OF BED-STUY (1914)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** “All stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.” — ERNEST HEMINGWAY, Death in the Afternoon The dead are everywhere amongst us. When we think of the past, we ponder the lives of those poor souls who once lived, breathed air, told tales, worked, and dreamed dreams. They can no longer tell tales, as the saying goes, but those resourceful ones amongst us can often piece together their forgotten stories and, with them, weave the colorful and ornate narratives of their lives. When we start researching a house and its former occupants, we never know what we’re going to find. Sometimes we unearth a truly bountiful draw – pictures of owners, documentation on the building, and the stories about what had happened at that house – they seem to start popping up all over the place. With other houses, though, it can seem as if the place had never been occupied. But we always find something. No matter how small. And these are the clues that become our figurative footprints. We’re detectives, you know. 😉 THE GARDENER OF 1155 BEDFORD AVENUE When we began snooping around 1155 Bedford Avenue, on the trail of a particular Charles Morse, we found […]
