“Someone Wishes to Burn This House” (1891)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** (New York, N.Y., 6 May 1891) – Fire of incendiary origin was discovered at 11 A. M. yesterday in the cellar of a five-story brick double tenement at 131 East 101st street. There are twenty families in the double house. Mrs. Bryan, the janitress, and Mrs. McCauley occupy the first flats. Mrs. McCauley smelled smoke, and found a quantity of paper and chips burning between the ceiling of the cellar and the flooring of her kitchen. It had just been ignited, and was easily put out, but a letter carrier hurried around to Engine 53 in East 104th street. Foreman Tetter found the paper and wood saturated with kerosene. On April 6 a fire kindled in the same way was discovered in the cellar at 5 o’clock in the morning. Kerosene-soaked paper and wood had been used to light this fire, which, like the one of yesterday, was between the ceiling and flooring. The fireman had to tear down part of the cellar ceiling to get at the fire, and as the damage had never been repaired, the person who built the fire yesterday found an opening prepared for him to fill with the Inflammable stuff. Mrs. McCauley remembered after the fire was discovered that she had heard the rattle of […]
THE LINCOLNS OF No. 25 CRANBERRY (1860)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Before Abraham Lincoln traveled to Brooklyn Heights, another Lincoln made it his home. In fact, on a Sunday morning in February of 1860, George B. Lincoln personally accompanied the future President on his famous visit to hear the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher preach at Brooklyn Heights’ Plymouth Church. Hailing from Hardwick, Massachusetts, George B. Lincoln arrived in New York City in 1836 at the age of 19. He engaged in the straw business for a number of years, dividing six of those years between New York and New Orleans, eventually setting his roots into Brooklyn soil around 1856, having established his dry good business across the river in Manhattan. Lincoln, like so many merchants of the period, preferred to live in Brooklyn Heights while keeping his business in New York City. (In fact, this was often how Brooklyn Heights real estate was advertised around the time – in terms of how quickly its businessmen could travel to New York City from Brooklyn.) Arriving around 1855, he initially rented a house at No. 54 Willow Street (future No. 62, now accupied by an apartment building). A few years later, however, in 1858-9, Lincoln had moved into No. 25 (former 45) Cranberry Street, where he would live for several years until being appointed […]
TURNING No. 51 HICKS INTO A HOME (1948)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** (From the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Mon., 22 November 1948.) Ed.’s Note – The residents of Brooklyn Heights were the first in the borough to see old brownstones as treasures to be valued. In the 1930s and 1940s, as some were reparting to the suburbs, others were taking advantage of the availability of old brownstones at bargain basements prices. One such homebuyer was a dress designer and her husband who moved into No. 51 Hicks Street and modernized it. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Certainly in passing 51 Hicks St., the second and third floors of which are tenanted by Mr. and Mrs. William Brackett, no one would suspect the changes which this typical old-fashioned Heights brownstone has undergone to effect a modern interior. Confronted with the usual problems of that type house, the Bracketts had to decide what to do about the exceptionally tall ceilings, the extra large rooms, the narrow hallways and the lack of a modern kitchen (it having been a three-floor private home with the kitchen located on the street level). First credit goes to the landlord who in eliminating the typical high stoop stone entrance, recognized the simple and beautiful lines of the doorway and iron railing and saved it to be installed as the new entrance on the ground floor, […]
“MRS. CAT” of No. 40 FIRST PL. (1925)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** (Ed.’s note: The following story comes from the Tues., 1 September 1925 issue of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle; it tells the all-to-familiar story of a woman removed from her home for keeping too many cats.) “The aftermath of the third successive raid by agents of the S. P. C. A. on an old brownstone house at 40 1st pl., occurred today, in the Fifth Avenue Court with the arraignment of George H. Ingraham, nephew of the eccentric Mrs. Gertrude Hale, who for a score of years had made the house a haven for homeless cats, on a charge of assault. A 7-year-old girl, who the police say was injured when Ingraham hurled a milk bottle at a battery of photographers in front of the house, made the complaint against Ingraham. “In last night’s raid on the house three agents from the society went through the building from top to bottom and nabbed 10 cats of all sizes and descriptions, which they removed in an ambulance to the society’s headquarters. This made a total of 27 cats captures in the home of the eccentric recluse, though the agents estimated that at least an equal number of cats had escaped from the premises. The other 17 cats were captured in raids made Friday […]
“LUCKY” No. 13 POLHEMUS PLACE (1904)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** (From the Chicago Daily Tribune, Fri., 11 November 1904.) Ed.’s Note – If your house number was “13,” would you hang a rabbit’s foot on your door, cover up the unlucky number, change it? These were all suggestions by the Commissioner of the Street Numbering Bureau to Brooklyn citizen Henry Brooks Plumb when Plumb arrived in the commissioner’s office hoping to change the integer attached to his door – No. 13 Polhemus Place. ____________________________________________________________________________________ New York, Nov. 10. – [Special.] — The street numbering bureau of Brooklyn told Henry B. Plumb of 13 Polhemus place today that he could scratch the hoodoo off his front door. It gave him a neat slip of paper authorizing him in the name of the borough of Brooklyn to substitute a numerical mascot. He was told under the powers of the permit, that he could hang the left hind foot of a rabbit caught in a graveyard at midnight under the new number in case the hoodoo proved stubborn. Maybe Plumb can get a servant now. Mrs. Plumb is hopeful. There is an air of optimism and cheerfulness about the family in marked comparison to the gloom and depression of those bitter days when Bridget and Mary Ann and black Hannah and tow-headed Gretchen shuffled […]
TAMING THE BROWNSTONE MONSTER (1921)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** By the 1920s, many New Yorkers had moved on from the brownstone. In fact, articles were being written on just how exactly to move on from what was seen as these “monstrosities.” Following the recommendations of self-appointed design entusiasts and contractors with an eye for the moderne, many brownstone townhouses were shaved of their detail and turned into drab brown boxes. The following story, dripping with sarcasm and barely veiled condescension, appeared in the New York Herald, showing just how the monstrosity at No. 17 East 75th Street was tamed.– Courtesy of The New York Herald, Sun., 23 January 1921 By HARRIET SISSON GILLESPIE. With each passing year one sees in New York city fewer and fewer of the relics of the horror period in American architecture the brownstone age. The grim old dwelling of the early 80’s with its sulky facade and its atmosphere of oppressive respectability is passing from our midst, but no one seems broken hearted over the fact. During the acute stage of the housing panic the hasty conversion of anything available into a hive of small suites rid the city of a few of the old time monstrosities, but by no means all of them have passed into the limbo of the kitchenette. Architectural beauty doctors […]
