THE HOLDOUT (1958)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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 — The Michels family is too steeped in its materia medica and too deeply rooted in its neighborhood to give up its oM-tashioned pharmacy to make way for anything like a 75 nullion dollar office building. Not even for $400,000. The Michels family owns a narrow five-story brownstone building at 620 Lexington Ave. A 42-story office building is going up on both sides and in back of the little brownstone. Negotiators for Vincent Astor, who owns the controlling interest in the Astor Plaza project, have bean trying for five years to induce the family to vacate the pharmacy they own on the ground floor and sell the building for $400,000. Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Michels and their son, Myron, are all registered pharmacists and long-time residents of the neighborhood. And they don’t want to move. But their holdout is just a roadblock in the path to progress in the eyes of the financiers, engineers, architects and contractors erecting the office building. The Michels brownstone is the only building remaining on the square block between Park and Lexington Avenues and 53rd and 54th streets. “We want to stay right here,” Mrs. Michels, a tiny, gray-haired woman, said yesterday. “We told the Astors we would sell the property if they make […]
THE YELLOW JACK HOUSE OF HANCOCK ST (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? ********************************************************************************************************************************In 1889, all of Brooklyn was in a panic. A case of Yellow Fever, known colloquially then as “Yellow Jack,” was identified in June of that year in a brownstone in the Bedford section of Brooklyn. As a result, residents of the house, No. 173 Hancock Street, were quarantined within the building and the brownstone took on the unfortunate appellation, “Yellow Jack House.” The following story comes from The Evening World: “The discovery of a fully developed case of yellow fever in Brooklyn, as first reported in yesterday’s Evening World, has created intense excitement in Brooklyn, particularly in the neighborhood of 173 Hancock street, where the case was found, and ns a result one family moved away this morning to the country and others are preparing to leave. “Dr. R. W. H. Duncan, surgeon of the Pacific Mail steamship Colon, who is the yellow fever patient, has been taken to Swinburne Island, and all the other inmates of the house are kept within doors by a guard of police officers, who ore instructed to keep a close quarantine, not allowing anyone to enter or leave the house. “Dr. Duncan arrived in this city last Friday and was taken to the house of W. H. Thompson, 173 Hancock street, with whose daughter he […]
THE “HOODOO” BURGLAR OF BEDFORD (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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** “In the arrest of Roy Hyden, a 25-year old Austrian, early this morning, Brooklyn’s most active burglar was run to earth and a heavy load lifted from the police mind. “Henry F. O’Connell, a special officer, who is employed by the residents in the neighborhood of Jefferson and Marcy avenues to watch their homes at night, caught the man shortly after 3 o’clock this morning, “with the goods on him.” O’Connell espied Hyden coming down the stoop of the home of Mrs. Maria C. de Porozo, at 254 Jefferson avenue, staggering under a weight, with his pockets bulging; the bay parlor window was wide open. Before Hyden reached the bottom of the stoop he was in the firm grasp of O’Connell. The latter lost no time in calling a patrol wagon and the prisoner was hustled to the Gates avenue police station. There he was joyfully received by Detective McGann, who relieved him of his burden. “No less than sixty-four pieces of silver, including knives, forks, spoons and other small diningroom articles, weore fished out of his commodius pockets. But what pleased the police more than all “the silverware, was a steel case-opener and an electric flashlamp, which were carefully stowed away in the lining of the prisoner’s overcoat. Hyden gave […]
THE LAST SOLAR ECLIPSE SEEN IN NYC (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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** “Not since the coming of the white man to America,” the Brooklyn Daily Eagle specified in January of 1925, “has a total eclipse been visible from … New York City.” The Eagle then went on to describe what to expect from the phenomenon. “A great black disc slowly blotting out the sun. The rush of a gigantic shadow across the earth abruptly turning day into night. The sudden flashing of a streaming pearly halo around the darkened sun. Outbursts of blood red light from the circumfrerence of the sun. Stars shining in the daytime. A sudden chill in the air.” The Eagle‘s words may have sounded overly dramatic, but they were true. And New Yorkers were about to find out just how true. “The most majestic and awe inspiring spectable that man can witness is the total eclipse of the sun. Millions of people will have the opportunity of observing the eclipse to occur on Saturday, Jan. 25. “No total eclipse of the sun has been visible in the northeastern part of the United States since 1806 nor will such an opportunity come again until 2024. Now THAT’s a scientific pedigree! Enjoy the Solar Eclipse! Follow @BrownstoneDetec Share ———————————————————————————————————————– The Brownstone Detectives Brownstone Detectives is an historic property research agency. Our […]
WAS THAT AN EARTHQUAKE? IN NYC!?! (2024)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Startling! At a magnitude of 4.8 on the Richter Scale, the earthquake we just experienced in New York City was the 4th largest in history, according to Columbia University. Only three were bigger: 1) A 5.2 magnitude in 1844 – whose epicenter was determined to be located in Brooklyn – accounts varied from broken crockery to an actual claim of death from fright; 2) a 5.2 magnitude in 1737 – terrified New Yorkers reported cracked chimneys and plaster, broken windows and objects thrown from shelves throughout the city; and 3) a 4.9 magnitude in 1783 – although this earthquake awoke many people in City of New York, George Washington, who was staying at the Fraunces Tavern at the time, was not one of them. Each of these three earthquakes reportedly “threw down chimneys!” Take a look at this graph from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Observatory. Follow @BrownstoneDetec Share ———————————————————————————————————————– The Brownstone Detectives 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.
NEW YORK’S MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN (1901)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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 Akron Daily Democrat, Sat., 16 November 1901.) Miss Harriet Sewell Smith, formerly of No. 177 Putnam Avenue & presently of No. 481 Franklin Avenue, who was selected by a committee of portrait painters as “THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN NEW YORK” and who lives with her father, Dr. E. F. Smith, in Brooklyn, tells the story of a perilous trip she made across the frail foot-bridge of the new East River bridge a week ago. Miss Smith made the journey from one shore to the other in less than an hour. Her companion and guide was Dr. Orville D. Westall, a dentist, of No. 98 Lafayette ave., says she: “Dangerous? Yes, just dangerous enough to be interesting. I heard Dr. Westall mention some time ago the fact that he had crossed the footbridge, and I immediately became possessed of a desire to perform the hazardous feat myself. I proposed that he be my guide, and he accepted, after some persuasion. “I did not tell my folks what I was going to do. We started from the New York side at 5:30 in the evening. I had a leather belt fastened about my waist to which a strap was attached. Dr. Westall kept a firm grip on this strap and […]
