TO DENY A “COLORED” BLOCK PARTY (1920)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Block party season upon us. It is a time of blocked-off streets, replete with the sounds of children happily playing, the smells of barbecues up and down the block, and carefree feelings of the beginning of summer. But this is also a time to remember some freedoms that were not always available to certain citizens – those freedoms for which struggles were necessary that they may be obtained. As such, it is instructive to remember how one group of people was often at the mercy of the whims of another. This story tells a tale that took place in 1920 when block party permits were not always so easy to obtain, particularly when the freedoms of those in the minority were proscribed by those in the majority… THE TRICKLE STARTS… In the mid-1930s, after the “A Train” had been extended into Brooklyn, African-Americans began to move in large numbers from Harlem into Bedford-Stuyvesant. Although the Eighth Avenue Express was the vehicle for that migration, the impetus was a desire for less crowded neighborhoods, more plentiful jobs (at the Brooklyn Navy Yard), and better housing conditions. The trickle that started this migration, though, began about 10 to 20 years earlier as African-American professionals of southern and Caribbean descent made their way to […]
THE DAY RIOTERS STORMED BROOKLYN (1895)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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 above picture shows the New York State militia shooting a man on Halsey Street, near the corner of Broadway. You can see the recently erected elevated train line at the end of the block.) In 1895, Halsey Street near Saratoga Park had become a war zone. The Brooklyn Streetcar strike had begun on 15 January, and before the week was over the agitation would be in full force. The strike, which began with a walkout, would quickly devolve into a pitched battle between the Knights of Labor and streetcar workers on one side and the streetcar line owners, the police and the New York State Militia on the other. The main focus of much of the strikers’ attention in this part of Brooklyn, though, was the Halsey Street Rail Road Barns. These, located near the corner of Halsey Street and Broadway, were where the streetcar line stored its cars, quartered its horses, and from whence the line’s streetcars were dispatched. After the workers had called the strike, 5,500 of them would walk off the job for better conditions. The streetcar line owners (the lines were privately owned and operated at the time) countered this strike by calling in scabs who would attempt to operate the streetcars in the workers’ absence. […]
DESIGNING THE MAID-PROOF HOME (1922)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** We all know how difficult it is to keep a good maid. They are constantly “on the make” for higher wages or, worse, threatening to leave your employ for that of another family. But Brooklyn builders in 1922 were working strenuously to help you keep your hired help. Towards this end, they seemed to have lit well upon the solution to this dilemma: “Make a home so convenient for the lady of the house that she can do much of her own work, and, more importantly, make the maid’s room so light an airy that she’ll never want to leave.” THE MAID-PROOF LAYOUT Of course, these, presumably male, architects didn’t fail to consider the arrangement of the kitchen, where women – and maids, of course – did much of the work. Make it so arranged, said these particular architects, that it is attractive, as well as convenient. The architects, in the layout of this new model house, show a “very complete service portion with laundry on the first floor, adjoining the kitchen, instead of in the basement, as is usually the case.” Additionally, the kitchen boiler, they note, “may be placed in the basement” instead of the kitchen, where, in the past, it’s made that room “uncomfortably warm in summer.” DOWNSTAIRS. […]
A REALTOR ON THE PARK SLOPE (1885)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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 1885, Park Slope was still expanding at a rapid clip; houses were being built and sold to those members of a future Brooklyn elite who were then moving from Manhattan across a recently completed Brooklyn Bridge. Enter John A. Schilling of 429 5th Avenue (btwn 8th and 9th streets), who cared for all of Prospect Park Slope’s realty and insurance needs. Schilling appears to have been at the Fifth Avenue location from 1882 through at least 1894, at which time, probably due to the Panic of 1893, the real estate market dried up. These bad economic times, which lasted most of the decade, would force him to go out of business and sell his office – after which he would seek other employment. With his Republican political connections, and the fact that another German, Republican Charles A. Schieren, had just been elected mayor of Brooklyn, that work came in civil service positions which had him working for various Brooklyn city agencies. Schilling was also a Civil War veteran, which was common for men his age living in Park Slope during the period. When Schilling passed in 1910 on Montague Terrace in Brooklyn Heights, he was memorialized in the press as “very popular among his associates.” Follow @BrownstoneDetec Share ———————————————————————————————————————– The […]
THE RULES OF FASHION IN BROOKLYN (1910)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Although it may not be apparent today, Brooklyn was not always known for being on the edge of trends in fashion. As a matter of fact, the town was a noted backwater 150 years ago when the only other more fashionable place than its exceedingly fashionable neighbor just across the East River was London and Paris. But Brooklyn tried. And part of that effort was its strict observance of the rules and rituals of the fashions of the changing seasons. One, for instance, did not wear white trousers at the wrong time of year. Nor were certain color jackets worn at the wrong time of the season. Another men’s fashion rule that was strictly observed was the timing of the use of the men’s straw hat. This rule was so encased in society that if they were worn too early in the season, this act could invite derision – even from children. In 1910, on the 15th of April, it was apparent that one gentleman was challenging that rule. He was seen “this afternoon, at 2:16 o’clock, in the Federal Building,” wearing the boater. It was on a “chunky man of 40 years, who stood in the registry line, fingering a roll of bills.” “The straw created a mild sensation among […]
THE “7-SECOND MAN” OF BED-STUY (1918)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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 new “Victory and Peace” war memorial at Saratoga Park, located in the Stuyvesant East section of Brooklyn, was the subject of a public dedication on 10 September 2014. The Brownstone Detectives worked closely with the Parks Department by locating pictures, stories, and relatives of the Stuyvesant Heights men who gave their lives in the Great War. This biography is about one of those men. PRIVATE EDWARD J. BELL In 1920, as the “War to End All Wars” was still fresh on America’s collective conscious, American Legion posts were sprouting up everywhere. The trend existed for two reasons: to support the men who had come back from the front, and to memorialize those who never returned. Many of the posts were named after those who had made the ultimate sacrifice. The Edward J. Bell Post No. 790 had recently been formed to honor Edward Joseph “Eddie” Bell, a 25-year-old machine-gunner, and Purple Heart winner, who died in France on 16 August 1918, from the result of injuries sustained in combat. Born on 6 November 1892, Bell had lived with his father, his aunt and his grandparents at 735 Macon Street. Sometime around 1910, the tall, black-haired, and blue-eyed Bell had graduated from Commercial High School, and soon thereafter lost his father. […]
