FINDING YOUR BROWNSTONE – IN 1924
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Have you ever wondered what your neighborhood looked like in 1924? Or 1951? Or 1996? Aerial photography exists of all of New York City’s neighborhoods and is available to view (and zoom in on!) for free just by visiting NYC Map (a service of the City of New York). Simply type your address in the box at the top of the page and click “Search.” Then – in the upper right hand corner of the map – click on “Map Type,” and select the year you would like to view. Here is a view of Stuyvesant East in Bedford-Stuyvesant (showing Saratoga Park) in 1924. As you might have guessed, you won’t be able to see the expressions on peoples’ faces with this imagery, but it will give you a good indication of what your neighborhood looked like in any of these years. For comparison’s sake, here is a view of the same section of Bedford-Stuyvesant (as above) – but for 1996. What differences do you note between the two pictures? Comparing the two maps, you can see some obvious changes. Other than the fact that the second image is in color and was apparently taken in the winter time, if you look closely, you can see how whole swaths of brownstones […]
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 […]
BOERUM HILL TIMEWARP! (1922 vs. 2018)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** It’s always a blast to compare old photographs of Brooklyn streets with what is there now. Often the old buildings, street lamps, and flagstone sidewalks are long gone, but sometimes you are discover a treat that makes the journey worthwhile. With a little help from the internet it’s easy to make these comparisons and then to even bring the past back to life. Using the Old NYC app, which allows you to search a map of the city to find locations where old New York City pictures were taken (and are stored at the New York Public Library’s Digital Collections), you can search for any address within the five boroughs. With some luck you might find an actual picture of the building or location you are looking for. With our case, we were looking for street addresses on Atlantic Avenue. Searching the database, we found 336 Atlantic Avenue. The picture was described as “336 Atlantic Ave., south side, west of Hoyt Street,” and this particular photograph had a little more information than you usually get on this site – information on the building’s conveyance from one owner to the next, likely around 1922. The caption at the library’s site further notes that the photograph showed “a home bought by Mrs. Pruize […]
“THE HATS TEMPTED MARY” (1890)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** A cursory search through old newspaper archives of the 1890s and early 1900s will produce a large number of incidents whereby patrons of dry goods, and other such stores, were summarily and stealthily robbed by clandestine crooks. Solomon Milkman’s Millinery House – at 442 & 444 Fulton Street – was no exception. A wholesale hat store primarily patronized by women, it soon became the target of thieves looking for money packaged in tiny, easily hidden and transportable containers – purses. The first thieves, though, saw the store itself as the easy target. Usually women, they pilfered mostly feathers, buttons, and other accouterments for the embellishment of women’s hats. In 1890, the first of Milkman’s thieves made the morning papers when a wealthy South Brooklyn woman was caught red-handed, so to speak, stealing goods valued at $3. She would not give her name to the police, as her husband was well-known, so they referred to her as Jane Doe. The police kept her – and her husband’s – identities secret and allowed the wealthy businessman husband of hers to escape humiliation. The following year, in 1891, Nora Duffy, 19, of 79 Sackett Street, was the next identified thief. A “tawdrily dressed young woman,” she was noticed by a detective of Wechsler & […]
HOOCH RAID IN A PARK SLOPE SLUM (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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Everybody was “thirsty” in 1922. Not everyone, though, wanted to pay the price of the drink. While the wet laws during the 1920s were none too popular with many Brooklynites, most of these residents, for safety reasons, though, did not want the hooch being made under their own roof. As a result, there was no shortage of citizen reports to the police of active neighborhood mash stills. Even in the slums of Park Slope. A CASE IN PARK SLOPE One of these stills was “uncovered in a flat occupied by Daniel Beshara, at 721 Union street” where it was discovered that the hooch was being made in a makeshift still in the middle of the night. Not only illegal, the operation, powered by open flames, was also dangerous. Beshara and his cousin, James Pamperi, who also lived in the building, were arrested in the act of producing mash. “In the Pamperi home were found fourteen barrels of mash,” claimed the Brooklyn Standard Union newspaper. “That dwellers in the tenements are becoming aroused over the fire peril is shown by the great number of complaining letters which have been sent” to the district attorney, demanding that he stamp out these “moonshine dens.” ASST. D.A. SNYDER TO THE RESCUE In a grand response […]
GREENWICH VILLAGE MOVES TO BROOKLYN (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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** “Greenwich Village is moving to Brooklyn. No, there isn’t a catch in it. It’s so.” So began the cover story of Magazine and Book section of the New York Sun from Sunday, 24 April 1921. “The new site of village activities,” the article explained, “was Brooklyn Heights.” And hair was short. It could have easily been 2017. THE BOHEMIAN LIFE OF BROOKLYN HEIGHTS The story, written by Hannah Mitchell – who would later become the editor of The Scarsdale Inquirer – took on the aura of the modern day true-life story associated with the small-town girl who’s moved to New York City in the past 5-10 years, and, finding she could not afford it – because she could not – had determined she would swallow her pride and halve her rent by moving to Bushwick, thus living (and defending) the bohemian life. Mitchell, who justified her move to Brooklyn Heights as just a slide over to another Greenwich Village with benefits, ballyhooed the pros of the Brooklyn Heights apartment and how it far surpassed that of the Greenwich Village. “From the outside these places are made attractive by little painted panels, frescoes over the doorways, and other quasi-exotic decoration,” Mitchell explained. “Inside they have the virtue of being freshly plastered and […]
THE CHANGING FACE OF A STOOP (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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** In 1921, the Nilsen family purchased their Bay Ridge home at 8719 Colonial Road. Immediately, it seems, they began to document a lifelong record of their family’s generations, all surrounding one of the more iconic features attached to a Brooklyn home – their stoop. With a fascinating collection of photographs arranged in a chronological order, Bonnie Nilsen – whose father, Frank, is in most of the photographs – laid out her family’s record of life on the stoop of the original Nilsen family home. (The original record – along with Bonnie’s other photographs – can be seen at her website, BonnieNilsen.com.) In the meantime, though, we’d like to share a few of the more “stoop-central” photographs below. (See if you can spot the changes over the years.) 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.
THE SEVEN SISTERS OF LINCOLN PLACE (1906)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** If the Big Bad Wolf had had anything to do with it, he would have always voted for the predictability of a good detached wood-frame villa. It had gotten him far in his day and, what’s more, it had gotten him fed. But it wasn’t the Three Little Pigs’ hairy nemesis that was making housing decisions in Park Slope, Brooklyn around the turn of the last century. Rather, it was the Pigs, themselves, who wanted more modern, sturdier, up-to-date brick and masonry structures. THE DEATH OF VILLAS In early 20th century Brooklyn, a combination of home buyers’ indicators was guiding downward the valuation of older Victorian-era properties. First of all, impacting the long-term downward trajectory, there were the laws promoting fire zones that prevented structures built with wood frames from being constructed going forward. There was also their susceptibility to fire (which prompted these fire zones in the first place). And there was their age – a large number of free-standing villas still around in Brooklyn at the time were at least 25 years old – most others were many years older that that. Most visible, however, were the tastes of the early 20th century home buyers which leaned heavily in the direction of sturdy masonry buildings. The variable, however, which […]
FROM A TUDOR TO A BOX (1926)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** It’s a given fact that we all age. It is not such a given that we all do it well. These impressive Tudor revival apartment houses were going up everywhere throughout the outer reaches of Brooklyn in the mid 1920s. The style was appealing to the Brooklynites of the Roaring ’20s, especially those who did not want the responsibility of the upkeep of a full house, had some money in their pocketbooks, and wanted a style of home that was not only visually appealing, but was also different from the stoic – and by then dated – townhouse. The “ultra modern elevator apartment house” at 1800 Ocean Parkway in Gravesend boasted an “ocean view” and apartments with cedar closets, a vapor heating system, tiled kitchens, spacious foyers, an incinerator, and selections of apartments with three, four, or five “huge” rooms each. They were renting for a princely $60 to $95 a month. No one, at the time, could have expected that these grand apartment houses would have aged so disgracefully. In this case, time has been particularly unkind. While this building may very well be structurally sound today, everything that had once made this building stand out from its neighbors – and contributed to its great “visual appeal” – has either […]
A BUFFALO SOLDIER ON HERKIMER ST. (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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** It was 1918, and Harry Francis Cole had only three options. As an African-American in the United States, drafted into the military when the country was entering the First World War, he could: 1) work as a non-combatant – laboring as a stevedore, digging trenches, graves, and latrines, or building hospitals, roads, bridges, and railroad lines, 2) fight in a segregated unit – as an American soldier with the French Army, whose soldiers did not object to fighting alongside African-American troops, or 3) join a military band – one of the many brass bands in the European theater that were composed of African-American musicians. Cole, already a budding musician back home in Philadelphia, would naturally find himself in the last group, a horn player in one of the units of the 92nd Division – or, as the military unit was more commonly known, the venerated “Buffalo Soldiers.” BORN TO WAIL Born one of four children to William and Carrie Cole in Philadelphia in 1896, Harry Cole was never really destined to be a fighter. When he was a boy he was even then sure that his future was in music. He likely caught the bug when ragtime was all the craze, but when he heard the new sound of jazz in the […]
