REMEMBERING BROOKLYN’S UNDEAD (1922)
“Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” So reflected Mark Twain to a reporter with William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal in 1897, after the New York Herald had incorrectly reported that the famous writer had passed away while in London. While journalists are taught from their very first story to “trust but verify,” the U.S. military, though, has never fostered suffering compunction from such mistakes made. So it was when reports were being dispatched back to the U.S. during the First World War. While the adjutants of these military units, whence the reports originated, were doing their best to keep track of deaths and injuries, it can be imagined that quite a few names were inadvertently added to one or the other of the lists. After the Great War, accounts of American soldiers often surfaced, of their having previously been added to the list of the war dead, and then having shown up quite healthy – and with plans to continue living for many years to come. Such was the case with one Brooklyn man, Anthony Pentola, who, upon returning to the U.S. after fighting in the Great War, learned that not only had he been reported amongst the war dead, but that, he subsequently realized, his greatest and most substantial proof against the correctness of this report – his appearance one day in the War Department – was woefully insufficient in reversing the departments’s bureaucratic march toward its repeated lionization of him as an American patriot for […]
“SWEATING” HALLOWEEN TOYS IN 1921 BROOKYLN
How this toy worked is quite simple, but apparently, at least according to this ad in the October 31st, 1921 edition of the New York World, it was a “most substantial and amusing toy to delight the little ones.” The ad further noted that the Halloween Toy Sensation, the Jack O’Lantern “Awheel,” was “7 inches high,” and was a “faithful reproduction of the old time country Jack o’Lantern in the real pumpkin color.” In reality it was simply a locally mass-produced means of making money off of an annual holiday. The toy was probably made of wood which was placed on a base with wheels and hand-colored by some young ladies in a sort of “sweat shop” somewhere in Brooklyn. As a seasonal item they were probably produced quickly in a carpentry shop and assembled at a rapid pace – then the girls likely learned how to hand color the “faces” as they went along. “Awheel” was an old word which meant to travel by auto or bicycle and was used in a similar fashion to “afoot.” This Jack O’Lantern, obviously, was traveling by wheel – “to the delight the little ones.” And at 10 cents a piece, it sounded like a deal. Follow @BrownstoneDetec ———————————————————————————————————————– The Brownstone Detectives This story was composed from research performed by The Brownstone Detectives. Allow us do an in-depth investigation of your house and its former owners and produce your very own House History Book. Your hardbound coffee table book will include an illustrated […]
