“LUCKY” No. 13 POLHEMUS PLACE (1904)
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The story you are about to read was composed from research conducted in the course of one of those investigations.
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(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 into the tiny street and up to the Plumb door and then turned away with their noses in the air. The whole neighborhood has taken on a brighter look.
Polhemus place is a little thumbnail, one block thoroughfare, connecting Carroll street and Garfield place. It is as prim as an old maid. Save for the clatter of trolley cars on Seventh avenue it is as quiet as a church. It is a sort of Millionarire’s Row and servants are well paid, but butlers, housemaids, scullions, and coachmen have avoided it as they would have dodged a plague spot. It is hard to get servants any way in Brooklyn, it is said, but in Polhemus place it was well nigh impossible.
The gilt ’13’ on the front of the Plumb house was the cause of the trouble. It not only scared domestics away from the Plumbs, but it seemed to hoodoo the whole neighborhood. The reason was that Mr.
Plumb’s house is the first on the left hand side from Carroll street, and servants catching a glimpse of the wretched 13, scurried away from the neighborhood.
That has been going on for years. Mr. Plumb, who is the secretary of a concern at 105 Chambers street, Manhattan, has been spending lots of money advertising for servants. His advertisements drew hundreds of domestics to the door but that was all. He couldn’t get them inside. One look at the grim 13 drove them away in a hurry. Argument, entreaty, offers of double wages, didn’t do a bit of good. There wasn’t one of them that was willing to take chances with fate by working in a house with a 13 on its front door.
The nationality of the domestic didn’t seem to make a bit of difference. Irish cooks, German housemaids, English coachmen, negro kitchen help, it was all the same. The baleful 13 sent them scurrying. Finally Mr. Plumb made up his mind that the only way to end the intolerable situation was to change the house number. Yesterday he went to the Bureau of Complaints and asked Supervisor James A. Rooney how the
number could be changed. He was rather averse to giving a reason for the unusual request until the supervisor informed hjm that under the rules the reason had to be set forth to the Street Numbering Bureau.
“I’m not superstitious and I don’t take any stock in all this nonsense about the number 13, but it’s a matter of dollars and cents and I’ve got to have it changed, that’s all there is about it,” he said.
“Possibly your wife is superstitious,” suggested Rooney.
“Not at all,” replied Mr. Plumb, “She doesn’t lose a bit of sleep because she is in a house numbered 13. She would be willing to move on Friday and I have some reason to believe that she would walk under a ladder without a tremor. I am positive she could spill salt without being horrified and there is no doubt in the world that black cats are of no especial signifcance to her any more than they are to me.”
‘Well, what in the world—” began the supervisor of the grumble board.
“Why, it’s simply that we can’t get servants as long as that blamed number stares applicants in the face when they come to look the job over. You’ve no idea how the cost of advertising in the daily papers for house help mounts up. It’s a case of spending money for advertising every day and getting no results at all because you are unlucky enough to live where the door of your house bears a 1 and a 3.
“The thing got to such a pass after a time that we did not put the number of the house into the ads, knowing that would be plain foolishness. We thought we would have a chance with our persuasive powers after the applicants got to the house. But it wasn’t a bit of use. They came in droves, but they departed in haste.”
Rooney sympathized and looked up the plot of the street to see what could be done. He found that a vacant lot next to Mr. Plumb’s house had been bought up by people living on Carroll street for the purpose of deepening their backyards. Consequently the vacant lot ceased to have an existence as a part of Polhemus place, and the number it would have borne became available for Mr. Plumb’s use. Hereafter the Plumb house will be No. 11, and the house, adjoining on the other side will be No. 15.
Mr. Plumb says that nothing ever happened in the house to give added color to the 13 superstition. He has lived there a good many years, he says, and he can’t remember a single accident or misfortune that could be attributed, even by the biggest stretch of imagination, to the malevolent influence of the number 13.
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