Brooklyn Before Now

A Day at Ravenhall Baths – Coney Island, 1962

2012-02-15T16:27:00.002-05:00

A postcard of Ravenhall Baths

The following post is by Tommy Coca, who was born and raised in Brooklyn. It is a recollection of the time he spent at Coney Island’s Ravenhall Baths. Located at W. 19th Street and the boardwalk, Ravenhall opened in the late 19th century and operated until it was destroyed by fire on April 28, 1963.

By Tommy Coca

The day starts as previous years’ summer days began. Two young boys climb the stairs to the ‘B’ train, also known as the West End Line. At this particular entrance there is no token clerk. The ten inches or so between the floor and the bottom of the fence is enough room for Tommy and Joseph to wiggle their skinny 10-year old frames underneath, saving them the cost of a token. This gives them 15 cents each to spend later in the day for candy or in the arcade.

This was a different time. August, 1962. On Halloween, children don’t need parental escorts to go trick-or-treating. Elderly passengers are instantly offered seats on a crowded subway car. And in Tommy and Joseph's neighborhood of Bensonhurst, fish trucks and pizzerias do a brisk business on Fridays. (This was before the Second Ecumenical Council and the Catholic Church still forbade the eating of meat on Fridays).

So yes, it was a different time, and parents didn’t harbor the fears they do today. It was not unheard of to allow 10-year old boys to ride the subway a few stops to Coney Island. After all, it was safer than cooling themselves under the fire hydrant, where they risked being hit by a car.

As the train trudges to the last stop, the doors open and the sounds and smells of Coney Island instantly take hold – the roar of the wooden roller coasters, the screams, the aromas of cotton candy and French fries. Down the ramp they go. Surrounding them are the carousel, Wonder Wheel, movie theaters and shooting galleries. Further ahead is Steeplechase Park and towering behind is the park’s centerpiece, the 262-foot tall Parachute Jump. On some days the boys succeed in sneaking into the park late in the day and searching for discarded punch cards, which will allow them access to rides.

The Parachute Jump, 1962. AP Photo

On the next block is Ravenhall Baths. They show their passes and enter. Up ahead they hear the rhythm of the punching bags as the old and young tough guys of Brooklyn hone their boxing skills in a shaded area. Further along are handball courts, sand boxes, lockers, and other features. Features that will remain ingrained in their memory decades later.

The boys have season lockers. Most people choose to use keyed locks as opposed to combination locks. The key is attached to a band that is worn on one’s ankle. The boys are always bothered by the sight of a man missing a leg who wears the band and key on his stump. In the unroofed locker area many older men sit on chairs either naked, or with towels draping themselves, and play pinochle as they get some sun.

The heights of the lockers are perhaps seven feet. On the other side of the wooden wall is the women’s section, and as such the older kids often climb to the top of the lockers to look over. A more common practice is to punch a small hole in the wooden fence and peek through. The boys head to the sand pile where the older guys chalk up their hands and exercise on the high bar. They watch a while and then walk to the snack stand.

“A pack of Parliaments for my mom please,” says Joseph.
“Where is your mother?” asks the man behind the counter.
“She’s in the pool,” he answers confidently.
“Here you go. Bring them right to her.”

The area by the snack stand is under a canopy where it seems the Yankee game is always on. This was a time when the preponderance of the games was played in the daytime. Once they’ve got the score, or see the Yankees take a turn at bat, the boys return to the locker area. There are several steam rooms and one has been out of order for as long as they can remember. This is where they smoke their cigarettes, absurdly reasoning that if anyone sees smoke they’ll assume it is steam. The boys aren’t yet ready for a swim. As a matter of fact they can’t swim and instead typically just cool off in the shallow end. Today, after their smoke, they wander around the facility.

Nearby is the kiddie pool, which is near the boardwalk and exit to the beach. The older kids are permitted to leave the facility and walk along the boardwalk or swim in the Atlantic. They are stamped on their shoulders with an invisible ink that shows under a purple ultraviolet light, which proves they are members when they return. Under the boardwalk wait their friends who do not have the money to enter. They position themselves back-to-back and rub the stamp onto their buddies’ shoulders so they are allowed in.

Now they are ready for the pool. There is plenty of activity by the diving boards, which are named after playing cards. The highest is the Ace, and as the height decreases the names get more diminutive: the King, Queen and Jack. Sal the lifeguard is off to the side. He is a somewhat old, short, gregarious and barrel-chested man in an orange bathing suit who offers to teach the youngsters how to swim. He accomplishes this by tossing them in the deep end. They either prove to be quick learners or Sal dives into the pool and rescues them.

The mats around the pool are scratchy and sting bare feet. Beach balls bounce, people listen to transistor radios, kids across the street shriek as they ride the Steeplechase roller coaster. Some of the older kids begin to tease Tommy. They taunt the skinny boy who can’t swim. “C’mon you baby, let’s see you jump off the diving board.”

The goading continues and to the amazement of all, Tommy accepts the challenge, runs onto the Jack, and jumps in. Sal the lifeguard’s services are put into action. Although he still can’t swim, Tommy has earned a degree of respect, and vows that before the summer ends, he will indeed swim, and even jump off the Ace. August turns to September. Labor Day weekend arrives and the season ends. Lockers are emptied. Tommy does not jump off the ace. Maybe next year!

But before the new season arrives, a fire destroys the baths. Ravenhall Baths is gone and transformed into a memory for generations of Brooklynites. In 1957 it was the Dodgers, and now in 1964, it is Ravenhall. Brooklyn is changing and Tommy and Joseph learn a lesson regarding the lack of permanence.

The following summer their families get lockers at Steeplechase. On the last weekend of the summer their parents treat them to a day on the rides at the Park. A day of fun and amusements before the school year begins. They enjoy the giant wooden slide, the Steeplechase horses, the Barrels of Fun, and all the other rides. No matter how brave they pretend to be, though, the Parachute Jump is just too tall, and the tremendous jolt they observe as it hits the top and plunges back down to earth terrifies them. Maybe next year they’ll have the guts. Maybe next year! But as they once more learn, sometimes you must seize the day. Next year will come but there may be changes.

The park, which had been in existence since 1898, fails to open for the 1965 season. Steeplechase Park fades to black and joins the Dodgers, Ebbets Field, the original Luna Park, and Ravenhall Baths, as one of the borough’s treasured memories.

On the Lecture Cicuit: Talking Fiction/Talking Fact

2012-02-14T16:14:00.001-05:00

The Brooklyn Historical Society and the New York Review of Books is teaming up to produce a series of three discussions that will pair a fiction author with a scholar who studies a related topic.

The first installment is scheduled for Feb. 23 at 7 p.m. Elizabeth Gaffney, author of The End of Wonder, a collection of stories set in WWII-era Brooklyn, will sit down with Marci Reaven, vice-president for History Exhibits at the New-York Historical Society, who is currently working on an exhibit titled "WWII & NYC."

The second installment, scheduled for March 1 at 7 p.m., will pair Arthur Phillips, author of The Tragedy of Arthur, a novel about a long-lost Shakespeare play being rediscovered, and James Shapiro, a leading Shakespearean historian.

The final installment will feature Colm Tóibín, author of Brooklyn, whose protagonist Eilis Lacey travels from Ireland to Brooklyn in the early 1950s, and Mick Moloney, Irish folklorist and musician. This one is scheduled for April 1 at 2 p.m.

Each "Fact/Fiction" event will be at the Brooklyn Historical Society's Othmer Library, 128 Pierrepont St. Entry comes with price of admission: $6 adults; $4 students, teachers and seniors; free for members and children under 12.

Actual Film Footage of 1903 BAM Fire!

2012-02-10T15:24:00.000-05:00

The BAM Hamm Archives recently posted this video to their web page. They acquired it from the Library of Congress. It's actual footage of the fire that destroyed the original Brooklyn Academy of Music, which was on Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights. The building burned down in 1903.

For more on BAM history, check out this article we wrote on a book that was recently released about BAM's 150 year history, and of course, the BAM Hamm Archives web site.

The Mad Police Captain of Green-Wood

2012-02-10T15:06:00.000-05:00

Brownstoner dug up a macabre tale from Brooklyn's past, featured yesterday in their excellent "Walkabout" series on Brooklyn history. It is the story of Captain Peter D. Lark, who in 1899 was captain of the Green-Wood Cemetery police force. Yes, the cemetery had its own police force. Remember that Green-Wood was a huge tourist attraction back in the 19th century, said to rival Niagara Falls in its number of visitors. Captain Lark and his 12-man brigade were charged with keeping vandals from desecrating the sacred ground.

But despite having this relatively well-paying gig, which came with the perk of living in a charming cottage on 23rd Street and Seventh Avenue rent free, Captain Lark was a miserable jerk who mercilessly beat his wife. Lark's life came to a disturbing end one morning while his son was preparing him breakfast:

That morning, at 6 a.m., Charlie Lark was in the kitchen making breakfast, and he heard his father call down to him from the upstairs bedroom, 'Are you ready, Charlie?' he called. 'Yes, father,' Charlie replied, 'Shall I cook the ham?' The only answer he got was a single gunshot.

More at Brownstoner, including an image of Lark's cottage.

The Battle of the Baritones at the Brooklyn Paramount Theatre

2012-02-08T14:38:00.000-05:00

This February 12 is a little known anniversary here in Brooklyn. It will be 80 years ago on that day that a young crooner named Bing Crosby first took to the stage at the Brooklyn Paramount Theater. Below is an article about Crosby, his fellow crooners Rudy Vallee and Russ Colombo, and their time at the Brooklyn Paramount Theatre, a building which is still extant, currently used as a gymnasium for Long Island University. The article was submitted to us by Martin McQuade, a singer and Bing Crosby expert. See more about Martin’s bio below this story.

There’s lots of public enemies, but I know only three.
Crosby, Columbo and Vallee.
They’ve made a million married women wish that they were free.
Crosby, Columbo and Vallee.

Those crooning vagabonds are stealing all our blondes,
Now I know what has become of Sally;
And ev’ry time you kiss your girl, who is she thinking of?
Crosby, Columbo and Vallee.

This 1931 song gives a hint of the spell cast by Bing Crosby, Russ Columbo and Rudy Vallee when they performed at the Brooklyn Paramount Theatre, one of the major stages where these legendary troubadours pioneered the art of popular singing and minted the template for the musical idol, which has become a mainstay of our popular culture.

The Brooklyn Paramount, at the corner of Flatbush and Dekalb avenues, opened its doors on Nov. 24, 1928, right at the cusp of a technological revolution. It was at this time that talking pictures were new, and the worlds of broadcasting and recording were transformed by the introduction of the microphone. The Brooklyn Paramount was the first theater expressly equipped for sound. Electronic amplification enabled vocalists to sing intimately and helped usher in the age of the crooner.

Rudy Vallee/AP Photo

One of the early crooners was Rudy Vallee. Vallee at first was hesitant to sing, thinking that his tenor voice was too thin and nasal. He compensated by using a megaphone. But the microphone soon made the megaphone obsolete and Vallee’s sweet, fastidious singing won favor.

In 1929 he appeared throughout New York on the Keith vaudeville circuit. He was a hit throughout the chain, except when his tour ended at The Albee Theater, on Dekalb Avenue in downtown Brooklyn. The singer recalled in his autobiography, “They received us courteously but their fervor was restrained. There are few out-and-out smashes in that borough. Brooklyn (and I say this with great affection) is a country unto itself.”

The situation changed when he was booked in May 1929 for 10 weeks at five shows a day alternating with the first run movies at the New York Paramount. Police were called out to maintain order while flappers mobbed the appearances of the personality known as “the voice with a sob in it.” Vallee was concerned when the management decided to move him to the New York Paramount’s sister theater, the Brooklyn Paramount.

“After six weeks they shifted us (no recriminations) to the Brooklyn Paramount and, remembering the Keith-Albee hauteur, I was a little worried. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise, a chance for me to learn the fine art of really running a show. I was to emcee the whole program, which ran approximately an hour, direct the augmented orchestra of twenty pieces, gag with the acts, set the tempos, and then eventually step forward for my own spot.”

Bing Crosby

Vallee returned to the Brooklyn Paramount in December 1929. On December 5 he made headlines when he visited a Brooklyn post office between performances to campaign for early mailing of Christmas gifts and letters. In 1930 Vallee headlined a show at the Brooklyn Paramount called “College Rhythm.” He was joined by Ethel Merman, whose appearance led to George Gershwin casting her in “Girl Crazy.” This launched her fabled Broadway career.

Rudy Vallee was the first to acknowledge that his heyday was over once he heard the voice of Bing Crosby. In 1926 Crosby joined the band of Paul Whiteman, “The King of Jazz,” where he developed his vocal skills. In 1930 Crosby joined the Gus Arnheim band, headquartered at The Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Los Angeles.

By the time Crosby embarked upon a solo career in 1931 he had shed the tenor range. He understood that the microphone favored baritones. Crosby assimilated many different styles, ranging from classical to jazz, and fused them into a unique sound, which accounted for his meteoric rise.

It must have resembled a ceremonial passing of the torch when Rudy Vallee introduced Crosby at his debut at the New York Paramount Theater on Nov. 6, 1931. He remained there for a record breaking three months, ending on Feb. 11, 1932. Immediately afterward he began an engagement at the Brooklyn Paramount for six weeks at five shows a day, from February 12 until March 24, 1932. He was paid the then staggering salary of $4,000 a week.

This was a prolific time for Crosby in New York. In between his shows in Brooklyn Crosby traveled to Manhattan to wax some of his most classic recordings: “St. Louis Blues” with Duke Ellington and "Shine” with The Mills Brothers; and his signature ballads, “Starlight” and “Paradise.”

In his autobiography Crosby recalled his time at the Paramount theaters:

“I was used as a master of ceremonies. I sang a song or two, worked in with some of the specialty acts, or did straight for visiting comics. Being an emcee turned out to be rather a merry assignment. I found I could be quite the gabby fellow. I’d always been fascinated with words and their meanings.”

Often Crosby was presented singing off stage or in half darkness or silhouette. There would sometimes be as many as three microphone set-ups so that he could roam the sprawling stage and serenade from different positions.

The theater’s press office enthusiastically heralded his appearances with great ballyhoo: “Brooklyn’s first chance to hear him - Bing Crosby, the Rhythm Boy who made good! An indefinite stay. He’s hot! He’s Torrid! He’s your favorite torch singer of songs you love. Everybody will like Bing, a regular fellow.”

Thirty-eight Bing Crosby films had exclusive engagements at the Brooklyn Paramount. The first was The Big Broadcast, which featured Arthur Tracy, who headlined at the Brooklyn Paramount the week of Sept. 27, 1932.

Crosby was known as “The King of the Crooners” but one singer posed a threat to his throne. His name was Russ Columbo.

Columbo was used as a standby vocalist when Crosby was unable to perform. When Columbo became the band’s permanent singer, he began to model himself after his predecessor.

The zealous agent Con Conrad persuaded Columbo that perhaps he could rival Crosby’s ascendancy. He arranged for his client to sign recording and radio contracts with Crosby’s competitors. A publicity bonanza was fueled, and “The Battle of the Baritones” began.

The crooners’ combat intensified when Bob Weitman, manager of both Paramount theaters, booked Columbo into the Brooklyn Paramount. This clever maneuver deliberately coincided with Crosby’s engagement at the New York Paramount. Columbo opened at the Brooklyn Paramount on Nov. 26, 1931, and played there for 10 weeks, until Feb. 10, 1932. The newspaper ads touted the initial program as “a gala anniversary show crowning the achievements of three years as Brooklyn’s leading theater.” Sharing the bill during his run were Frances Faye, The Boswell Sisters, The Mills Brothers, and George Burns and Gracie Allen.

There was great hoopla for Columbo: “There’s Only One Place To See Him; Heralding Greater Entertainment than Ever Before; The Romeo of Song Back by Popular Demand.”

The bill of fare for Christmas week 1931 included an eight-member female dance troupe, which had just shared the bill with Crosby at the New York Paramount. One of these was Grace Bradley, a well-known movie actress in the ’30s and the widow of William Boyd, better known as “Hopalong Cassidy.”

Bradley remembered of her time at the Brooklyn Paramount: “The audience reaction was always very good. I don’t remember any tearing of clothes or anything like that. The crowds weren’t riotous like the bobbysoxers later on. Russ was so good looking, with a great voice. He was much more a romantic type, but Bing was the one I was crazy about.”

She also recalled the grind of playing vaudeville in her native Brooklyn. “I was doing so many shows that I was losing two pounds a day. It was a matter of life and death! There wasn’t much relaxation. You didn’t even have time to eat. When you start in the morning and work until midnight – it gets to where you don’t have any personal life. You just exist!”

As soon as his Brooklyn Paramount engagement ended, Columbo replaced Crosby at the New York Paramount, just as Crosby began his stay at the Brooklyn Paramount.

Taking advantage of their overlapping engagements at both theaters, the two singers occasionally swapped appearances, rushing on the train to substitute for each other to the delight of their respective fans. This arrangement gained Crosby the title, “The Subway Crooner.”

Soon the mock feud ceased as the careers of the two singers diverged. Columbo’s life came to an end on Sept. 2, 1934, when he succumbed to a wound from a bullet accidentally fired from an antique pistol. He was 26 years old. Crosby, who was one of his pallbearers, went on to dominate the popular culture for successive generations.

When the Brooklyn Paramount opened it was at an historic juncture, as the twilight of vaudeville turned into the dawn of mass media culture. These trailblazing stars rose to the occasion at this landmark in the heart of Brooklyn’s old theater district where for the price of a quarter, Depression-ravaged audiences could find fleeting sanctuary from the turbulent times and enjoy the frivolity and majesty within its hallowed walls.

Martin McQuade is a consultant for Bing Crosby Enterprises. In 2002, he served as guest curator for Hofstra University’s conference, “Bing! And American Culture.” From 2003-2008 he assisted Crosby's widow Kathryn Crosby in the organization of several tributes honoring her husband, including the 2004 New York Public Library series, “Celebrating the Crosbys,” and the 2005 Film Society of Lincoln Center 14-film review, “What a Swell Party.” Martin McQuade’s mother was among the audience members during Bing Crosby’s first engagement at the Brooklyn Paramount in February 1932.

The above article is based on a presentation Mr. McQuade made at a June 2006 conference at Long Island University about the history of the Brooklyn Paramount.

As a singer, Mr. McQuade regularly performs at the Greenhouse Cafe in Bay Ridge (7717 Third Ave.), and will be performing there this Sunday, Feb. 12, 6:30 to 9:30 p.m., in honor of the 80th anniversary of Bing Crosby's debut at the Brooklyn Paramount.

Lecture Circuit: Ben Feldman at the Brooklyn Brainery

2012-02-07T12:33:00.001-05:00

Author Ben Feldman will be speaking tonight (Feb. 7) at 515 Court St. from 6:30 to 8 p.m.

Feldman is the author of the blog New York Wanderer, and the books Butchery on Bond Street – Sexual Politics and the Burdell-Cunningham Case in Ante-bellum New York and Call Me Daddy - Babes and Bathos in Edward West Browning’s Jazz-Age New York.

It is this latter book that will be the subject of tonight's talk, which is brought to you by the Brooklyn Brainery. (Tickets are $8 and can be purchased here).

Call Me Daddy is the story of the salacious antics of millionaire Edward West Browning, whose divorce proceedings from his teenaged wife "Peaches" Heenan was splashed all over the tabloids of 1920s New York.

Brooklyn Before Now wrote about Call Me Daddy when it was released in 2009. You can check that out here.

1964 New York City School Boycott

2012-02-03T12:21:00.002-05:00

AP Photo

Young Leonard Morris is pictured with his mother Rebecca in 1963. They are outside the Board of Education building on Livingston Street in downtown Brooklyn. His mother wanted him admitted to Erasmus Hall School, which was out of his district (they lived at 66 Prospect Place). She contended that the John Jay School, which he was zoned for, was scholastically poor. The Board of Education turned down the request.A demonstration was staged by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) on Leonard’s behalf.

Leonard’s story is representative of what was described as de facto segregation in the New York City school system, in which many of the schools were essentially all white or all black because of the neighborhood in which they were located, and the quality of the education was not equal among the schools.

On Feb. 3, 1964, Civil Rights activists such as Bayard Rustin, who helped organize the Freedom Rides down south and the March on Washington in 1963, made the New York City school system the site of their next demonstration. They boycotted the schools for a day. More than 450,000 students didn't go to school, and picketers marched across the Brooklyn Bridge to demonstrate in front of the Board of Education building.

To read the full story on the boycott, see the Brooklyn Eagle.

Apparently parents and activists who are displeased with the school system in New York are still utilizing the same protest techniques. The Eagle also has an article today about a planned boycott of a Crown Heights school this Monday.

50th Anniversary of 'The Snowy Day'

2012-01-30T13:00:00.002-05:00

A 50th anniversary edition of the beautiful children's book "The Snowy Day," written by the Brooklyn-born illustrator Ezra Jack Keats, has been released, NPR reports.

The book is noted for portraying one of the first non-caricatured African-Americans in a major children's book.

In the book, Peter, a little African-American boy living in Brooklyn, wakes up to a snowy day, puts on his red snowsuit and goes outside with "a stick just right for knocking snow off of trees, and a snowball in his pocket."

What was so groundbreaking was that Keats, who was white, makes no mention of the fact that the character Peter is African-American. It is only discerned through the beautiful illustrations.

"It was no longer necessary that the book say, 'I am an African-American child going out into the snow today...you don't put a color on a child's experience of the snow," Deborah Pope, executive director of the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation, told NPR.

Keats was born in 1916 to poor Polish Jewish immigrants in the East New York section of Brooklyn. He graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School and before that attended Junior High School 149, where he won a medal for his artistic talents upon graduation. He kept the medal all his life, together with the prestigious awards he won in his later career, such as the Caldecott Award, which he won for "The Snowy Day."

You can read more about Keats here.

Buckminster Fuller and the Brooklyn Dodgers Dome That Never Was

2012-01-26T16:54:00.000-05:00

The Brooklyn Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets Field on Sept. 24, 1957. The next season, they were the Los Angeles Dodgers. But apparently as late as July 1956, flashy ideas for a new Brooklyn stadium were still being bandied about, at least according to this article from a 1956 Mechanix Illustrated magazine.

"The Dodgers home games may soon be played under this huge plastic bubble," the article reported, accompanied by a large illustration of the proposed stadium (pictured above).

The inventor/engineer/architect Buckminster Fuller (he preferred to be called a "comprehensive anticipatory design scientist") proposed to build the ballpark as a geodosic dome. And it would be much more than a ballpark, it would be an "all-weather, year-round sports palace capable of pulling in big money as a showplace for every kind of sporting event and exposition."

Fuller had invented the geodosic dome, a spherical structure created from triangles, in his quest to improve human shelter. (Fuller seemed attuned to issues of sustainability decades before the rest of us. He talked about resources as finite and often espoused a philosophy of "doing more with less").

And lest this sound like a pipe dream, the optimistic article reported that the New York State legislature had created a $30 million authority tasked with creating such a center "and the dome design helped convince the lawmakers that it could be made to pay its own way. Mere Dodger sentiment could not have done that."

It seems the proposed site for this giant Dodgers dome was Atlantic Yards, where Barclays Center is now being built; the article mentioned that the dome would be adjacent to the Long Island Railroad Terminal.

Brooklyn, a Land of Opportunity For Beggars?

2012-01-25T17:12:00.001-05:00

On Jan. 26, 1902, the Brooklyn Eagle ran a story about the “prosperity” of a new brand of beggar that was immigrating to New York from Europe. It was not the paper’s most compassionate article, and smacked of the nativism that sometimes infects our national politics. Below is an excerpt from the story and at left is an image that ran with it.

“Professional beggars have lately been so numerous and annoying in Greater New York that the police express the belief that the city has been made the victim of a wholesale immigration of professional mendicants from Europe. They are moved to this belief both by the nationality of the beggars and by the changed character of the begging methods. The regular native beggars, say the police, used to content themselves with looking miserable and asking for alms. The new importation follow the fashions of the countries from which they come and make a business of exciting pity by prominently displaying their deformities and afflictions.

“Some people have doubted the police story of the immigration of beggars, but investigation proves it to be true and unexaggerated. There has been — and continues to be — a steady influx of professional beggars from Europe, lured to these shores by the tales they have heard of the money to be made from ‘those stupid Americans.’ The tales told to them by their enthusiastic relatives in the United States have been to the effect that any lame, halt or blind person, or anyone who could simulate affliction could make more money in greater New York in a week than could be made in Europe in a year.

“And those tales are absolutely true. Professional mendicancy has actually become such a profitable occupation in Brooklyn and New York that these swindlers and loafers make more money than honest hardworking men. There is hardly a professional beggar in Brooklyn or Manhattan who is not considerably better off than 75 percent of the people who give alms. Nearly all of them have comfortable sums put away in banks…”

Eat Like a Mid-19th Century Brooklynite!

2012-01-18T14:19:00.001-05:00

The Farm on Adderley is combining two of our favorite things: food and history. On Jan. 25 the Ditmas Park restaurant will serve a menu inspired by pre-industrial Brooklyn — meaning the ingredients will be those that would have been grown or available to Brooklyn farmers, and the foods will have been preserved through pre-electricity preservation techniques.

Chef Tom Kearney is preparing the four-course meal on Wednesday, Jan. 25. Tickets are $69 and the dinner starts at 7:30 p.m. Historic Gastronomist Sarah Lohman will be on hand to provide context for the meal and its preparation.

What's News: Prison Escapes, Winston Churchill's Mum, and Titanic Artifacts for Sale

2012-01-09T16:44:00.002-05:00

AFTER NEWS BROKE LAST WEEK that the much-maligned Brooklyn House of Detention on Atlantic Avenue in Boerum Hill would once again be loading up with prisoners, the McBrooklyn blog dug into the jail's history and came out with a list of escapes from the facility and other sordid details. Highlights include "horse-trainer, inn-owner, embezzler and sensational murderer Buddy Jacobson" who escaped with the help of "Tony Two Suits," and a riot in 1970 in which the prisoners took 26 hostages. McBrooklyn

TODAY, JANUARY 9, IS THE BIRTH ANNIVERSARY OF JENNIE JEROME. She was born to a wealthy stock speculator in Cobble Hill. After she married into British aristocracy, she became Lady Randolph Churchill and gave birth to the one and only Winston Churchill. Brooklyn Eagle and some more detail on her life at Brooklyn Before Now

A NEW BOOK ON BAY RIDGE HISTORY will be launched this Thursday at the Yellow Hook Grille (7003 Third Ave.). Bay Ridge Etc. was written by local journalist Ted General, Bay Ridge Historical Society President Jack LaTorre, and Bay Ridge Historical Society President Emeritus Peter Scarpa. Brownstoner

THE BROOKLYN HISTORICAL SOCIETY WILL HOST EVAN HUGHES, author of Literary Brooklyn, and scholar Edgar Garcia, who will discuss Walt Whitman and his role in Brooklyn's publishing history, on Jan. 18 at 7 p.m. (128 Pierrepont St.) It's Free! Brooklyn Historical Society

ARTIFACTS FOUND ON THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN NEAR THE WRECK OF THE TITANIC will be auctioned off on April 11, the 100th anniversary of the infamous tragedy. There are more than 5,000 artifacts, valued at close to $200 million, but they are being sold as one big collection, as opposed to individually, at the insistence of Premier Exhibitions, the company that recovered the artifacts from the site. Huffington Post

BHS Has a Cool New Digital Exhibit on an Old Brooklyn Family

2011-12-14T17:16:00.003-05:00

A slave bill of sale (1818) from the Lefferts family collection

The Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS) has just launched a new exhibit that you can visit from the comfort of your own home.

“An American Family Grows in Brooklyn: The Lefferts Family Papers at Brooklyn Historical Society” is a digital exhibit that tells the story of one of Brooklyn’s oldest families.

Items from the Lefferts collection span centuries of history, from when the Lefferts family first settled in Flatbush in 1660. The family came to own large tracts of property, not only in Brooklyn, but in Queens County, Staten Island and New Jersey as well.

Over the years, the clan included slave-owning farmers, Revolutionary War veterans, politicians, real estate developers, and one rather pioneering female historian, Gertrude Lefferts Vanderbilt, author of The Social History of Flatbush.

In addition to short, informative essays on topics such as “Slavery in Brooklyn,” “Marriage and Family,” “The Church” and “Farming Brooklyn,” the digital exhibit includes an image gallery of 77 different documents and pictures that have been scanned from the collection for our viewing enjoyment.

There are maps, newspaper clippings, a handwritten account of the Draft Riots in 1863, deeds, estate inventories, pictures of the Lefferts homestead (interior shots included), bills of sale for slaves and all sorts of other interesting material.

Says the exhibit’s curator, BHS’s Julie Golia, “The Lefferts family papers illustrate some of the most important themes of Brooklyn’s history: slavery and freedom, the development of Flatbush from farmland to suburb, the experiences of women in colonial Brooklyn, and many more.”

The collection was donated to BHS in 2010 by the Lefferts Historic House in Prospect Park. The original Lefferts house was burned down during the American Revolution. The rebuilt house, dating to 1783, stood at 563 Flatbush Ave. and was moved to the park in 1918, where it holds public programs about Brooklyn’s Dutch history.

Calendar: 'Literary Brooklyn' Author Evan Hughes at BPL Wednesday

2011-12-13T11:07:00.001-05:00

Evan Hughes, author of Literary Brooklyn: The Writers of Brooklyn and the Story of American City Life, will be speaking at the Brooklyn Public Library's main branch at Grand Army Plaza on Weds., Dec. 14 at 7 p.m. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. The event is free, but limited to 40 people.

As per the library:
"Literary Brooklyn uncovers the borough's — and a nation's — history through the minds of its greatest writers. In it, Hughes not only traces the origins of Brooklyn's contemporary literary scene but illuminates a revealing slice of American urban history. Starting with Walt Whitman, Brooklyn's first laureate, through the greats of the twentieth century, such as Henry Miller, Marianne Moore, Richard Wright, to today's prominent writers — Jonathan Lethem, Jhumpa Lahiri, Colson Whitehead, and more — Hughes peers into their lives, their work, and their Brooklyn, the home that shaped them."

Should be interesting — and maybe you'll be able to score a signed copy of the book, which would make a great gift for the Brooklynologist in your life.

FURTHER READING:
Brooklyn Takes a Bow as a Town of Writers [New York Times]
Brooklyn Has Inspired Writers Since Whitman, Miller and Mailer [Brooklyn Eagle]

Quirky Tales Of Brooklyn’s Business History

2011-12-05T11:17:00.000-05:00

Historian Julie Golia and Librarian Elizabeth Call

Maybe you knew that the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer started here in Brooklyn in 1849. And that it went on to become the primary producer of penicillin during WWII (thanks for that). But did you ever think about how bad their factory may have smelled?

Well, it smelled like “old garbage” — and the level of pungency depended on the weather, at least according to one woman who worked at their Flushing Avenue plant in Williamsburg.

She is one of dozens of Pfizer employees who were interviewed by the Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS) for their oral history archives. And while the nugget of posterity she left us doesn’t offer too much insight into Pfizer’s growth from a rinky-dink operation into international behemoth, it does stir the imagination. It helps to make Pfizer’s history a bit more tangible, and a lot more human.

“You never know what you’re going to find in a collection. A lot of research is serendipity,” says Julie Golia, a public historian at BHS, who, along with BHS Special Collections Librarian Elizabeth Call, made a presentation on Thursday night at the Brooklyn Public Library titled “From Earplugs to Warships: Exploring the History of Business in Brooklyn.”

Up until the 19th century, Brooklyn was primarily agricultural. But in 1814, Robert Fulton’s steam ferry commenced between Brooklyn and Manhattan, which made the commute reliable and practical for the first time.

Thus Brooklyn Heights became “America’s first suburb,” and the County of Kings started on its staggering path of 19th-century growth — acquiring hundreds of thousands of new residents, undergoing a boom in real estate and construction, and developing huge waterfront enterprises in sugar refining, oil refining, beer brewing and the like.

Beginning in the 1940s, the painful process of deindustrialization set in, depressing the economy for decades until recently, when a new thrust of the “creative class” moved into the borough, bringing new businesses and investment and the mixed blessing of gentrification.

But Thursday’s presentation didn’t spend too much time delving into this timeline. Rather, Golia and Call opened up some of the Historical Society’s collections to show the employee newsletters, financial ledgers, insurance maps, scrapbooks, posters, advertisements, catalogues and recorded interviews, that give a fuller and more nuanced picture of the businesses and people that have made Brooklyn tick.

You probably didn’t know about J.A.R. Elliot Co., manufacturer of earplugs. Elliott patented a protective earplug at the end of his very successful career as a champion shooter of live birds. He was the “Tiger Woods of sharp-shooting” said Golia, and a spokesman for Winchester rifles. But he developed hearing problems (go figure), so he went into the earplug business here in Brooklyn at the turn of the 20th century. (His earplugs were actually made out of wood, and then he wisely moved on to more malleable materials.)

Another small-scale manufacturer was Well Made Gloves, which had a small factory in south Park Slope during the mid-20th century. It was a family business owned by Louis Lebman, who had apprenticed with a glove maker in upstate New York (who knew people were still apprenticing in the 20th century?)

And then there was the Brooklyn Brush Manufacture, incorporated in 1848, which was extraordinary because it was an African American-owned business. “This reflects a time when African-Americans were becoming interested in creating their own institutions,” said Golia.

Racism, it seems, is a theme that runs throughout Brooklyn’s business history. A 1940s employee newsletter in BHS’ collection from the Fulton Street department store Abraham & Strauss showed employees in “black face” for a minstrel show at the company Christmas party.

Documents from the Brooklyn Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), a lead organization of the Civil Rights movement, show that CORE organized a protest against Ebinger Baking Company, beloved for its Blackout Cake, because they used discriminatory hiring practices. (In 1962, Ebinger signed an agreement with CORE promising to be more equitable.)

Also in BHS’s collection are the scrapbooks and autobiography of Henry A. Meyer, “who had a huge impact on Brooklyn, but nobody knows his name,” says Golia. He was a German immigrant who ran for mayor of Brooklyn in 1882, but lost. Through his Germania Real Estate Company, he developed large parts of Flatbush, including Vanderveer Park and south Midwood, turning the farms of such old Dutch families as the Lotts, Cortelyous and Van Wycks into the urban streets we know today. He was also president of the Jamaica Bay Improvement Association, and thought that Jamaica Bay was going to be the next big shipping port of the world. (That didn’t pan out, but it is home to a pretty big airport.)

There are a million more stories to be found in the collections of the Brooklyn Historical Society. You can find them at its library, located at 129 Pierrepont St. in Brooklyn Heights. Visit www.brooklynhistory.org and click on “Library and Collections” to get a better idea of what’s in the archives and the best ways to access them.

Book About Brooklyn Heights Promenade Released for Its 60th Anniversary

2011-11-30T17:22:00.000-05:00

This December 7 is the 60th anniversary of the opening of the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, the exquisite public walkway with breathtaking views of New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge and lower Manhattan.

As it turns out, the Promenade is singular, not only in the panorama it provides, but in its engineering. It is cantilevered over a busy motorway — the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Finding out how exactly this unique structure came to be has been a pet research project of Henrik Krogius, longtime editor of the Brooklyn Heights Press & Cobble Hill News, a sister publication of the Brooklyn Eagle.

His research, conducted over the course of decades, has been compiled into a book due to be released this week (The Brooklyn Heights Promenade, 108 pages, The History Press), just in time for the anniversary. For a thorough recap of Krogius's findings, read Caitlin McNamara's story in the Eagle.

The book is filled with photos of the beloved walkway taken by Krogius over the years (he has lived in the neighborhood since before the Promenade even opened in 1951).

Krogius originally wanted to write a book about structures that were similar to the Promenade from around the world, but he wasn't able to find any. It's a true one-of-a-kind, he says.

Famed Landscape Architect Calvert Vaux Drowned in Bensonhurst

2011-11-18T14:20:00.000-05:00

Calvert Vaux

In the autumn of 1895, renowned landscape architect Calvert Vaux disappeared.

Vaux, who is best known for partnering with Frederick Law Olmsted to design such iconic green spaces as Central Park and Prospect Park, was 70 years old and employed as the landscape architect for the New York Parks Department when he left his son’s house in Bensonhurst for an early morning walk on Nov. 19, 1895, and never returned.

By afternoon, police began searching for Vaux, described as “four feet, 10 inches, medium build; gray hair and full beard; ruddy complexion; wore blue overcoat with velvet collar; no vest; black derby hat; wears gold-rimmed eyeglasses; shirt has name on it.”

A few days later, on Nov. 21, the Brooklyn Eagle ran this sad report on its front page:

“The body of Calvert Vaux, the missing landscape architect, was found in Gravesend Bay at the foot of Bay 17th Street, Bath Beach, at 9:30 ‘o clock this morning. A workman on Fry’s coal dock first saw the body being tossed about in the rough water, but when he rushed to the shore to secure the corpse it disappeared. It was some minutes later before Mr. Fry himself saw it drifting alongside the bulkhead out to sea again. With a boat hook he succeeded in bringing it close to shore. The police had been notified in the meantime and Acting Captain Barford and Roundsman Gaughran of the Twenty-fifth sub-precinct hurried to the spot. The tide was high and very rough, which made it very difficult to secure the body. It was finally necessary for someone to go right in after it and without a moment’s hesitation both Barford and Gaughran walked in up to their waists. They then succeeded in bringing the body high up on the beach. The police surmised the moment the word came in that a body was found that it was more than likely that of the missing Mr. Vaux.

Word was sent to the home of the son, C. Bowyer Vaux, on Twentieth Avenue, Bensonhurst. Mr. Vaux, who had remained home on business in the hope that he would hear word from his father, went without delay and identified his parent. The son was much affected. He made the identification certain by examining the marks on the clothing, not daring to trust himself to look at the features. Undertaker Wyckoff of Eighteenth Avenue, with the permission of the coroner, took charge of the remains and had them removed to his establishment.

“There is very little doubt that the artist made away with his own life by drowning. For some past he has been subject to nervous prostrations. His health gave way last August when he completed his Bronx park plans, over which he spent almost night and day, so interested was he in them. Being 70 years of age the strain was too much for him. Instead of taking a rest he continued his duties as a landscape artist of the New York Park Department. About seven weeks ago he found it was necessary to cease his labors for a while, and went with his daughter, Miss Marian Vaux, to the Hotel Madison. There he spent the month of October under the care of Dr. George S. Conant and Dr. William B. De Garmo, a specialist. Ten days ago he went to his son’s home at Bensonhurst. He was fond of the water and seemed perfectly contented. He spent a good part of his time on the beach and scarcely ever failed to be at the water’s edge to watch the sunsets.

“On Tuesday afternoon he left the home and made his way to the Captain’s pier at foot of De Bruyn’s Lane. He walked out to the end of it and was gazing at the water when George Ditmar, the proprietor, addressed him.

“‘I was just looking at the improvements you’ve made here,’ Mr.Vaux volunteered in explanation, and after a word or two more walked to the shore. Some persons saw him walking back. This was the last seen of him alive. The family suspected that he had taken a car for the city, and had been overcome on the road and possibly taken to some hospital. They were much worried and when he did not return yesterday afternoon they notified the police of Bath Beach. A general alarm was then sent out.”

Later reports of the incident were less certain that Vaux’s death had been a suicide, and the exact circumstances of his death remain unclear to this day. At 70 years old, a fatal slip was certainly possible, and his son C. Bowyer believed it to be an accident, according to a New York Times report.

Nine years later, Calvert Vaux’s daughter Helen hung herself in the basement of her home. It was reported that the fatal act was done “While in a depressed mental state following nervous prostration brought on by her zeal for study.”

Vaux had four children in total with his wife Mary McEntee, who hailed from Kingston, NY, where they are both buried.

Calvert Vaux was born in London, England, on Dec. 20, 1824. He apprenticed in the office of architect Lewis Cottingham, then moved to the United States at 24 years old and became a partner to Andrew Jackson Downing, with whom he laid out the grounds for the Capitol building and the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.

Downing was killed in an 1852 fire on a Hudson River steamboat and Vaux took over the firm, moving it to New York City from Newburgh, NY. In 1865, he and Olmsted formed Olmsted, Vaux and Company and were pioneers in landscape architecture, creating parks in cities across the country.

At the time of his death Vaux lived in Manhattan and served on the Consolidation Commission, which examined the proposal to join the cities of New York and Brooklyn into one municipality.

Williamsburgh Savings Bank Under Construction

2011-11-15T14:37:00.000-05:00

The Williamsburgh Savings Bank tower at One Hanson Place — Brooklyn's tallest building until 2009, when it was surpassed by The Brooklyner — was designated a New York City landmark on Nov. 15, 1977. The building's famous clock tower is an iconic structure for Brooklynites, though it reminds most people of the dentist, as the 512-foot high building was filled for years with so many dental offices. It has since been converted into condos. Above are some photos of the building under construction. It was built between 1927 and 1929 (seems they were able to construct buildings faster then, no?). The top picture is the most striking. It shows the construction site right before the tower was built. It seems like too small of a space for that big building!

The photos are by H.W. Hinson and are part of the Brooklyn Historical Society's collection.

FURTHER READING:
The NYC Landmark Commission designation report for the Williamsburgh Savings Bank tower
Landmark Day for Bank [Brooklyn Eagle]
Building of the Day: 1 Hanson Place [Brownstoner]

The Stamp Act is Coming! The Stamp Act is Coming!

2011-11-08T17:23:00.001-05:00

The actual, physical Stamp Act, the piece of British legislation that really pissed off a bunch of soon-to-be Americans in 1765 and precipitated the American Revolution, will be on display here in the U.S. for the very first time, and lucky for us, it will be right near by, at the New-York Historical Society (NYHS).

It will be on display as part of a new exhibit opening at NYHS about the revolutionary period in the late 1700s marked by the American and French revolutions, and the far-too-often-forgotten Haitian Revolution. Bet you didn't know the slaves of Saint Domingue, as Haiti was once called, led the world's only successful slave rebellion and declared a republic for themselves in 1804.

As you can imagine, this turn of events left the U.S. in quite a pickle: In 1804, Americans were not yet willing to extend the revolutionary ideals of equality they had just established for themselves to their black slaves, and quite frankly, Haiti's ability to do so scared the pants off of them. It wasn't really a high point in American diplomatic history, and so the Haitian Revolution maybe has gotten dusted under the rug a bit in the history books. So this new exhibit is a welcome reprieve from that omission, putting the events in Haiti in their rightful place in the global narrative of that revolutionary period.

[Brooklyn Before Now studied the Haitian Revolution in grad school and believe Brooklyn Before Now when it tells you it is a truly fascinating event in world history and worth learning a thing or two about.]

"Revolution! The Atlantic World Reborn" opens this Friday, Nov. 11, as the first exhibit in NYHS's newly renovated building at 170 Central Park West. It will be on display until April 15, 2012, when it will travel to venues in the UK and France.

Further Reading:
Riot-inciting Stamp Act on Show in U.S [BBC]
Revolution: The Atlantic World Reborn [NYHS]

Brooklyn Navy Yard Museum to Open This Friday

2011-11-07T11:17:00.001-05:00

Good news for Brooklyn history lovers: It looks like we have another exquisite history institution on the way.

The Brooklyn Navy Yard Center at Building 92 will open to the public this Friday, on Veterans Day. The four-story building is a museum to the yard's long and fascinating history as a ship building center for the U.S. Navy (it operated as such from 1801 to 1966) and its subsequent transformation into a unique industrial park with tenants such as the film studio Steiner Studios.

The New York Times published a great preview article of the museum. Among the objects on display are a 22,000-pound anchor from the USS Austin, and a mangled piece of the USS Arizona, which was built at the Navy Yard and later became one of the casualties of the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. There are also many objects that speak to the rough and tumble nature of the neighborhood surrounding the Navy Yard. "It was the Barbary Coast of New York," the center's curator Daniela Romano told the Times.

Further Reading:
Museum To Display History Of 200-Year-Old Navy Yard [Brooklyn Eagle]
A Timeline of the Brooklyn Navy Yard [brooklynnavyyard.org]

BAM Begins to Look Back, Without Missing a Step

2011-11-03T12:48:00.000-04:00

A book about the Brooklyn Academy of Music was long overdue.

For an institution whose origins date to the beginning of the Civil War, making the academy, known as BAM, the oldest continually operating performing arts center in the country, there’s no doubt that there is a story to tell. Many stories to tell, in fact. So now, on the occasion of its 150th anniversary, BAM has just released its first-ever written history.

BAM: The Complete Works (Quantuck Lane Press) is a 384-page tome containing close to 400 photographs and essays by 31 writers, most of them artists who have graced BAM’s stage.

“The Complete Works” is an apt title. Looking through it, you quickly realize that it’s not just another coffee-table book. It’s a comprehensive reference on Brooklyn’s most enduring institution — we may have lost the Dodgers, the Navy Yard and the original Brooklyn Eagle, but we never lost BAM.

Included in the book is a history written by Phillip Lopate that covers BAM’s first 100 years – including the opening in 1861, its struggle between elitism and populism, its financial ups and downs, and of course, its amazing artistic legacy.

Considering BAM’s longevity, stature, and influence, the book also proves to be a history of the international performing arts scene.

The list of artists and thinkers to have spoken and performed at BAM is staggering, and a testament to just how deep its history goes. They include Mark Twain, Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass, Jacob Riis, Helen Keller, Isadora Duncan, Oscar Wilde, Sarah Bernhardt, Enrico Caruso, H. G. Wells, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Winston Churchill, Thomas Mann, Gertrude Stein, Aldous Huxley, Frank Lloyd Wright, Bertrand Russell, Eugene O’Neill, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Morgan Freeman, Cate Blanchett, and a string of U.S. Presidents, including both Roosevelts.

And this is a drop in the bucket.

Perhaps if BAM had rested on its laurels, it would have produced a history touting its impressive past long ago, but the institution has been too busy creating its equally impressive present.

“Performing arts institutions are so much about putting these ephemeral things on the stage. They are so much about the present,” says BAM Director of Archives Sharon Lehner. “[So] there aren’t a ton of performing arts archives out there.”

But beginning in the late 1990s, BAM started to take stock of its past, thanks largely to the efforts of Karen Brooks Hopkins, now BAM’s president, and Robert Boyd, BAM’s then-Director of Special Projects. Two part-time archivists were hired to go through the hoard of material that had accumulated over the decades — enough to take over a seven-room suite on the 16th floor of the Williamsburgh Savings Bank building.

“We have a lot of really beautiful ephemera – programs, posters and promotional materials, a ton of press clippings, amazing video and audio from the last 30 years, and thousands and thousands of photographs. We have a photo collection that rivals any that I can think of in the performing arts,” says Lehner, who was hired in 2005 as BAM’s first full-time archivist.

As illustrious as BAM’s history is, it was not without its low points. Its fortunes have risen and fallen with Brooklyn, and it was faced with hard times during the Depression and the de-industrialization that rocked the borough in the years after World War II.

Large portions of BAM’s archives were lost during two catastrophic events. The first was in 1903, when BAM’s original building, which was on Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights, burned down, taking practically all of the records from the institution’s first 40 years with it. And then a flood in 1977 at BAM’s current home in Fort Greene wiped out more material.

Finances were so tight in the 1950s, that BAM’s home at 30 Lafayette Ave. was very nearly sold to Long Island University, which would have converted it into classrooms and a gymnasium. By the time Harvey Lichtenstein took the reins of BAM in 1967, sections of the building were being rented out to a judo academy and a boy’s prep school.

It was Lichtenstein, president and executive producer of BAM until 1999, who is largely credited with bringing BAM back from the brink (and who rebranded the old academy as its acronym in 1973).

His partnering with artists such as Merce Cunningham, Martha Graham, Peter Brook and Philip Glass made BAM a center of avant-garde work, with the Next Wave Festival, held at BAM every fall since 1983, as the linchpin of BAM’s late 20th century “renaissance.”

This has been accompanied by an expansion of BAM’s facilities, with the renovation of the Majestic Theater, now known as the BAM Harvey Theater, in 1987 and the opening of the BAM Rose Cinemas in 1998. Ground was broken last year on a yet another building of the “BAM campus,” the Richard B. Fisher building, an arts and community center.

And with a grant from the Leon Levy Foundation, BAM now has a budget to acquire materials for its archives, allowing them to recover some of what was lost due to fire and flood. They are also making appeals to the public through their blog, bam.org/150, asking people to look in their attics, so to speak, for any BAM-relevant materials.

This process has enabled BAM to recover many 19th-century programs and press clippings, and some very unique ephemera, such as stamps that were sold at the Sanitary Fair, a huge fundraising effort held for Union soldiers at BAM in 1864.

“It’s amazing to see how far this collection has come along in a relatively short period of time,” says Lehner.

Now officially known as the BAM Hamm Archives, after donors Charles and Irene Hamm, whose funds will go toward building a state-of-the art facility for the archives, the collection is currently housed at 1 Metrotech Center, and is already attracting a variety of researchers.

“We’ve seen everyone from elementary school students working on a project to people writing books on contemporary performance theory,” says Lehner.

“BAM is so unique. There are probably zillions of books to be written about BAM. There are so many ways to look at this material.”

Lehner hopes to have an online database for the BAM Hamm Archives up and running soon. “It’s a very hidden collection. We have not cataloged it very extensively, but we generally know what we have. Are there still some big surprises in there? I’m sure there are.”

BAM: The Complete Works is available for purchase at Greenlight Bookstore in Fort Greene (686 Fulton St), at BAM (30 Lafayette Ave.), at bam.org/book, at Amazon.com, and various bookstores
throughout the country

Oct. 26, 1841: Brooklyn Eagle Rolls First Issue Off the Presses

2011-10-26T14:51:00.000-04:00

The Eagle’s headquarters on lower Fulton Street

On Oct. 26, 1841, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle printed its very first issue, 170 years ago today. At that time, Brooklyn had a population of 35,500, and “Fulton Street was the single business thoroughfare. Court Street was unknown. Sands Street was the residence of the aristocrats; the Heights were a bluff merely; Fulton Street, beyond City Hall, was a country road, and Myrtle Avenue an adventurous highway of travel to Fort Greene.”

This was how the Eagle remembered the Brooklyn of its origins in a history they published in 1892. They had reason to be in awe at the changes. In the five decades since the Eagle had printed its first issue, Brooklyn had grown exponentially, not just in population — becoming the third largest city in the country — but in consequence, with a volume of industry that rivaled any working waterfront in the nation.

The Eagle grew right along with Brooklyn, continually expanding its long-time Fulton Street, and later Washington Street, headquarters, buying newer and more state-of-the-art printing presses, opening more and more branch offices, and drawing in more readers. By the Civil War, the Eagle had “the largest circulation of any evening paper in the United States,” a fact the paper made a point of printing in the top left corner of page 2 every day, followed by, “Its value as an advertising medium is therefore apparent.”

That the Eagle became such a resonant and lasting voice in Brooklyn would have come as a surprise to its founders, who intended the paper to be a temporary endeavor, as a voice for the Democratic Party in Brooklyn through the election season following the death of President William Henry Harrison. But one of the founders, a printer named Isaac Van Anden, saw the paper’s value and took it over as the sole proprietor after the election.

Van Anden was born in Poughkeepsie, NY, in 1813. At an early age he learned the printing trade, and came to Brooklyn in 1836. He ran the paper until his death in 1875, although five years earlier he had sold the paper to a group of investors. To his employees he was known as “Mr. Van.” William Hester, Van Anden’s nephew, succeeded him as president and remained in control of the paper until he died in 1921.

By far the Eagle’s most famous editor was Walt Whitman, though he only served the post a short time (1846-48). He had a falling out with Van Anden over the issue of slavery — Whitman was a supporter of the Wilmot Proviso, which prohibited the extension of slavery to new territories. Seven years after he left the Eagle, Whitman published the first edition of his groundbreaking Leaves of Grass at a printing shop just around the bend on Fulton Street from the Eagle’s offices.

While at the Eagle, Whitman supported free trade and higher wages for dock workers, was critical of the “Nativist” movement (which was hostile to immigrants) and was in favor of prison reform. One of his editorials was headlined: “Are We Never To Have Any Public Parks In Brooklyn?” His crusade resulted in the creation of Fort Greene Park and the reburial there of the Prison Ship Martyrs, who died aboard the British prison ships in New York Harbor during the Revolution.

The Eagle rallied to many causes throughout its long history, perhaps most notably in favor of building the Brooklyn Bridge. (Several of the founders of the New York Bridge Company, the entity entrusted with building the bridge, were also co-proprietors of the Eagle itself, such as Van Anden, editor Thomas Kinsella, politician Henry C. Murphy and contractor William C. Kingsley.)

In the late 19th century the paper came out against political bosses, picking fights with Brooklyn Democratic “Boss” Hugh McLaughlin, and Gravesend “Boss” John McKane. The Eagle unsuccessfully fought the movement to consolidate Brooklyn with New York City, with this warning: “If tied to New York, Brooklyn would be a Tammany suburb, to be kicked, looted and bossed.” (Brooklyn became a borough of greater New York in 1898.)

During the 20th century, more successful campaigns helped bring a central library to Grand Army Plaza, and secured the demolition of the elevated train (“The Black Spider”) that rattled noisily up Fulton Street, darkening the main shopping boulevard.

The Eagle had two long-time editors, Thomas Kinsella (1861 to 1884) followed by St. Claire McKelway (1886- 1915), who had the greatest influence upon the paper’s style and voice, and oversaw the paper through the height of its influence.

None other than Joseph Pulitzer himself had this to say about the Eagle in 1911:

“This is what I sincerely feel about the Brooklyn Eagle:
In the first essentials of any newspaper to be respected and be respectable - integrity, independence and intellect — I consider it among the foremost newspapers of the nation — and there are very few indeed I would call foremost.

Secondly - As a newspaper emphasizing the word “news,” it is absolutely unique, because I do not know of any journal in New York City or in the whole country using such lavish liberality in space and printing the local news of Brooklyn with such impartiality, non-partisanship and broad variety.

Thirdly - On the editorial page, I find it courageous, non-partisan, able and free to attack abuses in both parties. My ideal. In specially difficult situations which test courage, character and capacity, I find the Eagle rises to the importance of the occasion and brings out great latent strength in reflecting the moral sense and public opinion of the community, which it largely creates.”

Over the years the newspaper won the Pulitzer Prize four times, once for exposing corruption in the police department during the administration of Mayor William O’Dwyer.

In 1955, when its circulation was at an all-time high of 137,000, the Eagle fell silent as the borough’s voice — a victim of a five-month strike that even federal arbitration could not settle. The last issue of the 114-year-old Eagle rolled off the presses on Jan. 28, 1955.

The author and newspaper columnist Pete Hamill, who used to deliver the Eagle after school, once observed, “It had a great function: it helped to weld together an extremely heterogeneous community. Without it, Brooklyn became a vast network of hamlets, whose boundaries were rigidly drawn but whose connections with each other were vague at best, hostile at worst.”

For a few months in 1960, the Eagle resumed publication as a weekly, and it was published daily for a year, ending in mid-1963.

As of Aug. 21, 1996, publication of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle was resumed by publisher J. Dozier Hasty.

The Origins of the Eagle, As Told By Founder Isaac Van Anden

“In 1841 Brooklyn was a Whig County and, as has always been the case with a party opposing the Democratic party, the Whig embraced within its lines the great majority of the wealthy men of the city. It had two organs, the Star and the Advertiser. The Democratic party had none to defend it from attack or to advocate its principles. In the early part of 1841 it appeared as if the issues of the day were to the advantage of the Democrats. The logic of events was with it. How the Democrats were to advantage themselves in this condition was a frequent discussion among the Democrats who were active in affairs. The discussion proceeded through the summertime, and I was in frequent discussion with these active men. Early in the fall I suggested the establishment of a new paper. The suggestion was made to Henry C. Murphy. At first he did not take kindly to the suggestion, but, on reflection, he thought better of the idea. Finally a number of Democrats were called to a meeting in the office of Lott, Murphy & Vanderbilt at 3 Front Street.

“After a thorough discussion of the subject, it was agreed to start the paper, each one present contributing to a fund for the purpose. But my idea had been modified, and a campaign paper was determined upon, to cease with the election. The title of the new paper was suggested by Judge Greenwood. It was The Brooklyn Daily Eagle and Kings County Democrat.

“It was agreed that it was to be printed in my printing office. Henry C. Murphy was made the editor and Alfred G. Stevens was named as publisher.

“The Eagle was successful from the start, but when the election was over it was proposed to cease publication as it had served its purpose. Against that I protested . . . . I offered to assume the burden of the whole responsibility and to buy the interests of all who had been subscribers. While these negotiations were pending, the publication of the paper was continued, I guaranteeing them against a deficit . . . . These negotiations had been so long protracted that it was not until the following January that I was able to publish an issue which told that Isaac Van Anden was the Publisher and Sole Proprietor.”

Ghost Stories from the Old Brooklyn Eagle

2011-10-20T15:52:00.000-04:00

The original Brooklyn Eagle (1841-1955) reported on everything from international affairs, politics, and women's issues, to literature, crime and real estate. And, they didn't shy away from a good ghost story either. So in honor of Halloween, we thought we'd share a couple of the spine-tinglers that were published by the old Eagle, though the newspaper sometimes took the fun out of it by reporting a reasonable explanation to the bumps in the night.

Published November 8, 1885

A number of gentlemen who reside in South Brooklyn were having a friendly chat upon various topics a few days ago at Masonic Hall, when the conversation turned upon the subject of supernatural appearances. Several of the party told of strange experiences they had had during their lives, and Mr. Benjamin R. Hicks of Fifth Avenue, related an adventure that was so strange that it made a deep impression upon the minds of his listeners, and was not laughed at as other stories had been. The story he related came to the ears of an Eagle reporter last evening and he sought out Mr. Hicks. He was found busily engaged waiting upon customers at his place of business.

“Do I believe in Ghosts?” echoed Mr. Hicks, as he offered the scribe a seat. “If ever anyone saw a ghost, I did – or, if it wasn’t a ghost I’d like some learned scientist to explain the phenomenon.”

“Will you relate the story of your adventure just as it happened?”

“Well, I don’t mind telling you what I honestly believe I saw, although I don’t want you to put me in any ridiculous light before the public. Several years ago I was engaged in the milk business and delivered milk at my customers’ houses. I had on my list a man by the name of John Day, who lived in Amity Street, near Hicks, and between Hicks and Henry. The family, which consisted of Day and his wife, lived on the top floor of the house, and were people in the ordinary walks of life. My first visit to these apartments was made one Thursday morning, just as day was breaking. The halls were dimly lighted by a gas jet burning in the upper story, and, in order to see my way up the lower flight of stairs, not being used to them, I placed a large stone against the street door to hold it open, so I might have the benefit of what little daylight there was at that early hour.

I started up the stairs, with my milk can in one hand and an empty cover – such as we carry milk in - in the other hand, and was about half way up the second flight when I saw a very old, feeble lady coming down, holding on to the banister for support. No thought of a ghost entered my mind at the time. I supposed someone in the house was up at an unusually early hour, or that possibly someone was sick. I pressed against the wall to let her pass me, and she did so. I saw that she was about 80 years old and very wrinkled. I also noticed that she wore a black dress, a black cap faced with white, and a black shawl. She made no noise as she went by me, and my curiosity being aroused at seeing such an old lady at that hour going out of the house, I turned to watch her, but to my astonishment, she had mysteriously disappeared. There was not a door anywhere on the flight of stairs where she passed me. I went up to Mrs. Day’s door and poured the milk into the pail she had left in the hall to receive it and left the house. I had no thought at the time of having seen a ghost, or whatever you may call it.

The following week I went to Mrs. Day’s to collect my bill, and casually asked her who the old lady was who I had passed on the stairs. Her face turned as white as a sheet and she dropped the dish she held in her hand. ‘Did you meet her?’ she gasped. ‘Did you see her – the ghost?’

I told her just what I had seen and she assured me that life in that house was simply unbearable on account of that same old lady. She said an old woman, the exact counterpart of the one I described, had owned the house years ago and had been murdered by her son-in-law, who secured a large sum of money that she had secreted in the house. He burned her body in the cellar and it had lain there for years until the bones were finally discovered by some men digging in the cellar. As the family were all dead nothing could be done toward bringing the murderer to justice. Ever since the discovery of the bones the house had been haunted by the woman’s ghost. Doors were slammed and opened, locks were unlocked, windows were rattled and unearthly groans heard. She said she had moved into the house only five days before, but, although she had paid a month’s rent in advance, she would lose that and move out."

Published April 23, 1893

This is a ghost story. It may or may not be true. The reader may or may not believe it, as he sees fit. The writer does not care, he makes no affidavits, gives no guarantees, has not investigated and is not absolutely sure that he believes it himself.

Not that there is any desire to discredit Mr. Walter E. Parfitt or Cornelius Ferguson Jr. There veracity is above proof, or rather it is independent of proof and can stand alone and unchallenged.

There is no doubt that they thought they saw what they now think they thought they saw, but the question is whether they really did see what they think they thought they saw and whether what they think they thought they thought they saw was really what they thought.

But they thought it was a ghost.

“We were coming to Brooklyn on a Bath beach and West End train from Bensonhurst, where we reside,” said Mr. Parfitt. “It was early in the evening about a week ago, the sun had gone down and it was twilight. As our train came to Greenwood Cemetery we suddenly saw a light in the cemetery. It was about one hundred yards from us and higher than the tops of the trees. The train follows the side of the fence for over a mile, and during all that trip that light followed along beside us. It was about the size of a football or a human head. Sparks of fire streamed backward from it like human hair. Mr. Furguson discovered it first and called my attention to it. There were five women in our party, and they saw it, too; it was very distinct. Now, how do you account for that?”

“The reflection from a lamp aboard the train.”

“No, it was not that. We put our hands to the side of our faces and looked out in such a way as preclude any possibility of being deceived by reflection.” Mr. Ferguson corroborates Mr. Parfitt’s story.

Published August 29, 1901

For several weeks past a ghost, that of a woman, apparently about 35 years of age, has held forth in the large vacant house on Fort Hamilton Avenue and Ninety-second Street. This ghost, according to the neighbors, appeared about three times a week. One night she was robed in white, stood at an open window holding a lamp, and the next night she appeared all in black. The people living in the neighborhood said that when the ghost appeared her moans were audible at some distance.

Mrs. Many, mother of Patrolman Frank Many of the Bergen street station, lives opposite the haunted house, in the same house with patrolman William Johnson of the Seventy-first Street Precinct and his wife.

Mrs. Many saw the apparition at the window several times. She told her son Frank, but he scoffed at the idea, and paid no attention to the matter at first. Later he spent several nights trying to solve the mystery of the ghost but although he would see her, but she always eluded him.

Then Detective Martin White attempted to clear up the mystery of the woman in white.

For several nights he kept vigil but failed to capture the woman.

The people living in the vicinity were greatly wrought up over the matter. The children would not go past the haunted house, and stories innumerable were continually in circulation touching upon the identity of the ghost.

Night after night residents of the town guarded the house, and they are willing to swear that no one entered or left the premises during the night. And yet the figure robed in black or white appeared.

The news of a genuine ghost haunting the old mansion in which H. Christensen, a wealthy man, who died two years ago, spread like wildfire, and many of the residents began to resurrect the story of the ghost of old Drury, supposed to have haunted the old Town Hall. Then the ghost disappeared for a few days and the excitement abated.

But last night the ghost again appeared and soon the news spread. In a short time there were fully 200 people surrounding the house to see the ghost. They were rewarded, for the woman robed in white appeared at the window, uttered a few mournful sobs and disappeared.

Detective White determined to throw some light on the mystery and broke into the house. He was followed by a hundred men and boys.

They searched every hole and corner of the house, and just as they were about to give up the hunt, White saw a woman’s foot inside the old fireplace. Stooping down, the detective discovered the ghost. He dragged her out into the room, tore away a sheet from the woman’s head, and discovered a trim, but greatly frightened woman. She was a Mrs. John Barrett, who had been making her home at the house, and the ghost business was merely a sham to keep people from entering the house.

And so the mystery of the Fort Hamilton ghost was solved.

DUMBO, Then and Now

2011-10-19T15:41:00.000-04:00

What a difference 38 years makes, huh? The top photo of Washington Street in DUMBO was taken recently by Eagle reporter Mary Frost as workers finished up laying down new Belgian blocks. The bottom photo was taken in 1973 by Henrik Krogius, editor of The Brooklyn Heights Press (a sister publication of the Eagle's). I think the stray dog really hits it home just how much this neighborhood has changed. The newly planted trees and spiffy green awnings add to the contrast.

Altered Vistas [Brooklyn Heights Press]

Calendar: Researching Your House, And The Formation of Greater New York

2011-10-14T15:02:00.000-04:00

You can learn the tricks of the history trade from a professional this Monday night (Oct. 17). At a Cobble Hill Association meeting, Historian Francis Morrone, a long-time Park Slope resident who specializes in architectural history, will lead a discussion on how to research the history of your home. The meeting is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. at Long Island College Hospital, conference room A. It is free and open to the public.

***

On Tuesday, Oct. 25, Manhattan Borough historian Michael Miscione will come to Brooklyn to discuss a touchy subject: the consolidation of New York in 1898. This was when our fair City of Brooklyn was downgraded in its autonomy to a borough. :-(
Miscione will speak about the fierce political battles that surrounded the consolidation in a lecture at the Parish House of the New Utrecht Reformed Church, 18th Avenue at 84th Street, in Bensonhurst. The lecture begins at 7:30 p.m., and admission is free.

This 1893 cartoon shows Father Knickerbocker (a mythical figure who was often used to represent New York) proposing marriage to “Miss Brooklyn”

TONIGHT: Opening of "Context/Contrast" at Brooklyn Historical Society

2011-10-06T11:09:00.001-04:00

Opening tonight at the Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS) is a new exhibit about architecture, specifically about new architecture being built in historic districts, from 1967 to the present.

A description from BHS:

"Featuring nearly forty different projects focused on the areas of Brooklyn Heights, South Street Seaport, SoHo, and the Upper East Side, Context\Contrast explores how new buildings and historic districts have learned to coexist in New York, the country's most culturally and architecturally diverse city. This traveling exhibition has been shown in New York, Washington DC, and Dallas, and concludes at BHS in Brooklyn Heights, the first historic district in New York."

As part of the exhibit, BHS is also hosting a forum on Nov. 2, at 7 p.m., which will include Otis Pearsall (who was one of the key players in getting Brooklyn Heights designated as the first Historic District), architect Hugh Hardy, Pratt Institute President Thomas Schutte, and Yolande Daniels, of Studio SUMO.

Tonight's opening gets underway at 6 p.m. BHS is at 128 Pierrepont St., Brooklyn Heights.

A Glimpse Inside 1970s Brooklyn Domiciles

2011-10-05T15:36:00.000-04:00

This post should help you quench your voyeuristic impulses, without feeling too guilty. You can peer into hundreds of Brooklyn homes of the 1970s thanks to a series of photographs taken by Dinanda H. Nooney. She took hundreds of pictures of Brooklynites in their homes between 1978 and '79. They are digitized and viewable online at the New York Public Library here and were featured this week on Gothamist.

From the library's description of Nooney's project:

"Nooney initially became interested in the borough in 1976, while working as a volunteer for George McGovern's presidential campaign. Two years later, she used the connections she had made in order to gain access to rooftops and other vantage points for a survey of the borough. She soon became more interested in the people she met and began photographing families in their homes. Many of these sitters then recommended other potentially willing subjects."

Oct 4,1955: Brooklyn Dodgers Win the World Series

2011-10-03T12:20:00.000-04:00

The 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers, winners of the World Series

Oct.4, 1955 is a somewhat sacred date in Brooklyn history. It was the day the Brooklyn Dodgers finally became World Series champions. The sweetest part was that they earned their victory against the arch rival New York Yankees, who had dashed the Dodgers' World Series dreams five times before. But not this time. And Brooklyn was granted its moment of glory just in time; the team was spirited away to the West Coast two seasons later.

Here's the story that Hearst's International News Wire sent out after the Dodgers' 2-0 Game 7 victory at Yankee Stadium on Oct. 4, 1955:

"At 3:44 p.m. (EDT) yesterday [Oct. 4], the New York borough of Brooklyn exploded.

"That was the moment the ball slid into Gil Hodges’ mitt for the final out at Yankee Stadium. The Dodgers were champs for the first time.

"From the east end of the Brooklyn Bridge, up along the Gowanus Canal and on into 'Greenpernt,' the shout went up:

"'Da bums is kings … whadda woild serious!'

"Bedlam was never like this and the ashes haven’t settled yet.

"Every auto horn in the borough began blasting, factory sirens started to shrill and the voices of the delirious multitudes became screams. The sound must have carried far across the Hudson River into Newark.

"They locked up shop, boarded up the glass fronts and went on a baseball binge — all 3,000,000 of them.

"Men and women danced in the streets. Respectable housewives threw their arms around the nearest male and kissed like so many Marilyn Monroes.

"Dodger rooters throughout the other New York boroughs went almost as crazy over the first Dodger World Series triumph.

"Telephones were jammed as every fan in Brooklyn called every other fan. Offices stopped work. Factories gave up as the workers went out into the streets to snake-dance.

"From the windows of Brooklyn’s staid board of education and courts buildings, torn-up telephone books, wastebaskets of paper and shredded newspapers, poured into the street.

"In the midst of the bedlam along Livingston Street, an old man with a long white beard and a portable radio leaned on his cane and said: 'I never thought I’d live so long!'

"A fan named Joe Flanders shouted 'This IS next year,' and cabbie Irving Davidoff predicted the series win would mean the end of Brooklyn gang wars and juvenile delinquency.

"As two chartered busses brought the Dodgers back to their Ebbets Field dressing rooms, a police escort led the procession.

"Around the Brooklyn field where the Dodgers won three straight, four cars cruised bearing huge signs: 'Podres for President … We’re in.'

"In the crowd at the dressing room entrance stood Mrs. Mildred Silverman and her 10-year-old son, Elliott, waiting for autographs.

“'Daddy’s just going to have to wait for supper tonight,' she announced.

"Anywhere in Brooklyn last night, it was 'moider' to mention 'Joisey' — or any place else as a home for the Dodgers. [Jersey was under consideration as a new home for the Dodgers]. Outside a corner bar along howling Flatbush, one Dodger partisan summed it up:

“'Yesterday dey was da Bums. Today dey’s kings. And dey’s stayin’ right here in Flatbush fer good.'”

Coney's Elephant Hotel Goes Down In Flames

2011-09-26T17:00:00.001-04:00

Coney Island's Elephant hotel towered over the seaside neighborhood before burning down in 1896.

Coney Island is home to several iconic landmarks of American recreation. The Cyclone, the Wonder Wheel and the Parachute Jump come to mind. But it’s also a graveyard of amusements — so many ostentatious attractions have come and gone, such as the Elephant Hotel.

Situated on Surf Avenue and West 5th Street, this enormous elephant made of pine and tin — often referred to as the Coney Island Elephant — burnt down on Sept. 27, 1896. The five people inside at the time of the blaze were safely guided to safety by Howard Wilson, the watchman at the nearby Sea Beach Palace.

The elephant had been seven stories high and over 100 feet long. The first floor had a restaurant and saloon, while the upper floors were used as a hotel. On the top was a howdah (a saddle used to ride an elephant), which was used as an observation deck. There was a cigar store in one of its legs and a “diorama” for panoramic views in the other.

It was built by James V. Lafferty, who built two other elephant-shaped buildings, one of which still survives, “Lucy the Elephant” in South Atlantic City. “Old Dumbo,” built in Cape May in 1884, was torn down. Lafferty actually had a patent, starting in 1882, giving him the exclusive right to make, use or sell animal-shaped buildings for 17 years.

The Coney Island Elephant cost $68,000 to build and by all accounts was a financial failure, frequently changing hands. But for years it was the most recognizable element of the Coney “skyline.”

On Sept. 28, 1896, the day after the elephant burnt down, the Brooklyn Eagle published a eulogy of sorts for the prominent pachyderm, “Loss of an Old Friend.” The writer, using delicate language, suggested the elephant did not always attract the most esteemed clientele.

'Loss of an Old Friend'

“News of the death of the Coney Island Elephant, which occurred last night at 10:30 o’clock, will be received in Brooklyn as elsewhere with feelings of profound regret. He died as a hero, not exactly like the boy on the burning dock, but faithful to those who admire and loved him and anxious even in his last moments to contribute to their happiness. It was a singularly pathetic career full of promise at the start, but marred by the intervention of events over which there could be no control.

“Born in 1876, our friend possessed qualities that attracted the attention of mankind. He stood 76 feet high in his stockings and had an appetite proportionate to his height. Barrooms and restaurants he could swallow at a gulp, as he also swallowed the men who had confidence in him as a financial attraction. The capacity of his “midst,” taken in connection with his tremendous height and the fact that he was not in the habit of wandering from his own fireside made him a sort of Coney Island landmark.

“Passengers on the ocean steamers caught a glimpse of him on their way up the channel and were impressed by the ponderosity of American institutions. They were bound to admire the majesty of his proportions just as they were compelled to express appreciation of the solemnity of his mien. It was not, however, to the plaudits of the better element that he chiefly appealed. He did not care much for the adulation of those who had tasted the civilization of European cities, or even of those who had become jaded with the excesses of our own metropolitan existence. What he especially reveled in was the gaze of the guileless, that of the inhabitants of our rural districts, who regarded him as the personification of all the virtues of city life.

“Contemplating his soulful eyes as they swept the blue Atlantic was it possible to credit the slanderous allegations that were occasionally made against him? Was it possible to believe that this innocent looking creature could be justly held up to the view as the type of all that was wicked?

“Is it difficult to select a conspicuously excellent trait among many that are about evenly deserving of commendation. Yet if we must do so we should say that the loyalty which our friend displayed was perhaps the most charming trait of all. He knew [corrupt Gravesend political Boss John McKane] in the days of his prosperity and in the days of his adversity. He was, impervious however, to the changes made by time and circumstance in the fortunes of the former Coney Island ruler, and no one ever heard him say an unkind word concerning him. It was the same, too, with other people whose acquaintance he enjoyed. His lips were closed to their faults, and no amount of persuasion could induce himself as to their shortcomings, if indeed he thought they had any.

“His end was not only heroic but spectacular in the extreme. It seemed as if he had reserved all his energies until the last, in order to make a fitting exit. Crowds came from far and near to watch his expiring gasps. The youth and beauty of Coney Island were there and its chivalry too, and the flames mounted fifty feet to the sky and lighted up the Atlantic, to say nothing of the palatial residences in the immediate vicinity, there was a general feeling of sadness. Every person in the throng felt as though he or she had lost a friend, and it was a loss of magnitude of which could not easily be exaggerated.

“It is not kind to speak ill of the dead, and that in deed is not our intention. We cannot help thinking, however, that if the deceased had not scattered his energies in so many different directions he would have attained a greater degree of success. In any walk of life he would have won distinction, but when he consented to lend himself to several lines of effort at the same time, he taxed his efforts to too great an extent. His loss, however, for this reason will not be less deplored. His career was full of usefulness and was one moreover that cannot be easily duplicated.”

Calendar: Marathon 'Song of Myself' Reading

2011-09-21T16:52:00.001-04:00

This Saturday, Sept 24. at 3:30 p.m., the Brooklyn Public Library, along with NYU professor Karen Karbiener, is holding a marathon reading of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself," which is perhaps the most revered and beloved poem of his groundbreaking book Leaves of Grass.

Karbiener will be joined by a roster of volunteers (you could be one of them!) in vocalizing the lengthy poem at the outdoor plaza of the library's central branch at Grand Army Plaza. If it rains, the reading will be moved inside to the library's Dweck Center.

To sign up to read, or for more information, contact June Koffi at (718) 230-2708 or email j.koffi@brooklynpubliclibrary.org. Leave your name, number, and your top three choices of sections of "Song of Myself."

New Book Illustrates Gowanus Past and Present

2011-09-16T13:35:00.000-04:00

These days Gowanus feels like the final frontier of Brownstone Brooklyn. Nestled as it is between two of the borough’s fashionable neighborhoods, Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, the notorious canal and its environs has peaked the interest of big-name developers and artists alike.

Since the neighborhood is beginning to turn heads, the release of the new book The Glory of Brooklyn’s Gowanus is well timed. It reminds us that, although the area has felt like an industrial wasteland for much of recent memory, there is evidence of a glorious past if you look hard enough.

There are few people better equipped to reveal that past than Brian Merlis, owner of what is believed to be the largest private collection of Brooklyn photos and ephemera in the country. He has published 22 books about the neighborhoods of Brooklyn, all of them filled with rarely seen historic photos.

But this book is a bit of a departure for Merlis. “This is more of an art book,” he explained this week while discussing the book at Park Slope’s Old Stone House.

For The Glory of Brooklyn’s Gowanus Merlis partnered with artist and educator Leslie-Arlette Boyce. It was Boyce who conceived of the book 10 years ago after being transfixed by the canal while photographing it. “I had a wonderful time getting lost in the water, in the light on the water. It’s easy to let your mind wander down there. It’s so quiet,” she said.

Dressed in a flowing white tunic and with a mellifluous and eloquent voice, she makes an odd pair with Merlis, whose bald head and Brooklyn accent peg him as a surly police captain straight out of central casting. But their artsy-gritty counterbalance forms an appropriate partnership in producing a book about Gowanus.

The book covers the important chapters of the neighborhood’s history, such as the early Native American inhabitants and their interaction with early Dutch settlers, slavery, the Battle of Brooklyn during the Revolutionary War, the rise of industry and the immigrant waves that made their home here.

This history is further illustrated through three interviews published in the book: With Susan Rapilye, a descendent of one of the earliest European families to settle in Brooklyn, with John Muir, founder of the Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment, and with Lennard “the Chicken Man” Thomas, who operates the Union Street, Carroll Street and Third Street bridges that cross the canal.

There is also a section on the emerging arts scene in the neighborhood, highlighting galleries and music venues as well as several of the artists who live in the area and who render the canal in their work, such as John Ross Michaels, Regina Perlin and Elizabeth O’Reilly.

The real strength of the book is its visual impact. It is heavily illustrated with striking photos, some of them being published here for the first time. “The point was to take people on a journey and to be historically correct and to give something beautiful to look at, despite this place being thought of as disgusting and scary,” says Boyce of the book.

There are more than 100 historic images in the book, in addition to beautiful color reproductions of paintings of the Gowanus by contemporary and historic artists. Photographic highlights include images of the Washington Park baseball stadium, which was at Third Avenue and Third Street and was home to the Dodgers before Ebbets Field was built (there’s even a photo of Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show performing at the stadium!) and early 20th century street scenes

The Glory of Brooklyn’s Gowanus is available for purchase at Book Court (163 Court St.), the two local Barnes & Noble stores (106 Court St. and 267 Seventh Ave.), The Strand bookstore in Manhattan and on Amazon.com.

Happy Birth Anniversary, Margaret Sanger

2011-09-14T16:58:00.000-04:00

Apologies for the lack of posting! BBN got married and went on a honeymoon, thus Brooklyn history has not been at the forefront of our brain. But we're back, just in time to give a nod to this extraordinary lady: Margaret Sanger, birth control pioneer. As the Eagle notes in its paper, today is her birth anniversary (Sept. 14, 1879). She was not from Brooklyn, but she did launch the first birth control clinic in the country right here in Brooklyn:

"On Oct. 16, 1916, she opened the first birth control clinic in the nation at 46 Amboy St. in Brooklyn. No fewer than 150 baby-buggy-pushing women from the Brownsville area lined up to pay a 10-cent registration fee. On October 25, policemen and, to her chagrin, a policewoman, raided her clinic. Sanger was charged with distributing birth control information and was imprisoned for 30 days."

She is pictured here leaving the courthouse in Brooklyn that Oct. 16 after being arraigned. AP photo

Remember the Battle of Brooklyn!

2011-08-11T14:21:00.000-04:00

The 235th anniversary of the Battle of Brooklyn (Aug. 27, 1776) is fast approaching. If you’re fuzzy on the battle’s details, roughly speaking, it went down like this: After ominously amassing in New York Harbor in the weeks following the signing of the Declaration of Independence, British forces came ashore in Brooklyn near present day Fort Hamilton under the command of General William Howe and streamed along Brooklyn’s rugged roadways, or “passes,” toward the Continental Army’s network of forts surrounding Brooklyn Heights, engaging in a number of skirmishes along the way.

The most northern of these routes and the least direct — Jamaica Pass — was sorely undermanned, the British learned, and so Howe sent through thousands of British soldiers augmented by Hessian mercenaries in what military historians like to call a “brilliant flanking maneuver.” The battle climaxed at the Vechte-Cortelyou house, today a museum and cultural center known as the Old Stone House at present day Fifth Avenue and Third Street in Park Slope.

There, the rebels’ General William Alexander (aka Lord Stirling) led his heavily outnumbered Maryland soldiers against the British, delaying them from reaching the Heights, so that Washington and the rest of the troops could escape to Manhattan and live to fight another day.

The Eagle just published a calendar with a whole week's worth of events commemorating the battle.

For more information on the battle itself, the Old Stone House has this great map and concise timeline of events on its website.

Pinning Down the Exact Location of Old Brooklyn Photos

2011-07-22T16:06:00.000-04:00

The New York Times Lens blog has a cool post today about a website called Historypin and the Brooklyn Museum's recent embrace of the site as a tool in identifying the location of old photos. The site uses crowd sourcing to help identify the exact location of where a picture was taken.

The museum is in the process of digitizing its collection of 19th century glass-plate negatives and so is using the site, as are other New York institutions, such as the New York Public Library, to better catalog them.

It's a fun site to play with. You can type in a place-name on their map and it will show photos that were taken in that location. There's also a timeline, so you can choose which era of photos you want to look at.

The Times has a slideshow of about 20 of the Brooklyn photos that have been added. Many of them, you will notice, were taken by my favorite Brooklyn photographer, George Bradford Brainerd.

Calendar: Researching Found Objects

2011-07-21T14:03:00.001-04:00

Historian Benjamin Feldman of the New York Wanderer blog will be at the Brooklyn Historical Society on Wednesday, July 27, to share the tale of Henry Knight Dyer (1846-1911), a Brooklyn man who rose from a modest Fort Greene home and his first job as an office boy in the Dennison Paper Products Co. to become president of that multi-national enterprise at the turn of the 20th century.

Feldman's lengthy journey into Dyer's life came after he found a diary that Dyer kept as a single 24-year-old living in Brooklyn and working in lower Manhattan. Through Feldman's blog came more information and images from Dyer's descendants. An incredible story unfolded, and a family was brought together to remedy wrongs.

Feldman's talk, titled "A Right of Return" will start at 7 p.m. Tickets are $8 and can be purchased here.

Feldman is the author of the books Butchery on Bond Street and Call Me Daddy, which I reviewed here.

Department of Defense Tells the "Hollow Nickel" Story

2011-07-20T16:08:00.000-04:00

If you see something, say something.

That's what Brooklyn Eagle paperboy Jimmy Bozart did, back in the good old days of the 20th century, when the Soviet Union was our enemy. Bozart was collecting his subscription money one evening in 1953 in Brownsville, Brooklyn, when he came upon a strange coin. Upon dropping the nickel on the ground, it split open, and inside was contained a small piece of paper with some sort of numerical code on it. Rather than writing it off as a curiosity, he took it to the police, who in turn gave it to the feds. With the help of an ex-KGB man who had defected to the U.S., they were able to crack the code, as well as bust a Soviet spy operating right here in Brooklyn, Rudolf Abel. Abel had kept a studio right on Fulton Street in Downtown Brooklyn.

The 1958 propaganda film above was made by the Department of Defense and uses the "Hollow Nickel Case" as a tool to hit home just how real the Soviet threat was. There is news footage of Abel's Brooklyn neighbors being interviewed and of the Fulton Street (now Cadman Plaza) building where he was based (the building is no longer there). The film appears to have been aimed at American industrial workers who were involved in making defense products/weapons, and emphasized the importance of keeping American technology out of the enemy's hands. Enjoy!

Also for your reading pleasure: The Hollow Nickel Case: Espionage in the Borough of Brooklyn [Brooklyn Eagle]

Calendar: Brooklyn Bridge Walking Tour

2011-07-15T15:27:00.000-04:00

On Wednesday, July 20, 7-8:30 p.m., you can take a walking tour of that most beloved of Brooklyn structures, the Brooklyn Bridge. The tour is being offered by the Brooklyn Historical Society in conjunction with Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy. The tour will explore the story of the engineers and laborers who built the bridge, the political climate in which it was proposed and erected, the technological innovations that made it possible and the cultural meaning of the bridge as one of the country's most iconic structures. RSVP is required. Email rsvp@bbpc.net.

Calendar: Whitman Event At Fort Greene Park

2011-07-13T16:28:00.000-04:00

This Sunday, July 17, from 1 to 3 p.m., you can enjoy "Walt Whitman's Fort Greene Park," a stroll sponsored by the Fort Greene Park Conservancy and The Walt Whitman Project.

Fort Greene Park owes its existence in large part to Walt Whitman’s advocacy in editorials written for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

The event will include discussions about the park, Whitman's connection to it, its role in the American Revolution and Civil War, and the Wallabout Martyrs monument. Weather permitting, the event will conclude with a walk up Myrtle Avenue to 99 Ryerson Ave., the last existing building in Brooklyn that was a residence of Walt Whitman's.

Greg Trupiano, artistic director of The Walt Whitman Project, will be the guide. The event will also feature:
Hakim Williams, actor, speaking the poetry and prose of Walt Whitman
Nicole Mitchell, contralto, singing songs of the 19th century
Brandon Snook, tenor, singing songs by Gilda Lyons and Nkeiru Okoye with texts by Whitman

Meet at the Visitors Center, Top of the Hill, Fort Greene Park. For more information, call 718-391-8824.

Amazing 11-Minute Film of San Fran Just Days Before 1906 Earthquake

2011-07-11T16:45:00.001-04:00

Ok. So this has NOTHING to do with Brooklyn. But it is beyond cool. If you caught "60 Minutes" last night then you know what I'm talking about. They did a segment on this beautiful 11-minute film shot in 1906 of San Francisco's main thoroughfare, Market Street. The filmmaker had attached the camera to the front of a streetcar and just kept filming all the way down the very long street, which is congested with pedestrians, "motorcars," cyclists, horse and buggies, etc. The result is mezmerizing. On its own, the film is an amazing find. But then a gentleman named David Kiehn researched the film and established it was shot just a few days before the catastrophic 1906 earthquake. Many of the buildings, and surely, some of the people you see here, will soon be destroyed. It's eerie to think about.

I will say this about a Brooklyn connection: If Brooklyn's traffic was anywhere near as hectic as this, then I completely understand where the nickname "trolley dodgers" came from, which if you don't know, was a moniker for Brooklynites, and is where the Dodgers baseball team's name is derived from.

Newsboys Battle For Papers, And Survival, 1903

2011-07-07T16:20:00.001-04:00

This 1903 video from the Library of Congress was most likely shot in Union Square (not Brooklyn, I know). But we found it pretty fascinating, and applicable, since Brooklyn had its fair share of these all-too-young workers. The mad rush to get the newspapers from The World truck, and the fight that ensues, sort of gives a sense of how hard up these little "strays" were.

There was actually an institution called The Newsboys’ Home, or the Working Boys’ Home, at 61 Poplar St. in Brooklyn Heights. It was run by the Children’s Aid Society and had a Manhattan counterpart at 9 Duane Street.

A May 4, 1884, Eagle article described the opening of the new facility on Poplar Street. Mayor Seth Low said at the opening, “Brooklyn has now a better right to claim its proud title of the City of Homes, since it has made provision for every waif or stray which may be cast upon its streets.”

The home had “ample provision for light and air” and included a gymnasium and a large bathroom with five private bathtubs, 24 hand wash basins and 12 foot baths. A wardrobe had 146 lockers, each with its own key. The dining room had six long tables, able to seat 125 boys. There was a reading room “where they could read or play at quiet games or rest from their daily labors.”

It cost 10 or 15 cents a night, which included supper, breakfast, use of the bath, schooling “and all that motherly care which constitutes a real home.”

According to an Oct. 8, 1877, Eagle article, there was a satellite home at 136 Van Brunt St. and a Coney Island home that was only open in the summer.

Check out this post on the Bowery Boys about the Newsboy Strike of 1899, when newspaper barons Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst "were held at ransom by the poorest, scrappiest residents of the city."

Calendar: Book Talk and Trolley Tour at Green-Wood

2011-07-05T15:37:00.001-04:00

Author Edward Kohn will give a talk about his book Hot Time in the Old Town: The Great Heat Wave of 1896 and the Making of Theodore Roosevelt (now available in paperback) at Green-Wood Cemetery on Saturday, July 9 at 1 p.m.

One of the worst natural disasters in American history, the 1896 New York City heat wave killed almost 1,500 people in 10 oppressively hot days. The heat coincided with a pitched presidential contest between William McKinley and upstart Democrat William Jennings Bryan, who arrived in New York at the height of the catastrophe. As Bryan’s hopes for the presidency began to flag, a bright, young police commissioner named Theodore Roosevelt was scrambling to aid the city’s poor. Kohn’s masterful account captures the birth of the Progressive Era and one of New York’s greatest – yet least – remembered – tragedies.

After the book talk, which will be in the historic chapel, Kohn and Green-Wood historian Jeff Richman will lead a tour of Green-Wood focusing on New York tragedies, including the memorials to those who perished in heat waves, fires, sinkings, crashes and the 1917 flu pandemic. The book talk is free; the trolley tour is $10 for Green-Wood Historic Fund members and $20 for non-members.

Make reservations here.

Below is clip of Kohn on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart talking about the book.

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Birth Anniversary of Brooklynites Lena Horne and Susan Hayward

2011-06-30T15:48:00.002-04:00

June 30 marks the birth anniversaries of two great Brooklyn-born actresses: Lena Horne (1917) and Susan Hayward (1918).

The Eagle has the scoop on both of them. Susan Hayward, who was born Edythe Marrener, has a local claim to fame almost equal in importance to her Oscar win for I Want To Live (1959). She was the first girl to deliver newspapers for the Brooklyn Eagle.

Singer and actress Lena Horne was a trailblazer for black performers in Hollywood, and starred in such films as Panama Hattie, Cabin in the Sky and Stormy Weather, as well as earned Tony and Grammy awards.

Here are videos of them doing their thing: Horne in Stormy Weather and the trailer for Hayward's I Want To Live. Below that is a newsreel about Hayward visiting her alma mater, Girls Commercial High School in Prospect Heights.

The Dangers of Fireworks, Circa 1902

2011-06-29T16:04:00.000-04:00

Wisely, authorized commercial fireworks displays in New York City are launched over bodies of water, though it took the city a while to realize this was the safest way to do it. This cartoon ran in the Sunday edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle on June 29, 1902, in anticipation of Fourth of July, with the caption “Our Annual Reign of Terror.”

Although a city ordinance at the time outlawed fireworks unless a permit was granted, those permits were granted a bit more loosely than they are today. And the large number of wood frame houses made any fires caused by the spectacles that much more dangerous.

In November of 1887, a physician living on Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights, Dr. S. Fleet Speir, had the unpleasant experience of a rocket flying right through his front door when the Brooklyn Academy of Music was lighting a display on Montague and Clinton streets. His house burned and the city was found liable for granting the permit.

Real tragedy struck, however, a few months after this cartoon appeared when on election night in Manhattan a fireworks incident resulted in the death of 13 people.

Newly elected Mayor Seth Low called for more stringent rules in granting permits and placed the authority to do so solely with the Police Commissioner. The Fire Commissioner at the time condemned the “reckless risk of life and property involved in the indiscriminate granting of permits for fireworks displays in crowded and closely built up streets in the city.” Indeed.

Winston Churchill's Mother Jennie Jerome Was Born in Cobble Hill, But in Which House?

2011-06-15T17:36:00.000-04:00

This article will be part of the soon to launch Cobble Hill History Project web site, directed by Francis Morrone (and spearheaded by the Cobble Hill Association). The reporter, Phoebe Neidl, had written about Jennie Jerome in the past and was encouraged to dig deeper into the subject by Morrone, who will be leading a tour of Cobble Hill this Sunday, June 19, 2-4 p.m.. RSVP cobblehillhistoryproject@yahoo.com.

Churchill (center) at 426 Henry St. on Jan. 7 1953. AP

On January 7, 1953, a convoy of vehicles slowly made its way down Henry Street in Cobble Hill. Several hundred people crowded the narrow street, many of them schoolchildren from nearby P.S. 29. Neighbors craned their necks out of windows into the cold winter air. “There might have been a daytime torchlight parade for all the flashbulbs that kept going off,” the New York Times observed.

The cars pulled up outside 426 Henry St. Reporters and photographers, along with members of Scotland Yard and the Secret Service all got themselves in position. And then the man himself emerged. Donning a black Homburg hat, carrying a gold-headed cane, and with a cigar clenched in his teeth, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill stepped onto the Brooklyn street and walked toward the modest, red brick house that was his destination.

Beginning in 1943, 10 years earlier, when Churchill and the Allied forces were mired in their effort to turn the tide of World War II, a correspondence began between him and the County Clerk’s office in Brooklyn, of all places.

Deputy County Clerk James Kelly believed he found conclusive evidence that Churchill’s mother, Jennie Jerome (aka Lady Randolph Churchill), was born in Brooklyn, not in Rochester, N.Y., as that city liked to claim. Not only that, he believed he had found the exact house in which she had been born.

Kelly sent Churchill a scrapbook of city records and documents, as well as notes from a published biography about Jennie, Young Lady Randolph by Rene Kraus, to substantiate his claims. And so when Brooklyn Eagle publisher Frank Schroth had the idea of affixing a plaque to the home, Churchill gave his blessing. His daughter Sarah Churchill was even there for the dedication ceremony on March 26, 1952.

Churchill himself, at 78 years old, finally had the occasion to see the house on that cold January morning in 1953, the day before he was scheduled to fly to Washington to meet with President Truman.

He flashed his trademark V for victory sign to the crowd before stepping into the home, which was draped with British and American flags, where he was greeted by owner, Joseph P. Romeo, a dress designer. Churchill’s tour of the house was limited to the ground floor. “He doesn’t do stairs,” one of his handlers informed the group.

The clerk James Kelly was also there to greet Churchill, ready once again with a presentation of documents proving the claim. Churchill reportedly signed the 1850 census record that proved his grandparents lived in that house — the record that led Kelly to believe that Jennie Jerome was born there.

Jennie Jerome, AP Photo

Before leaving, Churchill stepped up to a microphone outside and told the crowd, “I am most grateful to those who have put up this tablet in commemoration of my mother, who was born here in Brooklyn.”

When asked to compare the house with his own birthplace, the 320-room Blenheim Palace, seat of the Duke of Marlborough, Churchill replied, “I am equally proud of both.”

UNFORTUNATELY, Brooklyn’s collective face has been a bit reddened ever since Churchill’s 1953 visit. For it is generally believed we led him to the wrong house.

Most biographers now point to 8 Amity St. (which has since been renumbered 197), also in Cobble Hill, as Jennie Jerome’s birthplace, because that’s where the Jerome family was living in 1854, according to an 1854-55 City Directory. This assertion, then, depends on the truthfulness of the birth date most often attributed to her, January 9, 1854.

The confusion is understandable. Establishing exactly when and where Jennie Jerome was born has taken some diligent detective work. There are no birth records for Brooklyn before 1866, and Jennie left some misleading clues for the historians who began tracking down the details of her life once it became obvious she had given birth to greatness, when her son led Great Britain through World War II and the island nation was all that stood between Hitler and complete domination of Europe.

Jennie’s Brooklyn origins have fascinated Churchill fans ever since, in part because they are so unexpected. It means that patrician, conservative Winston Churchill, “the Greatest Brit of all Time,” has roots in the old neighborhood, so to speak.

Jennie Jerome was the second daughter of Leonard and Clarissa Jerome. Though born in Brooklyn, the lion’s share of her childhood was spent in Manhattan. The family was installed at a grand mansion on Madison and 26th Street by the late 1850s, but before Jennie was old enough to make her debut in society, she was living in Europe with her mother and two sisters.

Leonard Jerome, Winston's grandfather

Leonard Jerome hailed from Onandaga County in central New York State. He had seven brothers and one sister. His father was a farmer; his grandfather had been a clergyman. The clan was descended from French Huguenots who traversed the Atlantic in the early 1700s, and some of them had fought in the Revolutionary War.

Leonard went to Princeton University for two years before finishing at Union College, and then studied law in Albany. He married Clarissa Hall of Palmyra, N.Y., who was part Native American, at least according to family lore.

While living in Rochester, Leonard got into the newspaper business, and bought the Daily American with one of his brothers. The newspaper did well — well enough for him to invest in a telegraph company in New York, which is what prompted his move to Brooklyn in 1850.

In New York, Leonard and his brother Addison became stock market speculators on Wall Street, and in this way Leonard gained and lost several fortunes over the years. But the transience of the family’s wealth never curtailed the constancy of their indulgences.

Leonard was known as “The Father of American Turf” because he probably did more than anyone else to expand and legitimize the sport of horse racing in America. He was founder of the American Jockey Club with August Belmont and William Travers, and built Jerome Park racetrack in the Bronx, where the Belmont Stakes was originally held. He also organized the Coney Island Jockey Club, and was president of that organization until his death in 1891. For his Madison Avenue mansion, he had built an $80,000, three-story, black walnut stable.

Clarissa Jerome, Winston's grandmother

Attached to the stable was a private theater, evidence of Leonard’s other passion, music. He was an enormous fan of opera and named Jennie for the singer Jenny Lind, the “Swedish Nightingale,” with whom he was rumored to have had an affair.

Leonard enjoyed chasing women and racing yachts, but his wife longed for Europe, and in the late 1860s she moved to Paris with her three daughters, which proved a fateful move.

The Jerome women spent about three years at the court of Napoleon III before fleeing to England with the onset of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. There, they settled into the rhythms of Queen Victoria’s London. Jennie was a great beauty, spoke several languages, was accomplished at the piano, and, like her father, was passionate about horses.

In 1874, she married Winston’s father, Lord Randolph Churchill, after a three-day courtship during Regatta Week at Cowes, on the Isle of Wight, where she had made her debut the year before. Winston was born seven months after their nuptials. He was premature, though some have persisted in raising eyebrows at the timeline. She and Lord Randolph also had another son together, Jack.

Jennie’s marriage into British aristocracy thrust her into the most elite company, and among her close acquaintances was Queen Victoria’s son and heir, the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII (some say the two had an affair — it would not be the last for either of them).

She was actively involved in her husband’s political career (he was elected as a member of Parliament a few months before they were married), which meant delving into the slings and arrows of battle between the alternating prime ministers Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone. She proved an effective fund-raiser and organizer for her husband’s campaigns and edited many of his speeches. She was a “new woman” before it was fashionable to be one, her biographer Ralph Martin wrote.

Randolph’s death in 1895 hardly slowed Jennie down. In a period when most women were expected to be in mourning for years after their husband’s death, Jennie quickly sought a change of scene and took an extended trip to Paris where she took up with the American politician Bourke Cockran. (Incidentally, Cockran was known as a great orator, and it was his oratorical style that most inspired Winston’s considerable skills in this area. “He was my model,” Winston once said of his mother’s American paramour.)

Jennie launched an ambitious, conservative literary journal, the Anglo-Saxon Review, though it was short-lived. She also organized and managed a hospital ship during the Boer War, where both her sons had been in combat.

She also dedicated herself to furthering Winston’s career as writer and politician. In his memoir My Early Life, Winston wrote, “My mother was always on hand to help and advise … She soon became my ardent ally, furthering my plans and guarding my interests with all her influence and boundless energy…We worked together on even terms, more like brother and sister than mother and son. At least so it seemed to me. And so it continued to the end.”

She was youthful enough and beautiful enough to remarry twice — and to men Winston’s age! Actually her third husband, Montague Phippen Porch, was three years younger than Winston.

She was still married to Porch when in June of 1921 she slipped and fell down the stairs, breaking her ankle. Blood poisoning set in and her leg had to be amputated. After a hemorrhage, she died on June 29, 1921.

TUCKED into her New York Times obituary was this inexact statement: “She was born in Brooklyn 67 or more years ago…” The Grey Lady hewed to the 1854 birth date, but hinted at that sliver of uncertainty, which brings us back to 426 Henry St. in Cobble Hill.

The plaque on the house reads, in part: “In this House in January 1850 was born Jennie Jerome.”

This date is an error. Nobody ever thought she was born in January 1850, not even the Brooklyn clerk, James Kelly, on whose research the plaque was based. Kelly’s papers are archived at the Brooklyn Historical Society and in the Special Collections of Brooklyn College Library. Among these papers is correspondence between Kelly and Churchill’s cousin Anita Leslie in 1952, referencing the mistake. “Imagine my surprise when I beheld the mistake regarding the January insertion,” he wrote. He enclosed a photocopy of the plaque design that he had approved, which only said 1850 — no month.

Kelly was unsure of her exact birth date but believed that she was born late in 1850, sometime between October and December. This is not far off from what Leslie thought at the time. In her letter to Kelly, she put the birth date at January 1851.

This date range comes from Jennie herself, who you would think would be a reliable source. In 1908 she had released a memoir, The Reminiscences of Lady Randolph Churchill. She does not state a birth date, but in the very first sentence of the book, she wrote, “My father was for three years American Consul at Trieste, and Italy thus colored my first impression of life, although I was born in Brooklyn, in the state of New York.”

Her father was appointed Consul at Trieste in January 1852 (there are several photocopies of the State Department paperwork attesting to this in Kelly’s papers). The Jeromes had moved to Brooklyn from Rochester in 1850. So if Jennie was born in Brooklyn and then went to Italy with her parents, as she herself stated, she would have been born somewhere between 1850 and 1852.

It was this combination of facts that was the foundation for Kelly’s assertion, and which led to the plaque at 426 Henry St.

426 Henry St.

The mistake Kelly made was relying on the biography by Rene Kraus to round out his research, which later biographers have found to be riddled with errors. Kraus never states a birth date in Young Lady Randolph (1943), but he repeatedly insinuates she was born in 1850, such as referring to her as a “10 year old beauty” at an event that took place in 1860.

When Kelly found the August 6, 1850, census record that put Leonard and Clarissa Jerome living with his brother Addison at 292 Henry St. (it was later renumbered as 426), he thought he hit the mark.
Since then, compelling evidence has arisen that Jennie was born on Jan. 9, 1854, and it is generally believed that she must have been lying about living in Italy as a child. (She definitely had the timeline wrong. Her father did not serve as Consul as long as three years, as she stated.)

By the time Anita Leslie wrote a biography of her great aunt in 1969, a letter had surfaced that Jennie wrote to her mother on Jan. 9, 1888. It says, “Do you know that it is my birthday today? 34!!! I think for the future that I will not proclaim my age…” If there’s one person you can’t lie to about your age, it’s your mother.

There’s also a letter that Leonard Jerome wrote to the State Department from Trieste on May 1, 1852, in which he mentions his wife “and child,” not children (remember Jennie was the second daughter). The manifest of passengers on the Baltic, the ship the family took back to New York in 1853 lists only 2-year-old Clara with her parents. Randolph Churchill’s biography of his father adds the additional evidence of a christening mug existing in the family that was engraved “Jennie Jerome 1854.”

In the face of this mounting evidence it seems likely that Jan. 9, 1854, is her birth date, which points to the house at 8 Amity St. (now 197) as her birth place.

Although, one other possibility is out there, just to make us doubt ourselves (Jennie did like to be chased). Some biographies still claim that Jennie was born at 426 Henry, the home of Leonard’s brother Addison.

197 Amity St.

Anita Leslie, Churchill’s cousin, writes that the family was staying there after their return from Europe and then rented 8 Amity after Jennie was born. Leslie wrote, “Jennie was certainly sure of the house in Brooklyn where she was born, because she pointed it out,” and then, infuriatingly, doesn’t footnote it, so we don’t know when or how Jennie supposedly pointed the house out.

In The Churchills, A Family Portrait (2010), authors John and Celia Lee relay a story they collected from interviews with Peregrine Churchill, Jennie’s grandson (her younger son Jack’s child): “Jennie’s mother went to stay with Leonard Jerome’s brother Addison and Julia at 426 Henry St., Brooklyn. A terrific snowstorm blew up, and Clarissa went into premature labor and could not be moved. She gave birth to Jennie in their house while the snow outside was several feet deep.”

We know that Addison was still living at the Henry Street address at the time of Jennie’s birth because he is still listed there in the 1853-54 City Directory. And as Leonard and family only returned from Europe two months before Jennie’s birth, it is entirely conceivable that they once again stayed with Addison at that time before setting up house for themselves on Amity. And between Anita Leslie’s and Peregrine Churchill’s anecdotes, it would seem there is some bit of family lore about her being born at her Uncle Addison’s.

And so it seems that Brooklyn didn’t do wrong altogether by Winston when he came to visit. He may have visited the right house after all.

TONIGHT! Reading From Prison Ship Memoir

2011-06-10T13:28:00.001-04:00

In one of the darkest moments of the American Revolutionary War, captured American soldiers were jailed on British prison ships in Wallabout Bay (current site of the Brooklyn Navy Yard), where cruel and unhealthy conditions led to the death of thousands. After the war, the people of Brooklyn collected their remains, which had been buried in shallow graves along the shore, and eventually entombed them in the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument in Fort Greene Park (that tall, white tower at the top of the park).

In 1824, survivor Thomas Dring wrote a firsthand account of conditions aboard the prison ships, and his manuscript is now published in its entirety for the first time, with notes by historian David Swain.

Tonight (Friday, June 10), at Greenlight Bookstore (686 Fulton St.), Swain will read from the book and talk about the manuscript with Norman Ryan from the Fort Greene Park Conservancy, the organization that helps maintain the park and the monument. A percentage of sales of the book at Greenlight will benefit the conservancy. The event begins at 7:30 p.m.

Then on Saturday, June 11, from 1-2 p.m. there will be a walking tour of Fort Greene Park and the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument along with historical commentary and readings provided by David Swain and Greg Trupiano, artistic director of The Walt Whitman Project.

For a little background on the prison ships and the monument, read this Eagle article from last year.

Students Curate ‘Inventing Brooklyn’ Exhibit at Brooklyn Historical Society

2011-06-08T16:41:00.000-04:00

A group of Brooklyn high school students has spent the past three months tackling big questions about the borough’s history and identity.

They are members of the Brooklyn Historical Society’s Exhibition Laboratory (ExLab) after-school program, and they were responsible for curating an exhibit about the evolution of Brooklyn into the place we know today.

The result of their labor, “Inventing Brooklyn: People, Places and Progress,” opened last Thursday evening.

“Once a year we turn over the interpretive reins to students,” said Kate Fermoile, manager of special projects at the Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS). “This year they had a very difficult task, to curate an exhibit covering 400 years of Brooklyn history.”

The students hail from four local schools — Brooklyn Technical High School, Cobble Hill School of American Studies, The Packer Collegiate Institute and Saint Ann’s School. They worked with historians, exhibit designers and BHS staff to craft an exhibit that explains how Brooklyn has been shaped by its many layers of history.

The students chose objects from BHS’s collection that brought to life Brooklyn’s transformation from Native American homeland, to slave-owning colonial settlement, to immigrant destination, to the iconic, diverse locale we know today.

“It was great getting to choose every single piece that the viewers are going to see, and learning about what a complete museum exhibit should look like,” said Alex Viner, a junior at Brooklyn Tech. “And to see how Brooklyn evolved over time and to see that through these objects.”

What many of the students were most surprised to learn was that slavery had existed in Brooklyn, and to a large extent. “[Long Island] had the most slaves in the north,” said Brooklyn Tech junior Purti Parpek. “And even after slavery ended, if a person was African-American, they put an asterisk next to their names in these directories,” she said, pointing to a 19th century city directory on display with other objects in a portion of the exhibit dedicated to Brooklyn’s print media. Included also was a bounded volume of issues of the Long Island Star, Brooklyn’s first newspaper (1809-1863), and a framed front page of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle from May 24, 1883, the day the Brooklyn Bridge opened.

Brooklyn Tech junior Neil Alacha stood near a display about “Brooklyn at War,” which included a hand-sewn American flag made by a Brooklyn resident during the Civil War, as well as a musket and sword from the Revolutionary War that were excavated from the basement of a Brooklyn home, found near the remains of a soldier.

“I knew about the Battle of Brooklyn but I had no idea how important it was in the Revolution,” Alacha said of the August 1776 clash that was the first major battle of the Revolution. It was also the biggest in terms of the number of soldiers on the field.

Alacha also was interested in the letters written by Civil War soldiers, and noted that “the sense of immigrant culture was still prevalent. When people wrote home, often home was still Germany or some place, and that’s where they wanted to be. A sense of being an American didn’t develop until the 20th century.”

Francesca Soriano, a junior at Packer, was really impressed with Brooklyn’s diversity. “It was really interesting to see how many people have been here,” she said. “And to read about all the name changes [of roads and towns] and how those changed depending on who was here.”

On display were some early land deeds, such as that of John Lefferts — a reminder of where many of our street names came from — the early Dutch settlers, and that many of our neighborhood names are derived from Dutch town names, (Breukelen/Brooklyn, Boswyck/Bushwick, Vlackebos/Flatbush).

In addition to exploring Brooklyn’s evolving history, the exhibit looked at Brooklyn’s image and how it’s been reflected in the media. Acknowledging the borough’s most iconic elements, such as Brooklyn Bridge, Coney Island and the Dodgers, the students also chose to display movie posters of films shot in the borough, such as Moonstruck, It Happened in Brooklyn and Saturday Night Fever. There was also a video montage of movies and TV shows that depict the borough, as well as life-size cardboard cutouts of the characters Ralph Cramden and Ed Norton from the popular 1950s TV series, “The Honeymooners,” which was set in Bensonhurst.

Also on display was a bottle of the vodka “Absolute Brooklyn,” showing how advertisers have begun using Brooklyn in branding products.

“It was the people who really shaped Brooklyn, because people took so much pride in their borough,” said Christina Valdez, a senior at Cobble Hill School of American Studies. “We didn’t just make Brooklyn a borough, we made it a legend. Everyone uses the Brooklyn name to promote stuff. It makes me proud to be a Brooklynite.”

“Inventing Brooklyn: People, Places and Progress,” is on display on the third floor of the Brooklyn Historical Society, 128 Pierrepont St. For details on hours and admission, visit brooklynhistory.org.

100th Anniversary of Dreamland Fire

2011-05-27T11:32:00.000-04:00

Dreamland Amusement Park at Coney Island lies in ruins after a fire on May 2, 1911

Hell Gate was an indoor boat ride in the huge Dreamland Amusement Park at Coney Island. It was topped by a gigantic sculpture of a bat with its wings unfurled. About 1:30 a.m. on May 27, 1911, a fire started in the attraction and spread quickly through the park, reaching the circus area, where the one-armed lion tamer’s beasts escaped and wandered terrified through the blaze.

Toward dawn, a lion appeared at the Creation Gate, its mane on fire. It ran down Surf Avenue and into the “Rocky Road to Dublin” scenic railway where it climbed to the top of a reproduction of Blarney Castle and was shot dead with 24 bullets in its head.

The next day, the lion, whose name turned out to be Black Prince, was skinned and put on display for ten cents a look. Lion’s teeth were also for sale as souvenirs, and before long, stories were being told all over South Brooklyn of wild animals performing circus tricks all by themselves in vacant lots. Usually the person telling the story hadn’t seen them, but he had it on good authority from someone who had that a few of the escaped animals from Dreamland were still on the loose. The stories were told for years, somewhat reminiscent of the “alligators in New York sewers” stories.

Dreamland Park had opened on May 14, 1904, one of the three giant amusement parks at Coney. Luna Park and Steeplechase Park were the other two.

The Coney Island History project has launched a new exhibit about the Dreamland fire. you can read more about that in this New York Post article.

Celebrate Memorial Day at Green-Wood Cemetery

2011-05-25T12:36:00.000-04:00

If you aren’t planning on skipping town this Memorial Day weekend, you may want to celebrate the holiday as it was originally intended — by giving a shout-out to the soldiers who died fighting for our country.

And if you want to be historically accurate about it, you should go to Green-Wood Cemetery, which is hosting an extra special line-up of events in honor of the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War.

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, started as a tribute specifically to Civil War soldiers.

New York sent more troops to the Civil War than any other northern state, shipping off 448,850 soldiers to battle. And believe it or not, Green-Wood Cemetery is the final resting-place of more Civil War soldiers than any other cemetery in the North, including Gettysburg.

Green-Wood historian Jeff Richman, along with a team of volunteers, has been working since 2002 to uncover how many Civil War veterans are interred there. So far they have found 4,600. (read more about Richman's Civil War project here.)

This Sunday evening, May 29, candles will be lit in front of each and every one of those Civil War veterans’ graves. At 8:15 p.m., you can join the Grand Procession that will wind its way through the cemetery past the graves, accompanied by cavalry, uniformed re-enactors and musicians. Meet inside the main entrance at 25th Street and Fifth Avenue. Tickets are $10.

Then on Monday morning at 11 a.m. the cemetery will hold a March of Honor to the Civil War Soldiers’ Lot, where 127 Union veterans are interred. Ceremonies at the Soldiers’ Lot will include a reading of the names of some of the veterans, artillery and rifle salutes and musical tributes.

On Monday afternoon at 3 p.m. the cemetery will host its 13th-annual free Memorial Day concert, featuring the ISO Symphonic Band. Included will be melodies of the Civil War in addition to works by some of Green-Wood’s permanent residents — Fred Ebb, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Leonard Bernstein and many others.

Rounding out these events will be a Civil War exhibition featuring fascinating memorabilia such as two authentic Civil War cannons, life-sized zinc sculptures of Union soldiers and genuine Civil War uniforms. Admission to the exhibit is free. It will be open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekends and noon to 4 p.m. on weekdays from May 28 through June 12.

Find out more at http://www.green-wood.com/

New Exhibit on the Horizon At Brooklyn Historical Society

2011-05-18T16:59:00.002-04:00

A new exhibit is on the way at the Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS), which ambitiously tackles the borough's 400 years of history.

As per BHS's press release, "'Inventing Brooklyn: People, Places, Progress' traces the evolution of Brooklyn into the place we know today. From Native American roots and Dutch colonial influences to icons such as the Brooklyn Bridge and the Dodgers, Inventing Brooklyn examines how various people, places, and historical events have shaped the development of the borough."

The exhibit is part of BHS's Ex Lab program (Exhibition Laboratory), an after-school museum studies program for local high school students from Packer, St.Ann's, Brooklyn Technical High School and Cobble Hill School of American Studies. (I've been to the last two exhibits that this program put together and they were great: “Home Base: Memories of the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field” and “Pages of the Past: The Brooklyn Adventures of Jasper Danckaerts” )

Highlights will include cannonballs from the Battle of Brooklyn, original copies of the Long Island Star from 1827, Civil War soldiers’ letters, and posters from Brooklyn movies such as It Happened in Brooklyn and Moonstruck.

The exhibit will open on June 2 with a reception from 5:30 to 7:30 at BHS, 128 Pierrepont St.

Opening Day at Luna Park

2011-05-16T10:55:00.000-04:00

Luna Park, AP/Library of Congress

From the Eagle's On This Day in History Page: On May 16, 1903, the 22-acre Luna Park amusement complex opened in Coney Island. It was built as a rival to the nearby Steeplechase Park.

About 60,000 people attended the opening of “The Electric City by the Sea.” As they arrived, according to one reporter, they stopped, “rubbed their eyes, and stood in wonder and pinched themselves. They stood at the imposing gates of what appeared to be a dream city, a mysterious palace of play.”

Once inside, they discovered in the words of a New York Times journalist, “an enchanted, storybook land of trellises, columns, domes, minarets, lagoons, and lofty aerial flights. And everywhere was life — a pageant of happy people; and everywhere was color — a wide harmony of orange and white and gold … It was a world removed — shut away from the sordid clatter and turmoil of the streets.”

At night a quarter million electric lights transformed the park into a magical realm. For 10 cents admission the public could enter this magical and thrilling world, enjoy the entertainments and thrill to the rides. When Luna opened, it boasted a Venetian city complete with gondoliers, a Japanese garden, an Irish village, an Eskimo village, a Dutch windmill and a Chinese theater. Every season thereafter more attractions were added.

Luna succumbed to a series of disastrous fires in the 1940s and finally closed after the 1949 fire. It was replaced by a parking lot and later by the Luna Houses development.

On the Lecture Circuit: Great Women, Utopian Visions and an Historic Building

2011-05-04T15:09:00.000-04:00

This Saturday, May 7, Green-Wood Cemetery will hold a "Great Women Walking Tour," guiding visitors through the colorful and influential women of the 19th and early 20th centuries who are buried there. They include Matilda Tone, wife of the Irish patriot; pioneering doctors Susan McKinney Steward and Mary Jacobi; abolitionist Abigail Hopper Gibbons and actresses Laura Keene and Kate Claxton. It should be an enjoyable walk since Green-Wood is really starting to bloom right about now. The tour is led by veteran Green-Wood tour guide Ruth Edebohls. The tour starts at 1 p.m. Tickets are $15/$10 for Historic Green-Wood members.You can reserve online here or call 718-768-7300.
***
Proteus Gowanus, the gallery and reading room at 543 Union St., will hold what sounds like an interesting lecture on Tuesday, May 10. The gallery has been exploring the theme of "paradise" this year, and to that end has invited historical anthropologist Edith Gonzalez to speak about two 19th century utopian communities that were founded in New Jersey, Ocean Grove and Asbury Park. The talk will begin at 7 p.m. Admission is $5.
***
The Brooklyn Historical Society will offer tours of its beautiful 1881 building on May 15 and May 28 at 2 p.m. The striking building was designed by architect George Post and is a New York City landmark. The Othmer Library on the second floor is a particular treat. The tour is free with museum admission.

‘Bridge’ Poet Hart Crane's Dramatic Ending

2011-04-27T16:32:00.001-04:00

In the early hours of April 27, 1932, the poet Hart Crane was drunkenly raging about a steamboat crossing the Gulf of Mexico. A few hours later, he exclaimed, “Goodbye, everybody!” and hurled himself overboard in front of several witnesses. His body was never recovered.

So went the abrupt and dramatic end for this talented poet, who found his inspiration in Brooklyn. Though he was from the midwest, he spent some of his most productive years in Brooklyn Heights, and wrote one of his most memorable works, "The Bridge" about the Brooklyn Bridge.

You can read more about him (including interesting facts, like that his father invented Lifesavers) at the Eagle.

Here's an excerpt from "The Bridge:"

And Thee, across the harbor, silver-paced
As though the sun took step of thee, yet left
Some motion ever unspent in thy stride,—
Implicitly thy freedom staying thee!

Out of some subway scuttle, cell or loft
A bedlamite speeds to thy parapets,
Tilting there momently, shrill shirt ballooning,
A jest falls from the speechless caravan.

Down Wall, from girder into street noon leaks,
A rip-tooth of the sky’s acetylene;
All afternoon the cloud-flown derricks turn . . .
Thy cables breathe the North Atlantic still.

Record Breaking Day For Howard Hughes in Brooklyn

2011-04-21T13:33:00.001-04:00

From the Brooklyn Eagle's On This Day In History page:


Hughes, right, at Floyd Bennet Field on April 21, 1936. AP

On April 21, 1936, the eccentric aviator and movie producer Howard Hughes landed at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn after a record breaking Miami-to-New York flight of 4 hours, 21 minutes, 32 seconds.

Floyd Bennett Field was the first municipal airport in New York City and was officially opened in May of 1931. It was named for the aviator Floyd Bennett, who became famous as the pilot who flew to the North Pole with Richard Byrd in 1926.

Although Floyd Bennett Field never became a hub of commercial and passenger air activity, it was the home of many aviation “firsts” and record breaking feats in the 1930s, such as Hughes’ accomplishment mentioned above. In 1938, Hughes broke another record using Floyd Bennett when he circumnavigated the globe in 91 hours. (A newsreel about that accomplishment is below.)

Famed aviators Amelia Earhart and Wiley Post also used the airfield.

For many years Floyd Bennett served as a support base for the Naval Air Reserve and the Marine Air Reserve until it was acquired by the National Park Service in the 1970s. It is now a part of the National Gateway Recreation Area, and is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places. (ForgottenNY has more on Floyd Bennett Field here.)

As head of Hughes Aircraft, Howard Hughes (1905-76) was instrumental in engineering many advances in aviation, and in the process became extremely wealthy. He also owned the controlling share of TWA airlines for many years. He produced many Hollywood films, including Hells Angels and Scarface. Later in life, he was famous for being a recluse who suffered from extreme obsessive compulsive disorder.

The Academy Award-winning, Martin Scorsese-directed film The Aviator (2004) was about Hughes, and starred Leonardo DiCaprio.

On the Lecture Circuit: Genealogy

2011-04-20T16:06:00.001-04:00

Two interesting genealogy events are on the horizon, but they're on the same day so you'll have to choose.

On Wednesday, April 27 at 7 p.m., the Brooklyn Historical Society will welcome author Pearl Duncan to discuss how she traced her lineage to the Akan people of Ghana, in West Africa, and to Scottish-American nobles, related to British royals. She was able to find mixed-ancestry birth records as far back as 1726! The program is part of the historical society's Crossing Borders: Bridging Generations, a series of public conversations about mixed-heritage families, race, ethnicity, culture and identity, infused with historical perspective. It is free with the price of museum admission.

On the same day and at the same time, the Brooklyn Collection of the Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza will host Charlie Fourquet of the Hispanic Genealogical Society of New York, who will give a free illustrated talk on how to explore your Hispanic roots by using the Brooklyn Collection's resources. The event is free and open to the public.

Jackie Robinson Breaks the Color Barrier With Brooklyn Dodgers

2011-04-14T16:57:00.002-04:00

AP Photo

It was on April 15, 1947, that Jackie Robinson played his first official major league baseball game, becoming the first African American to do so. (A few days earlier he played in an exhibition game with the Dodgers, but the April 15 game was the first one for the books).

Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born in 1919, in Cairo, Georgia. At UCLA, he became the first student to earn four letters (football, baseball, basketball and track). He also served as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army in World War II.

When Dodgers manager Branch Rickey approached Robinson about playing in the big leagues, he asked whether he thought he had the patience and self-control required to withstand the inevitable racial taunting that would come along with it. Robinson supposedly sat silently for a full three minutes before telling Rickey he could. We're sure glad he felt he was up for it.

Robinson is pictured above on April 11, 1947, warming up for an exhibition game with the Dodgers, a few days before his official debut on April 15.

"Crazy Joe" Gallo's Last Meal

2011-04-07T15:34:00.002-04:00

Gallo testifying before Congress, 1959 AP

Three notable members of organized crime hailed from President Street in South Brooklyn — the Gallo brothers, Larry, Albert and Joey, the latter known with a certain amount of reason as “Crazy Joe.” (He supposedly kept a lion in his Brooklyn basement to scare loanshark victims into paying what they owed.)

It was on April 7, 1972, his 43rd birthday, that Joe met his bloody end at Umberto’s Clam House in Little Italy while dining on their scungilli marinara.

Gallo had been dining that night with his wife and with his bodyguard, Peter “the Greek” Diapoula. They managed to flip over the table and use it as a shield. But when Gallo made a run for the door, a bullet pierced his back and cut his carotid artery. He stumbled out the door and collapsed on the street.

Gallo had first made a name for himself in the mob world in 1957 when he carried out a hit at the order of mob boss Joseph Profaci against Albert Anastasia, head of the infamous Murder, Inc.

Gallo lies in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery.

It is suspected that hitman Frank Sheeran killed Gallo, but no one was ever officially charged with the murder. Before his death in 2003, Sheeran confessed to killing Gallo, and also claimed that he had killed Jimmy Hoffa.

Read more about "Crazy Joe" Gallo at the Eagle

Early Brooklyn Baseball

2011-04-06T14:45:00.002-04:00

AP/Library of Congress

So, I'm a little late to the party on the beginning of baseball season, but here's a little something to honor that occasion. What’s a baseball game without a hotdog? In this photo Dodgers fans are seen buying hot dogs from a busy vendor while waiting for the gates to open for World Series Game 2 between the Dodgers (then known as the Robins) and Cleveland Indians at Ebbets Field on Oct. 6, 1920.

The Dodgers caused a lot of heartache when it came to the World Series. They made it to the big game often enough but had a hard time sealing the deal, except for in 1955, when they took their one and only World Series championship.

But long before the Dodgers, Brooklyn was home to another baseball team, with a somewhat more consistent winning record: the Brooklyn Atlantics. They were a dominant force in early baseball, taking the championship in 1861, 1864, 1865. (Although I'm thinking the baseball-playing ranks might have been a bit thin given that there was a Civil War on.)

Below is an 1865 photo of the Atlantics in what baseball historians consider a prototype for baseball cards.

Library of Congress

Also, Just yesterday was the anniversary of the opening of Ebbets Field, on April 5, 1913. See the Eagle for more on that.

A Brooklyn Campaign Stop For Clinton

2011-03-30T13:23:00.000-04:00

Clinton greets children at Small World Day Care Center in Williamsburg.

Clinton plays a game of Bocce at the Swinging 60’s
Senior Center, also in Williamsburg.

In some ways 1992 doesn’t seem like so very long ago. A mere 19 years. But looking at these photos of a salt and pepper-haired Bill Clinton campaigning in Brooklyn on March 30, 1992, makes it feel like an age has passed. Back then 911 was nothing more than an emergency number and brick-sized car phones were cutting-edge. AOL was the bee’s knees.


Clinton with the Council of Jewish Organizations in Borough Park

Clinton was the governor of Arkansas trying to tie up the Democratic nomination in a primary against Jerry Brown when he paid his visit to the borough. He went on to win it, of course, and to beat incumbent George Bush in the general election. In some ways, maybe things haven’t changed so much. We have, after all, had a Bush or a Clinton in every presidential election since 1988.

Photos are from AP; We ran these photos on the Eagle's "On This Day in History Page" today. You can always see the latest from that page here.

On The Lecture Circuit: Beer, Baseball Greats, and Brooklyn Paramout Theater

2011-03-28T17:43:00.000-04:00

The Brooklyn Historical Society will once again host Urban Oyster's David Naczycz and Cindy VandenBosch to present "Brewed in Brooklyn: A History of Fermenting Barley in New York’s Favorite Borough." A free beer and cheese reception will precede the talk, scheduled for Thursday, April 7, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 or $15 for BHS members. They can be purchased here, and you should probably act quickly because it sold out last time. BHS is at 128 Pierrepont St. in Brooklyn Heights.

In order to properly kick off the baseball season, Green-Wood Cemetery historian Jeff Richman will be giving a tour of some of the baseball legends who are buried at the historic cemetery, such as Charles Ebbets (owner of the Dodgers), Henry Chadwick (who invented the game's scoring system) and the great hitter Charlie Smith. The tour is from 1-3 p.m. on Saturday, April 9. Tickets, sold here, are $20 or $10 for Historic Green-Wood members.

Long Island University in Downtown Brooklyn has organized a one-day conference about the Brooklyn Paramount Theater, which was bought by the university in 1950 and converted into a gymnasium. But during its time as a performance venue, the space saw a diverse array of stars, as succinctly summarized by LIU in their press release:

“In addition to moving pictures, the theater also offered great vaudeville performers, and later, major stars like Bing Crosby and Ethel Merman. In the 1950s, the Paramount created a sensation with Alan Freed’s famous Rock ‘N’ Roll show with Chuck Berry, Fats Domino and others musicals stars. The Paramount was also a central place for jazz in New York. Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald and Miles Davis are just some of the legends that performed on the stage.”

Panel topics will include "Bright for Day: Theatrical Lights, Show Business and the Transformation of American Popular Culture in Brooklyn" and "Performers and Audiences: The Making of New Americans and the Remaking of America in the Brooklyn Paramount and Other Theaters in Our Borough."

The conference will be at the theater, on the corner of Flatbush and Dekalb avenues. It is free and open to the public but reservations are required. Call (718) 488-1185 or email community@brooklyn.liu.edu.

Harry Houdini's Brooklyn Lady

2011-03-24T16:15:00.005-04:00


Harry and Bess Houdini pictured during the first year of their marriage.

Today is the birth anniversary of Harry Houdini (March 24, 1874).

Although we may think of him as a solo act, for almost the entirety of his career, the great illusionist was assisted by his wife, Bess (Wilhelmena Beatrice Rahner), a Brooklyn girl of German descent.

Harry Houdini, 1899

They met at Coney Island in 1894, where Harry was doing an act with his brother and Bess was in a song and dance act called the Floral Sisters.

They were married within weeks of their initial meeting. The tiny and nimble Bess (at five feet tall) remained his performing partner until his death on October 31, 1926.

For ten years after her husband's Halloween passing, Bess held a seance at his grave. After that time she gave up, remarking, "Ten years is long enough to wait for any man."

She passed away in 1943 while on a train from L.A. to New York.

Top photo from Library of Congress/Right photo from AP

Sarah Bernhardt in Prospect Park

2011-03-23T14:32:00.002-04:00

Here's a short but sweet video of Sarah Bernhardt — the Meryl Streep of her day (and it was a long day) — addressing a crowd of 50,000 people in Brooklyn's Prospect Park on July 4, 1917. She was advocating for French and American cooperation during The Great War, now known as World War I (we didn't have to number them back then).

The revered French actress of stage and screen was in demand all over Europe and America after her career took off in the 1860s. She acted continuously until her death in 1923, and this was even after one of her legs was amputated in 1915 due to a knee injury.

She performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, back when it was on Montague Street. On one of her trips to New York City, she had these kind words about the Brooklyn Bridge:

"Oh that bridge! It is insane, admirable, imposing, and it makes one feel proud. Yes, one is proud to be a human being when one realizes that a human brain has created and suspended in the air, fifty yards from the ground, that fearful thing...I returned to the hotel reconciled with this great nation. I went to sleep tired in body but rested in mind, and had such delightful dreams that I was in good humor the following day."

The video is from Library of Congress

On the Lecture Circuit: How to Boil Books and Fix Maps

2011-03-15T16:14:00.001-04:00

You may have read a few months back about the Brooklyn Historical Society's discovery of an extremely rare map in their collection — a 1770 map of the City of New York by Bernard Ratzer. It's only the fourth copy known to exist.

The map was in pretty tough shape when they dug it out, and so they enlisted the help of conservator Jonathan P. Derow, who employed such interesting techniques as boiling old, cloth-paper books in a pot so that he could use the resulting sludge to paint over repair lines on the map (The New York Times first uncovered this tantalizing detail).

Mr. Derow will be at the Brooklyn Historical Society this Friday, March 18 at 6 p.m. to speak about the process of restoring the map. Tickets are $20, or $10 if you are a Brooklyn Historical Society member. You can buy them here.

A Brooklyn Dodgers Football Team?

2011-03-14T18:52:00.001-04:00

From 1930 to 1944 there was a Brooklyn Dodgers football team in addition to the baseball team. In this AP photo, New York Giants halfback Tuffy Leemans breaks away for a four-yard gain against the Brooklyn Dodgers in a 1937 game at the Polo Grounds.

So much is known and talked about the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team, but did you know there was a Brooklyn Dodgers football team?

Bill Dwyer and John Depler bought the Dayton (Ohio) Triangles of the National Football League (NFL) from Carl Storck and transferred the franchise to Brooklyn. The football Dodgers played in Ebbets Field, just like their baseball counterpart, but their very first NFL game was away, vs. the Bears at Chicago’s Wrigley Field on Sept. 21, 1930. The game ended in a scoreless tie.

On Dec. 7, 1941, “a day which will live in infamy,” the Brooklyn football Dodgers were playing a game at the Polo Grounds against the New York Giants. Broadcasts of the game were interrupted by bulletins through which millions of Americans learned of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. During the second half, numerous public address announcements at the ballpark called military personnel and reservists to their units as America began the greatest mobilization in its history. (Incidentally, the Dodgers won 14-7.)

It was Nov. 30, 1930, that the Dodgers met the Giants for the first time and defeated them 7-6. But two weeks later the Giants beat the Dodgers, 13-0, at Ebbets Field, concluding a 13-4 season, the only one in which four New York-area teams (Newark and Staten Island being the other two) operated in the NFL. Green Bay took the league title for the second straight year, finishing 10-3-1, including a split of two games with the Giants.

On Oct. 22, 1939, the Dodgers played the Philadelphia Eagles in the first televised NFL game. The Dodgers won 23-14. A live audience of 13,057 at Ebbets Field far outnumbered those watching over NBC’s W2XBS.

The Brooklyn football Dodgers remained in the NFL until the 1944 season.

Is There a ‘Real’ Brooklyn?

2011-03-09T13:10:00.001-05:00

Is “gentrification” “code???”

Yeah, it’s code for “more white people are coming, get ready for the revolution.”

Is it really gentrification when a neighborhood is being repopulated and developed after years of a declining population and high[er] vacancy rates than the city average?

What’s funny is that all the neighborhoods being “gentrified” were originally white/Irish/Jewish/Italian working class neighborhoods.

So if yuppies/hipsters/etc. are moving in now, is it really “gentrification” or just a cycle of life?

This exchange by commenters on the Brownstoner blog is just a taste of the ongoing, contentious conversation about gentrification that Brooklynites have been hashing out for a long time. Years before Jonathan Butler’s popular Brownstoner blog, there was a newsletter called The Brownstoner circulating Downtown Brooklyn, right around the same time a London sociologist coined the term “gentrification” in 1964.

For decades now, Brooklyn has watched its brownstone neighborhoods be refurbished and reclaimed by a well-to-do, educated “creative class” — a process that, however good the intentions, has priced out poorer residents, kicking up all the perennial wounds and injustices associated with issues of race and class.

Enter Suleiman Osman, a professor of American Studies at George Washington University who grew up in Park Slope. He has just released The Invention of Brownstone Brooklyn: Gentrification and the Search for Authenticity in Postwar New York.

Readers hoping Osman will deliver a verdict on gentrification will be disappointed. He is a self-declared “fence-sitter,” focused more on putting the complex phenomenon in a broader historical context, and defining the brownstoner movement within the “polycultural, polycentric and polyhistorical” world that is Brooklyn.

Osman puts the origins of the movement earlier than most other narratives, as early as the 1940s and 50s. The roots of this urban revival happened simultaneously with “white flight,” deindustrialization and urban decay, he says, and the story of gentrification has been largely “overlooked” by historians.

While postwar America saw middle-class city dwellers fleeing to the suburbs, there was another contingent that ran toward the city, in search of “the authenticity they felt was lacking in the new university campuses, government complexes and corporate skyscrapers they worked and studied in.”

They were looking for a “real neighborhood.” And more than finding them, they invented them, Osman argues.

There was no Cobble Hill or Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn’s history, but the newcomers excavated Brooklyn’s past and selectively used what they found to create a new sense of place. Their mascot: the Victorian brownstone.

But behind this was a set of values that also helped reinvent American liberalism, contributing to the collapse of the Democratic New Deal coalition.

“Suspicious of the metanarratives of highways and urban renewal master plans, brownstoners and their allies championed voluntary service, homeownership, privatism, ethnic heritage, history, self determination and do-it-yourself bootstrap neighborhood rehabilitation,” Osman writes.

“This new localist version of liberalism unintentionally dovetailed with a national conservative movement that was similarly hostile to government regulation and regional planning. The result was a new type of anti-statist politics with origins in both the right and left.”

Gentrification is not unique to Brooklyn, or even New York. Osman points to Boston’s Beacon Hill, Chicago’s Lincoln Park and Georgetown in Washington, D.C. as other famous examples, and argues that such movements were taking place even in smaller cities. He cites a 1976 Urban Land Institute study that found versions of “brownstoning” in a majority of the country’s 260 cities with populations of 50,000 or more.

But by the 1990s, as Brownstone Brooklyn became dotted with cafes, chic restaurants, boutiques and yoga studios, did it lose the authenticity it worked so hard to create? Yes, critics argue. But it begs the question, what is the “real” Brooklyn that we’re trying to protect?

After reading Osman’s book, it’s clear there’s more than one answer to that question. Preferring the more organically developed, historic streets of Victorian Brooklyn, brownstoners protested large-scale, centralized developments such as Concord Village. But it was these now-cherished brownstone homes that were the culprit a century earlier.

“When one has seen one house he has seen them all, the same everlasting high stoops and gloomy brown-stone fronts, the same number of holes punched in exactly the same places,” Osman quotes a late 19th century writer as lamenting. “The new brownstone and trolley grid inspired 19th century eulogies for a real and imagined agricultural landscape,” Osman writes.

What is the real Brooklyn? Osman tells us that it might be that question itself that needs to be questioned.

Suleiman Osman will be discussing The Invention of Brownstone Brooklyn at Greenlight Bookstore (686 Fulton St.) in Fort Greene with Laurie Cumbo of the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA) on March 14, at 7:30 p.m.

MacMonnies 'Civic Virtue' To Be Taken In by Green-Wood?

2011-03-08T17:23:00.001-05:00

Our friend Frederick MacMonnies is back in the news. Though he is long dead, the artist's 1922 sculpture "Civic Virtue" just keeps making headlines. The piece, which depicts an enormous male figure standing over prostrate female figures, was intended for the fountain in City Hall, but was exiled to Queens. There were complaints as to how women were portrayed — trampled under foot as the symbols of vice and corruption.

Renewed calls that the statue has no place in the city's civic space prompted Green-Wood Cemetery to speak up on its behalf. They have expressed interest in taking the sculpture and restoring it.

"We could not stand by idle and see a major work by one of America's greatest sculptors be allowed to turn to dust," Green-Wood President Richard Moylan told the Daily News.

Maybe the move will help New Yorkers bury the hatchet once and for all. Several of MacMonnies' family members are interred at Green-Wood, which would make it a suitable home for the piece. It would be quite an addition to the cemetery's already exceptional sculpture collection.

Remembering Duke Snider

2011-03-01T14:48:00.002-05:00

AP photo

A fond farewell to the "Duke of Flatbush." The beloved Duke Snider was a key member (center fielder) of the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers — the one and only Brooklyn team to bring home the World Series championship to Brooklyn.

So sacred a figure is he to the borough that Borough President Marty Markowitz has ordered the flag atop Borough hall flown at half-mast.

Snider also has the distinction of hitting the very last home run ever hit at Ebbets Field.

He is pictured above in 1954 with Willie Mays, center fielder for the Giants (then, like the Dodgers, still a New York team). Baseball fans loved to compare and contrast the merits of New York's triumvirate of great centers - Snider, Mays and Mickey Mantle, who played for the Yankees. Snider was usually estimated at third-best, but he's always been the favorite among Dodgers fans.

Dodger Duke Snider Remembered [Brooklyn Eagle]

When Players Like Duke Snider Were Also Neighbors [New York Times]

Dodger Duke Snider Was a Star Among Stars in the Golden Age of New York Baseball [Daily News]

Dike Snider — Farewell, My Hero [Huffington Post]

Brooklyn Raised Big Money For Civil War Soldiers, And Did It In Style

2011-02-25T12:30:00.001-05:00

In 1864, the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Montague Street hosted the Brooklyn and Long Island Sanitary Fair, a fundraiser for the Sanitary Commission, which provided medical assistance to Union soldiers on the front lines of the Civil War. The fair, largely organized by women’s church committees, began on Feb. 22, 1864, and ended a few weeks later on March 8.

Two temporary buildings were erected on Montague Street to augment the academy in accommodating the fair, and the Taylor Mansion, at Montague and Clinton streets, was converted into an art gallery.

It was a tremendous success, raising $402,943.74 (millions of dollars in today's terms), and a great point of pride for Brooklyn, which had been invited to join New York’s sanitary fair, but in going it alone, outshined the metropolis across the river.

The Sanitary Fair commissioned photographer W.E. James to take stereotypes of the fair’s participants, who dressed in period costume. In addition to raising money for Union soldiers, the fair was an exhibition of great patriotism, celebrating the life of George Washington and earlier periods of American history. For example, the fair’s New England Kitchen was an ‘authentic reproduction,’ of a colonial era-homestead.

Below are some of the images that James took at the fair. They are now part of the Brooklyn Historical Society Photography Collection.

See the Eagle for some more detail on what went on at the fair and for an excerpt from the fair's newsletter, The Drumbeat.

The Brooklyn Public Library also has info on the fair with links to some of the original Eagle articles on opening and closing night.

Ebbets Field Is Demolished

2011-02-23T11:48:00.011-05:00

Today marks a sad anniversary for Brooklyn. It was on Feb. 23, 1960, that wrecking crews began demolishing Ebbets Field.

The wrecking ball was painted white with stitches to look like a baseball. (It came in a little high and outside.) Was this meant to take the sting out? The visiting team’s dugout was the first part to go. (That first smash is pictured below)

In attendance were a group of former Dodgers, including Roy Campanella, who was catcher in the last game played at Ebbets, Otto Miller, who was catcher at the first game played at Ebbets in 1913, Ralph Branca, Carl Erskine (who is pictured above palming one of the wrecking balls) and Tommy Holmes. They were joined by a group of about 200 other spectators, a paltry number considering the thousands that jammed the stands for 44 years to watch ‘Dem Bums’ play ball. Leo Allen, historian for the Baseball Hall of Fame, was presented with home plate.

The passing of Ebbets was summed up by one angry state senator like this: “What’s Niagara without the Falls? What’s Hershey without chocolate? What’s Brooklyn without the Dodgers?”

Today, the Jackie Robinson Apartments occupy the land where the team used to play.

On April 9, 1913, Ebbets Field was the most modern ballpark of its time when it opened in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, between Bedford Avenue and Sullivan Place. By the 1950s it had become the smallest field in the National League and it had become rickety. The team was losing money in New York and was sold to Los Angeles.

The last game the Dodgers played at home was on Sept. 24, 1957, and fewer than 7,000 people came out to watch Brooklyn beat the Pirates 3-0.

The game ended with Gladys Gooding playing “May the Good Lord Bless and Keep You” on the organ and then the loudspeakers rang with a recording of the Dodgers theme song: “Oh, follow the Dodgers/Follow the Dodgers around/The infield, the outfield/The catcher and that fellow on the mound. There’s a ball club in Brooklyn/The team they call “Dem Bums”/But keep your eyes right on them/And watch for hits and runs.”

When the recording ended Gooding started playing “Auld Lang Syne,” but by then the fans were carrying off anything they could lift: patches of turf, home plate and pieces of the outfield fence.

Reminder: The Brooklyn Dodgers Film Series is still under way at the Brooklyn Historical Society.

Photos from AP

On the Lecture Circuit: George Washington and Walt Whitman

2011-02-21T15:42:00.003-05:00

The Brooklyn Collection of the Brooklyn Public Library will host a lecture on Walt Whitman this Wednesday, Feb. 23 at 6:30 p.m. Professor Matt Miller of Yeshiva University will give an illustrated talk on his new book Collage of Myself: Walt Whitman and the Making of Leaves of Grass. In the first book-length study of Whitman's journals and manuscripts, Prof. Miller demonstrates that until approximately 1854 (only one year before the first publication of Leaves of Grass), Whitman — who once speculated that Leaves would be a novel or a play — was unaware that his ambitions would assume the form of poetry at all.

The Brooklyn Collection is on the second floor of the library's main branch at Grand Army Plaza. The lecture is free and open to the public.

And if you haven't had your fill of George Washington this Presidents Day, you can catch a book talk by Barnet Schecter at Green-Wood Cemetery, scheduled for March 13 at 1 p.m. in the cemetery's chapel. Schecter's latest book, George Washington: A Biography Through Maps, is a portrait of the man through the hundreds of maps he used throughout his life. The talk will be followed by a trolley tour guide of the Battle of Brooklyn, part of which was fought on Green-Wood's grounds. (The talk is free, tour is $10 for Green-Wood Historic Fund members/$20 for non-members.)

Bank Robber Willie Sutton Busted in Brooklyn

2011-02-17T15:26:00.007-05:00

I know this looks like a film still, but it's a real photo! Handcuffed and seated at right is bank robber Willie Sutton. He's being questioned by police in Brooklyn on Feb. 18, 1952, the day he was finally busted after escaping from prison five years earlier. Assistant District Attorney Thomas Cullen holds a .38 caliber automatic, which Sutton had on his person when he was arrested, and a .38 caliber revolver police found in his room. On the table is money, nearly $10,000, found on Sutton and in his room. AP Photo

The criminal career of bank robber Willie “The Actor” Sutton ended in Brooklyn on Feb. 18, 1952. He was apprehended by police after being recognized on the subway by a young clothing salesman named Arnold Schuster.

Sutton was on his way from Union Square back to Brooklyn, where he had been staying in a room at 340 Dean St., when Schuster, who had boarded the train at DeKalb Ave., recognized the famous criminal. Schuster followed him when they exited the train and flagged down two policemen.

The capture made headlines across the country and Schuster was called a hero. But the young man soon paid dearly for fingering “Slick Willie.” Schuster was murdered 17 days later, shot in each eye and in the groin while walking near his home in Borough Park. No one was ever convicted of the murder, though city lore has it that it was at the order of a mob boss who hated “squealers.”

Sutton, who had been born in Brooklyn near Prospect Park in 1901, robbed banks for decades, beginning in the late 1920s. His first robbery was reportedly at the age of 9, however, when he broke into a grocery store and took $6 from the register. Sutton claimed to have stolen $2 million during the course of his career.

Though he was arrested many times, and ultimately spent 33 years of his 79-year life in prison, he also successfully escaped prison three times, using elaborate schemes, such as painstakingly sculpting a likeness of his head out of bits of plaster and laying it on his cot so that guards would think he was still safely incarcerated rather than running to freedom.

When Sutton was captured in Brooklyn in 1952, he had been on the run since his last escape from prison, in Pennsylvania in 1947 (in which he and other prisoners fled dressed as prison guards.) He was put on the FBI’s Most Wanted List in 1950.

After his Brooklyn arrest, he was sent to Attica prison, from which he was released in 1969, sick with emphysema.

Once when a reporter asked Sutton why he robbed banks, he famously retorted, “Because that’s where the money is.” Sutton later said these were not his words, but it didn’t stop him from releasing a book titled Where the Money Was, which was written with Edward Linn and published in 1976. He also co-authored the book I, Willie Sutton.

In its obituary of Sutton, the New York Times described his robbery technique:

“Although early in his career he robbed jewelry stores, it was banks that presented irresistible challenges to him. Often, according to the police, he would leave a bank with a cheering admonition for his frightened victims: ‘Don’t worry, the insurance will cover this.’

“The bank-robbing technique he evolved, beginning in the early 1930s, has been widely copied. First, he would study a bank carefully until he learned how many employees worked there, when they arrived for duty and what their duties were.

“He invariably entered the bank after the arrival of the first employee, usually a porter or guard, then welcomed the other employees at gunpoint. When the manager arrived, he would warn him that his employees would be the first to be shot if there was trouble. The robber and his helper or helpers were always gone before the bank opened for public business.”

Sutton was known as “The Actor” because he often perpetrated his hold-ups disguised as a bank guard, window cleaner, maintenance man, policeman, etc.

The Times obituary also described how this technique evolved: “He was walking down Broadway one day and, at a bank, noticed that the guards looked not at the faces but at the uniforms of messengers and armored-car guards arriving at the bank. Dressed as a Western Union messenger, he got into the bank, and handed a fake telegram to a guard. ‘As soon as both his hands were occupied, I merely reached down and lifted his revolver out of its holster,’ Mr. Sutton later recalled.”

Willie Sutton died on Nov. 2, 1980, in Florida. His body was sent back to Brooklyn and he was buried in the Sutton family plot at Holy Cross Cemetery.

Fort Greene Memoir

2011-02-16T18:14:00.005-05:00

The New York Times Local blog ran this lovely memoir by Naima Coster about growing up in Fort Greene in the 1980s and 90s. Needless to say, the old neighborhood changed a lot while she was away at Yale for college.

As for me, I'm a newbie. I'm a gentrifier. I'm not from Brooklyn, but it's been my home for about eight years now and I love it. And unlike a lot of Brooklyn natives, who are seeing their homeland transformed before them, I enjoy seeing all the new shops open and seeing the streets change (though I'm pretty passionate about most of the the old buildings and the past in general, if that's not obvious, and don't want it messed with too drastically.)

But having lived in Buffalo, where people would beg for the kind population-swelling development happening here, I'm not inclined to see gentrification as an altogether bad thing (which I don't think Coster does either).

“Decline and renewal often are simultaneous processes," my friend Francis Morrone, a local historian, said. And I more or less take that view of things.

But I bring all this up because Coster made me ache for her Fort Greene, not mine. Which tells me it's a pretty well-written, thoughtful piece. I suggest you give it a gander.

MURDER! Lovers’ Tryst Ends in Tragedy

2011-02-15T16:41:00.005-05:00

The front page of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle of Feb. 16, 1902, was dominated with news of the murder of 20-year-old Walter S. Brooks, a young man from Brooklyn who had met some acclaim playing football for Brooklyn Boys High School before going into the dried-fruit business in Manhattan.

All evidence pointed to Florence Burns (pictured at left), a beautiful 19-year old girl from Flatbush who had been having an affair with Brooks for the previous four months. Brooks had tried to break it off with the girl, according to friends, but she had been madly in love with him and resisted every attempt to sever their ties.

The young man was found unconscious in a hotel room at the Glen Island Hotel in Manhattan. Earlier that evening the couple had checked into the hotel as “J. Wilson and wife, Brooklyn, N.Y.”

“The bell boy, who showed them to their room, has identified Florence Burns as the woman who went to the room with Brooks. The identification was complete and positive. He picked her out of a number of other women without the slightest hesitation,” the Eagle reported.

Burns denied having gone to the hotel with Brooks, claiming to have gone home to Flatbush at 6:30 p.m. However, “No one saw her at her father’s home until this morning, and her declaration is the only proof she has,” the article stated.

“The beautiful Brooklyn girl sat unmoved throughout the ordeal of a ‘third degree’ investigation by the police. She was as calm and cool as the big, stern police captain and the iron-hearted detectives who tried to make her confess. If the murder of the man she loved caused any emotion in her heart, there was no indication of it in the almost smiling face or the innocent blue eyes that met her accusers so frankly, yet so firmly,” the Eagle wrote.

Adding to the appearance of her guilt was the testimony of Brooks’ closest friend, Harry Cohen, who said that Brooks had frequently told him he expected the girl to kill him. He said that she had threatened that if he didn’t marry her, he would never marry anyone. ‘Well, Harry, I’m going out to get shot tonight,’ he had said on a recent evening that he went out to meet her.

The body had been discovered by the same bellboy that showed them to their room (whose name was George Washington, oddly enough). He approached the room a little after 11 p.m. because he was concerned about the overwhelming smell of gas emanating from within it. He opened the door to discover the gas turned all the way up and Brooks lying unconscious on the bed. He immediately summoned help.

At this time Brooks was still alive, and amazingly the doctor who came to the scene, Dr. John Vincent Sweeney, did not surmise that Brooks had also been the victim of a gunshot wound, thinking the blood coming from his head was the result of a superficial wound. He simply administered “restoratives” and left him to rest for the night. The next morning, when it was realized his injuries were more serious, Brooks was taken to the hospital. It took the ambulance two hours to arrive, and Brooks died at 11 a.m. (It’s hard to say who was more responsible for Brooks’ death, Ms. Burns or the medical professionals who should have saved him!)

But one crucial piece of evidence was missing from the scene. The revolver was no where to be found.

Over the next few months, other circumstantial evidence surfaced that pointed to Burns’ guilt. A comb was found in the hotel room that an acquaintance claimed belonged to Burns. Also a train conductor swore that she was on his train at about 11:45 p.m. at the Brooklyn Bridge, which would have fit the time frame of the murder, which is believed to have happened around 11 p.m.

But without a “smoking gun,” so to speak, Ms. Burns was released from jail on March 24 of that year, according to an Eagle report. And on May 20, she was exonerated of all charges.

Though there was a lack of legal evidence, the Eagle reported, there was “widespread moral conviction that Florence Burns shot Brooks.”

After the murder investigation was behind her, Ms. Burns tried to take her now recognizable name from headlines to headliner. The Eagle reported she made her vaudeville debut on Dec. 15, 1902, at Hyde & Behmen’s theatre. The Eagle’s review: “A decided failure from every standpoint. She didn’t even gratify the curiosity of the multitude that had jammed itself into the theatre to see her. She was off the stage almost as soon as she got on it. The audience seemed relieved when she left the stage, for her effort was pitiable. She almost collapsed, not from fright, but from sheer inability to go through her act.”

St. Valentine's Massacre and other Violence

2011-02-14T11:48:00.003-05:00

This was the gruesome scene in a garage on the northside of Chicago following the Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1929.

Seven members of Bugs Moran’s gang were gunned down. The slaughter was long assumed to be the work of the Brooklyn-born gang leader Al Capone. But Capone was never charged with the crime, and a new book about the arch criminal (Get Capone, 2010) by Jonathan Eig uses never-before-revealed FBI files to make the case that Capone was not behind the massacre. The book points instead to a notorious gunman named William White who was most likely seeking revenge for the Moran gang’s murder of his cousin William Davern. (Read more about Eig's Capone revelations here.
Photo from the Bettmann Archive

Apparently, this wasn't the first violent Valentine's Day on record. According to NPR, the holiday has very dark roots. Read up here on The Dark Origins of Valentine's.

Edison Video of the Brooklyn Bridge

2011-02-11T17:17:00.004-05:00

Today is the birth anniversary of Thomas Edison, whom we have to thank for such things as lightbulbs, the motion picture camera and all sorts of innovations having to do with the generation of electricity. So you should check out this sweet video he took while crossing the Brooklyn Bridge in 1899.

Discovering the Beauty in Central Brooklyn Neighborhoods

2011-02-11T15:00:00.005-05:00

The New York Times Lens blog has a great Q&A with Brooklyn photographer Russell Frederick. He has been documenting the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood since 1999. I loved how he described his motivation for the project:

"The motivation behind it was really that when I told people where I lived, they would cringe as if Bed-Stuy was this place where I had to wear a helmet and a bulletproof vest. They assumed it to be this slum or this place that was just a war zone. And it actually was completely the opposite.
I might see images of robberies, shootings and acts of violence in Bed-Stuy, but never did I see images of the sweet things about the community. Images about the love, about family, about the diversity, about the good people, about all of these wonderful things that actually take place in the community. It is so rich with history. I mean Spike Lee, Lena Horne, Chris Rock, Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z, Earl Graves and even Jackie Gleason lived in Bed-Stuy."

The Times also posted a photo gallery with some of his work. Beautiful stuff. And kudos to Mr. Frederick for enriching the historical record being created about Bed-Stuy's recent history.

As a resident of Crown Heights, I think I've seen that same cringe on people's faces that Frederick refers to. Many still associate the neighborhood with the riots in 1991. But it's really a great place to live.

Soon after I moved to the area a few years ago, I had the pleasure of hearing Wilhelmena Rhodes Kelly lecture on its history at the Brooklyn Public Library. She's written books about both Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights for the Images in America series (Arcadia Publishing). (Read more about that here).

She seemed to have the same misgivings about how her neighborhood is portrayed. “Tragedy and loss of life have always dominated the media, and this unfortunate neighborhood incident [the riot] proved to be no exception,” she writes, adding, “Crown Heights is, and remains, an American location of beauty and promise, with a dynamic history that is, and hopefully continues to be, a glowing example of multicultural successes and unlimited accomplishment.”

I'll drink to that.

Anniversary of Arthur Miller's Death

2011-02-10T17:55:00.005-05:00

Today is the anniversary of playwright Arthur Miller's death. He passed away at his home in Connecticut on Feb. 10, 2005 at the ripe old age of 89. He is pictured in this AP photo in 1959 with his then wife Marilyn Monroe.

Though born in Manhattan, Miller was raised in Brooklyn and spent many of his adult years in the borough as well.

The Brooklyn Eagle has more on his career (the highlight being "Death of a Salesman") and his time in the Brooklyn.

Death of a Playwright [Brooklyn Eagle]

Brooklyn Dodgers Film Series at Historical Society

2011-02-08T15:47:00.004-05:00

If you're in eager anticipation of the baseball season, there are some upcoming events at the Brooklyn Historical Society that may help you bide your time, especially if you are, or ever were, a Dodgers fan.

In conjunction with their exhibit, "Home Base: Memories of the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field," the historical society will be hosting a Brooklyn baseball film series, screening three documentaries about the beloved team.

On Sunday, Feb 20 at 2 p.m. will be The Brooklyn Dodgers: An American Treasure. On Sunday, Feb. 27 at 2 p.m. will be The Life of Jackie Robinson. And on Sunday, March 6 at 2 p.m. will be Dem Bums: The History of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

All screenings are free with admission to the historical society, 128 Pierrepont St. in Brooklyn Heights.

Preceding the film series will be a a lecture on Saturday, Feb, 19 at 2 p.m. by historian John Zinn on the legacy of Charles Ebbets, who of course owned the Brooklyn Dodgers and built Ebbets Field.

L.A. Dodgers To Honor Their Brooklyn Roots With Old Uniforms

2011-02-07T16:08:00.005-05:00

This news came in to the Brooklyn Eagle today from the AP:

The Los Angeles Dodgers will wear throwback uniforms honoring their Brooklyn roots for six games during the upcoming season.

The team is asking fans to pick from among three uniform choices.

Fans who vote online at www.dodgers.com/throwback from Feb. 7-17 can pick between uniforms that the team wore in 1911 (shown above) or 1931 or during the 1940s.

The winning uniform will be announced on Feb. 25.

The Dodgers will wear the uniforms for the first time on April 21 against the Braves, the anniversary of the franchise's first victory, which also came against the Braves in 1890.

This Just In: Ratzer Map Will Be On View Until May!

2011-02-02T18:29:00.004-05:00

The Brooklyn Historical Society released this press release on Wednesday:

Due to popular demand following the front page New York Times article about the Ratzer map that ran on January 17, 2011, the recently restored 1770 map is now on view to the public between February 2 and May 1, 2011. The map is available for viewing during the Brooklyn Historical Society's hours as follows: Wednesday-Friday and Sunday, 12pm-5pm and Saturday, 10am-5pm. Museum admission is free for BHS members; $6 for adults; $4 for teachers/students/seniors; children 12 and under are free.

While bringing our collections out of deep storage, we came upon an extremely rare map of New York City made by Bernard Ratzer in the late 1760s – only the fourth known copy of the map in the world. The map was in horrible condition. Varnished more than 200 years ago, it was discolored and brittle, with horizontal cracks every few inches along the entire map. Happily, our professional archive team sprang into action, and got the map to a conservator who first took emergency measures to stabilize it, and after 12 weeks returned the map to a magnificently conserved state.

Drinking on Sunday? Yes Please, says Brooklyn

2011-02-02T15:17:00.006-05:00

On Feb. 2, 1902, a front-page story in the Brooklyn Eagle reported that “Three of Each Four Voters Favors Sunday Saloons.”

A few years earlier, New York State passed the Raines Law (named for Republican State Senator John Raines), which prohibited the sale of alcohol on Sundays, except in hotels. This prompted many saloons to throw together some rooms for rent, which in turn was believed to increase prostitution.

The Eagle took it upon itself to canvass 5,000 Brooklynites, "representative of all classes and sections of the borough," to assess their feelings on the matter. It was conducted during the evening rush hour at various ferry terminals along the waterfront.

Half of respondents wanted their liquor on Sundays, but they were in favor of restricting sales during church service hours. About a quarter wanted unrestricted access to liquor on Sundays. And another quarter wanted absolute restriction on Sundays.

Of course, the sale of alcohol became completely illegal all over the nation during Prohibition (1920-1933), but this led to unprecedented corruption. And the government learned to let people have their drink.

The sale of alcohol on Sundays remains restricted in some way in many parts of the country. It was only within the past decade that liquor stores were allowed to be open in New York state.

Need to Brush Up on Beecher?

2011-02-01T15:44:00.006-05:00

Brownstoner's Montrose Morris just wrapped up a three-part tract on Brooklyn's famous 19th century preacher Henry Ward Beecher. Relying heavily on Debby Applegate's 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, The Most Famous Man in America, Morris gives a thorough run down of Beecher's highs and lows, i.e., being an extraordinarily effective abolitionist and being a philandering hippocrite.

Morris' introductory paragraph gives a good sense of the drama and scandal that defined Beecher's life:

..He was an amazingly complex man, with the religious zeal of a Billy Graham, the oratorical gifts of a Martin Luther King, Jr., the showmanship of a P.T. Barnum, and the marital infidelity and scandalous downfall of a Tiger Woods. Add to that the societal mores of Victorian Brooklyn, a couple of enemies looking for weakness, an eager press, and you’ve got the makings of a great tale...

It's a good read. Part 1, Part II, Part III

Ratzer Map Makes its Debut, And You Can See It, Too

2011-01-20T17:49:00.005-05:00

It’s been a busy week at the Brooklyn Historical Society. Although many treasures are stored in its collection, it’s not every day the society debuts an extremely rare and beautiful map of New York City.

On Wednesday night, the society’s members and a few other lucky souls were treated to a private viewing of “Plan of the City of New York,” made by British army lieutenant Bernard Ratzer in 1770.

Passing around a magnifying glass, the crowd eagerly gathered around the map, which was framed behind glass and laid out on one of the large wooden tables in the society’s Othmer Library.

“Ooh, is that an orchard where my house is now?” one woman asked, while noted Brooklyn preservationist Otis Pearsall leaned in for a closer look at Red Hook Lane, a road jutting off of Fulton Street (called “Road to Flatbush” on this map) that once ran all the way to Red Hook.

One of the oldest streets in Brooklyn, all that now remains of the Native American trail is a little one-block, diagonal street connecting Fulton Mall to Livingston Street, and even this is not long for the world. The city officially removed it from the street map a few years ago so that it could be developed.

Rural Brooklyn did not yet have the street grid that Manhattan had, but there were a few manmade Brooklyn landmarks that Ratzer included, such as “Remsen’s Mill,” which was near Wallabout Bay (by the Navy Yard), “Brookland Ferry” – what we know as Fulton Ferry Landing – and Philip Livingston’s Distillery, on the waterfront roughly where Joralemon Street is today. “Brookland Parish” was also scrawled near where the Dutch Reformed church stood.

This is only the fourth copy of this 1770 version of the map known to exist. The New-York Historical Society owns two copies, one of them illegible, and the British Library owns one copy, which had belonged to King George III.

“It’s one of the greatest maps of the city ever drawn,” said historian Barnet Schecter, citing its “realistic detail, cartographic intelligence and sheer beauty” at Wednesday night’s viewing.

“The map tells us about New York’s very special role in the British Empire,” explained Schecter, author of The Battle for New York: The City at the Heart of the American Revolution and George Washington’s America: A Biography Through His Maps. The city was “the center of gravity for the British presence on the continent.”

An exquisite map including a striking pictorial of New York as viewed from Governors Island, it’s almost eerie to think about for what purpose it was likely commissioned. It came on the heels of another map, by John Montresore, commissioned by Thomas Gage, Britain’s commander- in-chief of North America, in the aftermath of the unrest spawned by the Stamp Act. The slide toward war had begun, and “New York was the greatest strategic prize of the Revolution,” Schecter said, and the Hudson River was the “key to the continent.”

Jonathan P. Derow, the paper conservationist based in Park Slope who restored the map, was also at the society on Wednesday, recounting the painstaking process of repairing it. The map was yellowed, shellacked, brittle and torn. It had been rolled up and completely forgotten about in the society’s collection for an unknown number of years. Exactly how it came into their possession remains a bit of a mystery, but there is a big clue. On the back of the map was written the name “Pierrepont.”

It’s a familiar name to just about any Brooklynite, if not because they know the family, then because they know the street in Brooklyn Heights, on which the Brooklyn Historical Society is located. The Pierreponts were one of the early great families of the city and are largely responsible for developing Brooklyn Heights into “America’s first suburb,” as well as being founders of Green-Wood Cemetery and – you guessed it – the Brooklyn Historical Society.

“We have a significant amount of Pierrepont material and we’re trying to figure out when the map came in…It sort of brings out the detective spirit,” said Deborah Schwartz, president of the Brooklyn Historical Society.

For a brief time longer, the map will be on view at the historical society library, and then it will be returned to storage until they can arrange for a proper exhibition space, which could be more than a year, Schwartz said.

So time is of the essence. The map will be available for viewing Friday (Jan. 21) from 1 to 5 p.m. and then again next Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (Jan. 26-28) from 1 to 5 p.m. Admission to the library is $6, $5 for students and seniors. The address is 128 Pierrepont St.

See this previous post for more info.

Churchill's American Family

2011-01-18T14:20:00.014-05:00

“Newspaper editor, lawyer, turfman, financier.” All of these titles applied to Leonard Jerome (pictured at left), and they were indeed listed in the Brooklyn Eagle’s obituary of the man, on March 4, 1891. But they omitted what would be his most notable claim: Grandfather to Winston Churchill.

Of course, it was of no fault to the paper. They had yet to know of what consequence Churchill’s life would be. When his American-born maternal grandfather died, Churchill was only 17 years old – and yet to be a soldier, writer, historian and politician. Yet to be the intrepid, inspiring, tireless Prime Minister of England during World War II, when the island nation was all that stood between Hitler and complete domination of Europe.

We can perhaps attribute a bit of that grit and determination to his mother, who was, believe it or not, a Brooklyn-born gal. This comes as a shock to some – there just doesn’t seem room in his upper-crustness for Brooklyn roots. But, of course, Jennie Jerome was no ordinary Brooklyn girl. She was the daughter of a very wealthy man, Leonard Jerome.

But this very wealthy man had fairly meager beginnings. Born in 1817, Leonard Jerome grew up in Pompey, NY, in Onandaga County in central New York state. He had seven brothers and one sister. His father was a farmer; his grandfather had been a clergyman. The clan was descended from French Huguenots who traversed the Atlantic in the early 1700s, and some of them had fought in the Revolutionary War. Leonard’s mother, Augusta Murray, was “of a family honored in the county.”

His road to success began at Princeton, which he attended for two years before finishing at Union College. He then studied law for three years in the offices of John C. Beach and Marcus T. Reynolds in Albany.

He married Clarissa Hall of Palmyra, NY (Winston’s Grandma!), who may have been part Native American, at least according to family lore. (She's pictured at right).

In Rochester he got into the newspaper business, starting the Daily American with one of his brothers. The newspaper did well – well enough for him to invest in a telegraph company in New York, which is what prompted his move to Brooklyn in 1850, according to Elizabeth Kehoe’s biography of the family, The Titled Americans.

Leonard’s brother Addison soon joined him and they entered Wall Street, working full time in stock market speculation. At one time Jerome’s wealth was estimated at $10 million, though he suffered many “reverses” and was said to have gained and lost several fortunes over his lifetime.

In 1852 he took a position as consul to Trieste, Italy (then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire).

His second daughter, Jennie, may have been born, on Jan. 9, 1854, but there is some debate over what year she was born. Most biographies, including England’s Dictionary of National Biography, have her born in 1854. But a plaque commemorating her birth at 426 Henry St. in Cobble Hill says she was born in 1850. This is based on research done by Borough Historian James A. Kelly around 1952, when the plaque was dedicated. The 1850 birth date is corroborated by details in Jennie Jerome’s own memoir, in which she says her earliest memories are of being in Italy when her father was consul in Trieste, which, as stated above, was from 1852-53, before her supposed birth date of 1854.

In any event, they stayed in Brooklyn for a few more years, until 1858, when Leonard moved the family, now including three daughters (though some believe he may also have been the father of opera singer Minnie Hauk), to a grand home at 26th Street near Madison Avenue in Manhattan.

A contemporary of Jerome’s said that no man “ever became more completely a New Yorker.”

He maintained an interest in the newspaper business and owned a large part of the New York Times early in its existence. He was passionate about horse racing, and his name was once synonymous with “the turf.” He organized the Coney Island Jockey Club, and was president of that organization until his death in 1891. He was also founder of the American Jockey Club with August Belmont and William Travers, and built Jerome Park racetrack in the Bronx (pictured at right). The Belmont Stakes race was originally held at this track.

He was also a great lover of opera, and helped found the Academy of Music in New York, one of the city’s first opera houses, and the city’s “sanctum sanctorum of high culture,” according to Edwin Burrows’ and Mike Wallace’s Gotham.

In the 1860s, Clarissa left for Paris with the couple’s three daughters (reasons for this vary: some say she was ill and wanting a specific Parisian doctor’s services, others that she and Leonard separated, still others that it was just her love for the city). Whatever it was, the move proved fateful. All three of her daughters would marry titled Brits, most famously, Jennie. She met and married Lord Randolph Churchill (at left) in 1873 and Winston was born in 1874.

Her older sister Clara married Moreton Frewen and the youngest sister, Leonie, married Sir John Leslie.

Jennie (at right) was a great beauty and a wit, fluent in several European languages, and was quickly enmeshed with the most exclusive social circles. She was close with Queen Victoria’s eldest son Edward (who succeeded his mother in 1901 and became King Edward VII, namesake of the Edwardian era) as well as an active supporter of her husband’s and later her son’s political careers.

For a dishy who’s who of late 19th century Europe, peruse her memoir, The Reminiscences of Lady Randolph Churchill.

Toward the end of his life, Leonard Jerome was in a financial downswing. A February 1887 Eagle article reported that he had taken to leasing the family’s New York home to the University Club.

“It’s rental is almost his only income and all that is left to maintain the mere shadow of what was once almost a regal state when he led society and the sporting world and when Jerome Park course was named for him. Now he alternates between New York for enjoyment and London for economy, staying while there with his daughter, Lady Churchill.”

The article goes on to report difficulties in Lady Churchill’s marriage. “Poor Jerome, who like many another American, has learned that the position of father-in-law to an English noble is a position full of difficulties and a small very unsatisfactory share of barren honor.”

Leonard Jerome died in Brighton on March 4, 1891, when Winston was only 17, so he knew not what his progeny would accomplish. The Eagle later reported that Jerome had “expressed the wish during his last illness that he might be taken back to Brooklyn to die. When made aware that this was impossible, he desired that his body might be brought home and placed in the family vault at Green-Wood.” It arrived in New York on August 5, 1891 and was interred as he requested.

When Lord Randolph died in 1895, Jennie remarried five years later to a man the same age as Winston, George Cornwallis-West. They divorced in 1912 and in 1918 she married Montague Phippen Porch, a member of the British Civil Service.

Jennie Jerome died on June 9, 1921.

Supposedly Winston was deeply proud of his American heritage and hung portraits of his American grandparents in his home in London.

In his first address to a joint session of the United States Congress, on Dec. 26, 1941, he told the assembly, “If my father had been American and my mother British, instead of the other way ‘round, I might have got here on my own!”

Churchill served as Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951- 55. He was the recipient of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1953.

President Kennedy made him an honorary citizen of the United States in 1963.

Winston Chuchill died on Jan. 24, 1965.

In a 2002 BBC poll, he was voted the “greatest Brit of all time.”

Images from The Reminiscences of Lady Randolph Churchill, except for Jerome Park photo, which is from Library of Congress via Wikipedia.

Looking For Mr. Block

2011-01-18T12:51:00.003-05:00

Elizabeth Block of Toronto, Ontario wrote in to the Eagle asking for any memories people may have of her father, a popular junior high school teacher in Brooklyn during the 1940s and 50s. Here's the letter, and you can reach her at elizabethblock@netzero.net.

My father, Arthur Block, died several years ago. In the late ’40s and early ’50s he taught in a Brooklyn junior high school, and as he did all his life, he wrote musical shows, for the kids in his class to perform.

For instance, there was a revue, set in Prospect Park, called “Spring in Prospect.” One of the songs, sung by a sanitation worker with a bag and a pointed stick, was called “Business is Picking Up (Picking Up After You).” It is delightful, and, I’m afraid, as relevant as ever.

The New York City Board of Education has his files, but I’m afraid they are not in good shape. In those days, no one had heard of acid-free paper, and cassette tapes were years in the future.

I wonder if there are people out there who were his students and remember his songs?

The Fabulous Ratzer Map

2011-01-17T11:40:00.006-05:00

The New York Times posted a cool story this morning about a very rare map in the Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS) collection that was only just rediscovered and restored (a before and after photo is above). The 1770 map by Bernard Ratzer is titled "Plan of the City of New York." The only other institutions to have copies are the British Library and the New-York Historical Society.

I wrote a story about BHS in December that included the discovery of the Ratzer map that you can read here. The map was discovered thanks to a grant that BHS received that is allowing them to go through their archives and reacquaint themselves with what they really have, and write new, detailed descriptions of it to update their catalogue.

Here's a description of the Ratzer map as per the Times:

The map included a detailed rendering of the island’s slips and shores and streets in Lower Manhattan, the familiar mixing with the long gone. Pearl, Broad, Grand and Prince lay beside Fair and Crown and the “Fresh Water” pond.

“Manhattan, at least the part shown here, was mapped as precisely as any spot on the Earth at the time,” said Robert T. Augustyn, co-author of ”Manhattan in Maps: 1527-1995” (Rizzoli International Publications, 1997). “There was no more beautiful or revealing a map of New York City ever done.”
There are notable buildings: “The Powder House,” “The City Hall,” “The Prison,” “The Theatre.” Mr. Ratzer included detailed topography, with hills and woodlands near Kips Bay and Turtle Bay that have disappeared...
The bottom of the map contains a striking illustration of the view of Manhattan as seen from Governors Island, with ships, soldiers, waves and smoke. Brooklyn, or “Brookland,” is a patchwork of farms of different shades, bisected by Flatbush Road.

Green-Wood Cemetery Emerges as Destination for Civil War Buffs

2011-01-03T15:44:00.005-05:00

Green-Wood Cemetery has long been known as the burial ground of many a famous New Yorker, ranging from artists such as Jean Michel Basquiat and Leonard Bernstein, to notorious politicians such as William “Boss” Tweed.

But in recent years, Green-Wood has also emerged as a surprisingly rich repository of Civil War history, thanks largely to the work of Green-Wood historian Jeff Richman and his army of volunteers.

“The word is spreading slowly but surely in terms of us being a Civil War location,” says Richman.

Through eight years of research, he has come to discover that 4,500 Civil War veterans are laid to rest at Green-Wood, with 18 generals among them. He estimates that only Arlington and West Point probably have more generals from that war.

“We’ve definitely had an increase of Civil War roundtables coming to visit. I’ve done a number of tours for these groups,” Richman says.

When the cemetery restored a Civil War monument in 2002, it triggered something for Richman, long a Civil War fan: “That it might make sense to honor our Civil War veterans who are interred at the cemetery.”

At that point he believed there to be only about 500 Civil War vets at Green-Wood. That turned out to be a fraction of what they had.

“We lovingly joke that our Civil War project has lasted longer than the Civil War. It’s lasted twice as long now,” he said recently during a talk he gave to the New York chapter of the Civil War Roundtable in Manhattan.

The search began with volunteers doing two big sweeps through the 478-acre cemetery in 2002 and 2003, checking for anything on gravestones that might indicate Civil War service.

Then they launched into a systematic approach, putting all of the names — about 160,000 — from the regiments raised in New York into a database and comparing those to Green-Wood’s own database of the buried, looking not only for name matches, but tracking down ages, birth dates and death dates to confirm the match.

“It’s part art, part science to determine whether you have the right fellow,” says Richman. “The real problem that we have is the John Smiths of the world. It’s such a common name so it’s hard to sort out who we have here.”

But by 2007, their efforts uncovered 3,000 soldiers. Many of the graves had never been marked, or the stones had become unreadable or had been swallowed up by the earth over time. So Green-Wood applied to the Veterans Administration for new markers. To date, they’ve successfully petitioned for 2,000 new gravestones.

“I started to hear from people all over the country and all over the world” who had heard about the project, Richman says. Many were descendants of the buried and had stories or documents to share about their ancestors’ lives.

In 2008, Richman’s book about the project was released, Final Camping Ground: Civil War Veterans at Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery, In Their Own Words, a chronological history of the war using the letters and journals of the soldiers who lived it. A biographical sketch for each of Green-Wood’s Civil War vets was prepared, and that information is included with the book as a biographical dictionary in CD form.

But Richman still wasn’t done with his research. “It dawned on me that perhaps since our database is not complete, that it might make sense to go through our chronological books and look for any men who were of appropriate age to have served in the Civil War. And so as a result of that, we found another 1,500 men, and we’re still rolling along.”

He believes there could be as many as another three to four thousand Civil War soldiers buried at Green-Wood that haven’t been discovered yet.

“We joke that you walk through the cemetery and these guys are saying, ‘Look at me! Look at me! Tell my story.’”

Richman has uncovered thousands of remarkable stories, and speaks about many of the soldiers as though speaking about old friends. He became choked up while recounting the life of William Wheeler. “He’s one of my favorites. He had quite a sense of humor, and was an incredible, off-the- charts writer,” says Richman. “When in 1864 his enlistment runs out he decided to go home. And I believe there are 103 men in his battery and there is a petition signed by 101 of them that they will only re-enlist under the condition that he lead them. And he re-enlists and he is killed in Marietta, Georgia.”

Robert Seldon Garnet is one of the 75 Confederate soldiers known to be buried at Green-Wood. He was commandant of West Point in the 1850s, and became the first general killed in battle during the Civil War. He was originally buried in Baltimore, but was later secretly buried at Green-Wood (it was only months after the assassination of Lincoln and a Confederate would have been persona non grata).

“Life would be easy if each of those Confederates had identified themselves as such on their gravestone. Unfortunately we are 0 for 75. Not a single one was so identified,” Richman says.

Then there are the Prentiss brothers, who fought on opposite sides of the war, were injured in the same battle, and then convalesced together in Armory Square Hospital in Washington D.C., where the famous poet (and one-time Brooklyn Eagle editor) Walt Whitman tended to them as a nurse. They both ultimately succumbed to their injuries and are buried side by side at Green-Wood.

“When you turn around and see one of those white gravestones we’ve installed, it’s a special feeling,” says Richman. “That soldier fought bravely and then was in an unmarked grave for 140 years.”

Green-Wood Cemetery is now in the midst of planning a sesquicentennial event for this Memorial Day to commemorate the beginning of the Civil War. They will be placing luminaries in front of the graves of all 4,500 known Civil War soldiers. There will also be re-enactors, an 11-piece brass band, artillery firing, a grand procession and a Civil War exhibit in the chapel.

You can keep up on the upcoming events and tours at Green-Wood, as well as historic discoveries being uncovered by Jeff Richman and his volunteers, on their blog, http://www.greenwooddiscovery.org.

CAPTION FOR ABOVE PHOTO: Green-Wood Cemetery has successfully petitioned for 2,000 new gravestones from the Veterans Administration to place on the unmarked or illegible graves of Civil War vets. In this 2007 photo, they are being laid out in the cemetery’s meadow and prepared for installment.

Green-Wood Commemorates Plane Crash Anniversary With Monument

2010-12-17T17:22:00.006-05:00

A solemn crowd gathered in the southwest corner of Green-Wood Cemetery Thursday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the tragic mid-air collision of two commercial flights over New York City on Dec. 16, 1960. The crash, just nine days before Christmas, resulted in the death of 134 people.

United Airlines flight 826 was en route from Chicago to New York’s Idlewild airport (now JFK) when it collided with TWA flight 266, coming from Dayton and Columbus, Ohio. The TWA flight plummeted to Miller Army Field in Staten Island, killing all 44 people on board.

The United plane lumbered along a little further until it crashed in Park Slope at the corner of Sterling Place and Seventh Avenue, killing the 84 people on board and six people on the ground. At the time it was the worst air disaster in U.S. history.

A small plot at Green-Wood holds the unidentified remains of the crash victims, but no monument marked the site until now.

Thursday, Green-Wood unveiled an eight-foot granite monument bearing the names of all 134 victims. Gathered in the freezing cold were relatives of many of those who perished in the accident. They touched the engraved names of their lost loved ones, and for the first time they met others who had lost family members.

Although it’s been half a century, “It’s fresh, it’s still very fresh,” says Jane Flood (pictured below), who lost her brother, Vincent De Paul Flood. “And it doesn’t matter that it was the worst. We don’t need to be in the Guinness Book.”

Her brother was 19 years old at the time and coming was home for Christmas from Ohio, where he was studying to become a priest. “He would have been 69 now.”

Kevin Root was five years old when the crash happened. It took the lives of both his parents, Samuel and Florence Root. “I was home when the news struck. It was such a blur. I don’t really remember specific details. Emotionally I remember it, but visually not so much.”

Root lives in Greenwich. Conn., and hopes to visit the monument often. “It’s the first time I’ve seen all the names together,” he said.

“This spot will be considered hallowed ground,” said Richard Moylan, president of Green-Wood Cemetery. “We will protect it and care for it. Green-Wood will do all it can to perpetuate the memory of what happened on Dec. 16, 1960.” The memorial site will include a grove of Quaking Aspen trees, donated by the New York Restoration program.

No other monument to the accident exists aside from a small plaque in the chapel of New York Methodist Hospital, where the accident’s one brief survivor, 11-year-old Stephen Baltz, was treated before he succumbed to his injuries.

The Baltz family sent along a message to the gathering Thursday, read by Ray Garcia, author of Sterling Place, a book about the crash. “Stephan was 11 years old at the time, and he was terribly burned and broken,” the message read. “But when [his] father first came to his bedside at the hospital, Stephen smiled, and said, ‘Daddy, next time I fly, I want to fly my own plane. I want to be the pilot.’ He was already looking to the future and never gave up hope.”

The accident, and particularly Stephen Baltz, left an indelible mark on the memories of people around the country. Aside from the relatives of victims, people who had distinct memories of that day came from around New York to Green-Wood Thursday.

“I remember it pretty vividly. It was my first experience with such a tragic event,” said Ken Monahan, who was 7 years old at the time. “I remember thinking, ‘Will Santa Claus be able to fly?’ It was kind of selfish and naive, but I also remember thinking that for Stephan Baltz, Santa Claus never came that year, or for the 133 other people that died.”

Monahan’s father, who worked at Kings County Hospital, was an early responder to the scene. In a long white box Monahan carried with him yesterday was one of the seat belts from the plane, which his father had taken from the site. “Why my dad took this, I don’t know. Maybe he wanted a memento to remember the souls of the people who were killed that day.”

Green-Wood president Moylan, who was in the first grade in Holy Family School on Fourth Avenue, remembered hearing the roar of the plane as it passed overhead. “The shadows were seen on the large windows of the school. Sister had us under our desks, fearing a Soviet attack. The sadness on the faces of people that day — mom, dad, people on the street — is something I didn’t really understand at the time, but I’ll never forget it.”

By pure coincidence, Thursday’s ceremony ended at exactly 10:33 a.m., the moment of the crash. “Somebody’s looking down on us,” said Moylan, and the gathering held a moment of silence.

Dreaming of a Brooklyn Christmas in 1945

2010-12-17T17:02:00.002-05:00

Emerging from the dark chapter of World War II in 1945, America was more eager than ever to embrace the lightness and frivolity of the holiday season. It’s this moment in time that is captured in Matthew Littman’s Christmas 1945 — The Greatest Celebration in American History, a non-fiction book about the first holiday season after the end of the war. Included in the book is a piece about an essay written by an overseas soldier wishing he could get home in time to spend Christmas 1945 in Brooklyn.

Twenty-year-old Jason Auerbach was an army sergeant and a two-year veteran with 12 months in the infantry in Italy. Awaiting discharge in Camp Crowder, Missouri, he wrote a prize-winning essay for the “My Home Town This Christmas” contest sponsored by the camp. His essay favorably impressed the judges and, upon awarding him first prize, released his prizewinner to the newspapers back home. The New York Herald Tribune printed his essay. The young soldier also miraculously made it home in time for Christmas in Brooklyn.
Here is an excerpt from his story:

Christmas in Brooklyn isn’t like that of a small, mid-western village. It’s not like it physically, but spiritually the same atmosphere lingers through the large and crowded borough as in even the smallest town. It’s not often we have a white holiday, but we sure aren’t disappointed if it’s just another ordinary day.

There’s plenty of enthusiasm in Brooklyn come the first week of December. The kids are looking forward to their 10-day holiday from school and the borough’s workers are dreaming of the gifts they’re going to give and receive.

The department stores make downtown Brooklyn look like something out of a Disney cartoon with their colorful windows and tinseled displays. Gay lights and ornaments are on every floor and there isn’t anywhere you walk that you can’t sense the coming of the great day.

There’s that cold spell that hits us during the pre-holiday weeks that typifies winter, and above all, Christmas. The mad rush and clamor that is Brooklyn still prevails, but now folks are glad to be hurried, for it warms their bodies and makes their skin tingle…

Flatbush in Japan?

2010-11-19T15:41:00.003-05:00

I only just noticed this great Veteran's Day-inspired post on Brooklynology. It' s from a 1951 Eagle article. A Brooklyn soldier named Justin Grishman was stationed in Japan during the Korean War. He wrote to the paper with a most unusual request: "I would like a street sign from Flatbush and Church Aves., if possible." Then-Borough President John Cashmore obliged and sent one to the homesick soldier, and here's the photo taken of him in Japan after he received it.

If I were homesick for Brooklyn, I think I'd want a pulled pork and pineapple taco from Chavella's. You?

Artists Run Loose in Brooklyn Historical Society

2010-11-18T17:32:00.004-05:00

Historical societies were created to keep the past safe. To protect records against the ravages of time and to preserve the maps, deeds, documents, paintings, photos and ephemera that historians use to create a narrative about who we are and where we’ve been.

But historical societies have also helped to preserve a hierarchy, by determining what was worthy of saving and commemorating, which for too long was limited to the accomplishments of the wealthy and white.

Thankfully, this approach to history has been reexamined in recent decades. And the Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS) in particular seems to be enthusiastically embracing a more thoughtful and inclusive use of the collections in its care.

BHS has proven very open to “turning history artfully and energetically on its head,” as President Deborah Schwartz says. It has thrown open its doors not just to historians — but to artists, who bring a somewhat more irreverent eye to framing the past.

BHS’s most ambitious effort to date in this regard opened last Wednesday. Artist & Artifact is the result of 10 contemporary artists delving into BHS’s archives “for hours and hours and hours” in order to create a piece inspired by what they found.

The artists — a sculptor, two photographers, two writers, a musician, a comic book artist, a painter and two conceptual artists — were chosen from more than 300 applicants. The list was whittled down to 10 with the help of BRIC | Arts | Media | Bklyn contemporary art gallery, which collaborated with BHS on the show. The pieces are spread throughout the lobby of BHS’s historic Pierrepont Street building and BRIC’s gallery nearby. Accompanying the pieces are the historic objects and stories that inspired them.

“The work stands on its own, but when you engage the work with the historical material we put out with it, there is a depth there that we’ve just been enchanted by,” Schwartz said.

Several of the artists were drawn to the issue of race. Sculptor Meredith Bergmann cast an eye toward the Brooklyn Historical Society’s building itself, questioning the practice of solely commemorating white men in our civic spaces. The beautiful 1881 building is ornamented with terracotta busts of male European historical figures, such as Columbus, Shakespeare and Michelangelo, accented with indigenous American plants, such as corn.

Bergmann created a sculpture mimicking the exact style of these busts, but used a poignantly different subject — a slave by the name of Sally Maria Diggs. Diggs (also known as “Pinky”) was the subject of a mock slave auction performed by the famous abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher in 1860 at Plymouth Church in Brooklyn Heights.

The auction, which in fact raised money to buy Pinky her freedom, gained nationwide attention at the time and helped illuminate the inhumanity of slavery. Bergmann’s bust of Pinky (pictured at top) is accented with poison ivy, because “it’s infectious and insidious like racism…and it affects the skin,” Bergmann explained.

Photographer Nora Herting specializes in portraiture, and poured over boxes and boxes of portraits brought out by BHS photo archivist Julie May.

“What struck me was what I didn’t find, which was diversity,” said Herting. “When the historical society was founded, it was a private club, so a lot of the images were of upper-class New Englanders. I decided I would populate the archives, so in the future people looking through would find a more diverse group,” Herting said in 2009.

So she set up mini outdoor portrait studios in eight public parks throughout Brooklyn and made portraits of hundreds of Brooklynites, for free, which are now included in the portrait collection, and which are on display in postcard-sized prints at BRIC’s gallery.

Musician Daniel José Older wrote a contemporary opera Murder in Old Crow Hill, about a young girl who is accused of murdering a police officer in 19th century Brooklyn and sent to prison at the Kings County Penitentiary, a real institution that was built in Crown Heights in 1846.
It’s not a true story, Older explained, but was “pieced together from a few different stories in the 1880s about police violence, squatters’ funerals, riots and jailbreaks” in the Crown Heights neighborhood, which was then known as Crow Hill. (This name may have been a derogatory reference to the African Americans who made their home there, or to the inmates of the penitentiary.)

“There were a lot of things going on then that still speak to what goes on now,” Older says, referring to recurring racial tensions in the gentrifying neighborhood. The 45-minute piece was performed and recorded at BHS on Oct. 28.

Artist Terry Adkins looked at Brooklyn city directories from the 1830s, ’40s and ’50s, which included such information as residents’ addresses and occupations. Next to African American names there would be asterisks.

Adkins crafted a new directory; a large black book containing only the names of those asterisked African Americans. In Adkins’ book, “these names are given new historic weight and indeed are ennobled,” writes Elizabeth Ferrer, BRIC’s director of contemporary art, in an essay she wrote to accompany Artist & Artifact.

Not all of Artist & Artifact’s pieces deal with race.

In the hands of comic book artist Andrés Vera Martinez, one of BHS’s archival treasures becomes more accessible to modern times: The illustrated travel diary of Jasper Danckaerts, who traveled to New York in the late 1600s, is adapted into a comic book (see example page below).

“I focused on the parts that [Danckaerts] actually explores Brooklyn. I stuck with the highlights I thought people would be interested in, like the whales in the East River, the giant oysters, and the natives,” said Martinez.

“The language makes it more accessible to modern times. It’s kind of for all ages … As opposed to being locked up somewhere and someone has to go get it and wear gloves so that people can look at it.”

Artist Kristin Posehn was also inspired by Brooklyn’s Dutch past, and created a sculptural piece in reference to the few remaining Dutch houses in Brooklyn — rare physical reminders of these early European settlers, whose legacies are now nearly invisible.

Also inspired by the structural environment of Brooklyn, photographer Stanley Greenberg captured close-up photographs of the Culver Viaduct, the part of the subway track on the F and G lines that rises above ground to cross over the Gowanus canal.

The two writers who contributed to Artist & Artifact, novelist Elizabeth Gaffney and poet/playwright Michael Schwartz, will do readings at BHS on Saturday, Nov. 20 at 2 p.m. Gaffney’s book The End of the Age of Wonder is set in Brooklyn Heights between the end of WWII and the Vietnam war, following the lives of two families, one black and one white. From the BHS archives, she used items such as photos, newspaper clippings, bus schedules and personal letters from people that lived through that period to craft the story, which is being published by Random House in 2011.

Schwartz wrote a collection of works about Coney Island, where he grew up.

There will also be an artist panel and gallery talk on Tuesday, Nov. 30 at 6 p.m. at BHS (128 Pierrepont St.) to accompany the exhibit. Artist & Artifact will be on display until Dec. 17, 2010.