Icky in Brooklyn

At the dawn of the twentieth century, servants were a must-have in any respectable Brooklyn brownstone. Perhaps little has changed.





In Brooklyn Eagle classifieds from the early 1900s (even examining several months), the majority of the homes wanting maids, cooks, and "girls" carry a Park Slope or Prospect Heights address ... Bergen, Prospect, Sterling, Lincoln, Dean, etc ... and there are dozens of 'em every day.

Turning to the ads of today, it looks as if little has changed. In current Park Slope real estate listings, remnants of days-gone-by servitude are still used as inducements for potential buyers. A recent Corcoran listing touts a pre-war "two bedroom plus maid's room." Orrichio-Anderson pontificates that a "formal dining room and maid's room represents the ultimate in gracious urban living."

One only has to glance at (but never quote) the Park Slope Parents group, fire up a search engine, or visit ISawYourNanny to bear witness to the large number of domestics working in Park Slope mini-manses nowadays, carrying on the traditions of their Edwardian predecessors.

The working class needs jobs, the gentry needs doing for, and that is all perfectly okey-doke; but let's not fool ourselves into thinking there isn't a gentry - it is just differently defined. No, the class system is not dead in South Brooklyn, and Mrs. Astor's 400 has become the Park Slope 100.

Although an entire neighborhood cannot be defined by a sweeping generalization, perhaps some of our leafy, liberal brownstone blocks do not fully realize that the glory days of rich-folks-with-household-staff are in current revival.





8th ave brownstones courtesy of wallyg's photostream at flickr.com

Modern-day Gotham tends to romanticize the Victorian era, fondly recalling the decades when opulence reigned, beautiful buildings were built, and Robber Barons ruled. Fact is, Victorian New York could be pretty dangerous. Mass rail travel was new, public spaces were lit by oil and gas, coal dust was everywhere, and danger was easy to find. Victorian and otherwise, Brooklyn has had its share of disaster and hard times.

The Brooklyn Theater Fire

On the evening of December 5, 1876, over 300 people perished in a fire that overtook the Brooklyn Theatre on Johnson Street. Started by an oil lamp, the fire spread to the ceiling, engulfing the auditorium. The theatre had no fire escapes and only 5 narrow exits. A monument stands today in Greenwood Cemetery, and this disaster led to the passing of laws that led to our modern standards for fire prevention.



The Malbone Street Wreck

On Friday, November 1, 1918, a five-car BRT subway train was speeding with a rush hour crowd to make up lost time on its way from Park Row to Coney Island, when it jumped the track approaching a sharp curve near Malbone Street, at one corner of Prospect Park in Brooklyn. The first cars were completely crushed, and by 11pm, eighty-five bodies had been taken from the wreckage. The series of crashes that demolished the train were heard from several blocks away.The street and subway stop name became so associated with the disaster that both names were later changed to Empire Boulevard.



The Park Slope Plane Crash

On December 16, 1960, United Flight 826 crashed onto the intersection of Seventh Avenue and Sterling Place in Park Slope. One hundred thirty-five people were killed, including five on the ground. The only surviving passenger was an 11-year-old, Stephen Baltz, who died days later at Methodist Hospital. The crash destroyed a church and over ten brownstones were set on fire. Two of the homes were demolished, leaving a bare corner for decades until a very recent 22-unit condominium was built, with another building going up across the street.



There's been some recent buzz about the fact that the developer made no special provisions for remembrance - that the crash might soon be forgotten without the empty lots to remind us. Perhaps we underestimate ourselves.

Most South Brooklyn folks who passed that empty lot (for almost fifty years) speak reverently of the 1960 disaster, and a few local shops even have mentions of the crash on the walls. A monument to the lives lost in the Brooklyn Theatre Fire stands in Green-wood Cemetery.

We Brooklynites may be tough, but we're a sentimental lot; and generally we remember what needs to be remembered.



malbone street photo courtesy of pbs.org

Back in the day (as they say) The New York Times described Fulton and Flatbush as "a regional attraction to rival Times Square." There at one of the city's major entertainment meccas, the great Albee Theater stood, with the world-famous Paramount nearby.





The mighty Flatbush on Church Avenue, and the Oceana in Brighton Beach, featured live theatre as well as film, as part of "The Subway Circuit." Pre-1950, Broadway shows frequently played the season, and then closed for the Summer. Brooklyn often got shows during the Summer months or after their Broadway runs, sometimes with members of the original cast. Circuit tours developed new audiences and provided affordable tickets to those who couldn't afford 44th Street.





In the 1940s, Brooklyn rooftops began sprouting antennas, and folks started to stay home. The 1950s exodus to the suburbs eliminated more ticket-buyers. The Brandt family owned the Subway Circuit theaters (and others on 42nd Street), and produced the circuit tours. However, by 1951 costs had risen too high and audiences had ebbed too low. The 1950s generation of Brandt theater owners stopped producing plays and musicals, and their theaters began showing (increasingly fleshy) films exclusively, including the 42nd Street houses.



Too bad the Brandts didn't hang on - Broadway is big business nowadays. A ticket to a musical in 1950 cost $7.20 (tops). Adjusted for inflation, that $7.20 ticket should have set you back $58.85 in 2006. Instead, it cost $115. Broadway ticket prices have doubled inflation. In response to (or as a result of) this, the number of new shows has decreased. In 1926-27 (the pinnacle season), 264 shows opened on Broadway. During the 1965-66 season there were 76 new shows. In 2005-06, 39 shows opened. Only 20 of them even lasted until June 1.

In a near miracle, Brighton Beach's Oceana has been de-multiplexed and survives as a Russian nightclub/dinner theatre. The Paramount is now the gym of Long Island University. The Albee was torn down to build a mall, which is conversely being torn down to build a highrise. The Flatbush's stage is a carpet store.

And Broadway theatre, headed the way of opera, has outpriced itself; a museum piece reserved for an elite clientele.





images courtesy of the brooklyn public libarary, brooklyn collection
42nd street image courtesy of 42ndstreetmemories via photobucket.com

Cultural items of note from 6 November 1902, as reported by the Brooklyn Eagle.

(In rather small type), an announcement appears concerning a play that will be opening the following week - a 24 year-old George. M. Cohan (still performing with the family act), will be at the Grand Opera House. As Cohan's fame grew (shortly after this ad), although always providing for his parents and family, he became notoriously difficult. Sort of a Yankee Doodle Egomaniac.





The Brooklyn Institute at 174 Montague was a concert and lecture venue sponsored by the organization that once encompassed the Brooklyn Museum, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Brooklyn Children's Museum, and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. (Now THAT is a cultural group!) The site of the venue on Montague is now occupied by an Irish pub and a Hallmark Store. In 1902, the old digs got a posh makeover.



Abraham & Strauss stores (that little mall at Herald Square in Manhattan used to be called A&S Plaza) provided ready-to-wear fashion (as opposed to couture or custom-tailored). Many of the department stores maintained small Buyers' offices in Paris and London. By the 1920s, top designers had jumped on board and were selling designs to these guys in the ready-to-wear market for large scale production ... making fashion affordable for the middle-class masses, and hugely increasing the number sweat-shops.



And finally, the more things change, the more they stay the same - Construction drama in the Fulton Street business district. 105 years ago, a meeting was organized to minimize the inconvenience of the excavation of our main business district, Fulton Street. Looks like Mr. A of "A&S" was in attendance.






brooklyn eagle clippings courtesy
of the brooklyn public library, brooklyn collection

Would you believe that Alanis Morissette, Al Pacino, Madonna, Ed Harris, Lily Tomlin, and Michael J. Fox have all spent significant time in Windsor Terrace?

In the spirit of dressing-up, fun, and a good ol' fashioned Brooklyn Halloween, we proudly present - the Windsor Terrace Hollywood Tour.

Sydney Lumet's "Dog Day Afternoon" was shot on Prospect Park West between 17th & 18th Streets. It centers around a bank robbery, based on actual events. The real-life bank was located at 450 Avenue P. However, the now-condo building on Prospect Park West - once a mattress factory - stood in for the Al Pacino film.

CORRECTION - A neighbor tells us - "I love your pix of the neighborhood... one minor correction, the building between 17th and 18th street on PPW, now condos, was an old paint factory, not a mattress factory. Love your blog!"



If you check the movie out, you can catch a few shots looking South on Prospect Park West, with Bishop Ford High School and the Expressway bridge, telltale in the background.



The Jack Nicholson/Helen Hunt film, "As Good as it Gets" was a more recent Windsor Terrace claim to big-screen fame. The pub shots were done at the one-and-only Farrell's, a Windsor Terrace institution since 1933. Farrell's was also featured in the Ed Harris film "Pollock."



The early morning bakery scene was done out on the corner of the Avenue, the mob of kids running down the street to catch the cab was a group of third-graders from Holy Name, and a supporting character was played by a very solid actor that any respectable WT resident knows well, at least on sight ... Helen Hunt's house was played by my favorite house in the neighborhood, pictured here in 1928, and 2007.





Harvey Keitel, Madonna, Michael J. Fox, Lily Tomlin, and a long list of 1990s and perennial stars headlined "Blue in the Face" and "Smoke," both partially filmed at the recently defunct Western Union on Prospect Park West.



In the music department, Alanis Morissette filmed her 1995 video for "One Hand In My Pocket" right on the strip - Prospect Park West between Windsor and 16th. It features the neighborhood pretty well (and tired or not, I like the song.)



Not bad for a sleepy little neighborhood where nothing happens, eh?


1928 photo courtesy of the brooklyn public library, brooklyn collection

In 1953, A & S Department Store sponsored a Junior Angler Fishing Contest in Prospect Park - a pretty big deal in its day.

In the photo below, young Windsor Terrace and park-area residents discuss their technique on the popular "Youth Talks It Out" radio program on (still kicking) WNYC. The young lady at left is Geraldine, and she lived with her family in Windsor Terrace on 17th Street near Prospect Park West. Their home still stands today. Pretty cool little house - I imagine much the same in character as it was in 1953.





junior anglers photo courtesy of the brooklyn public library, brooklyn collection

Izzy Grove, a 1920s top middleweight contender, said that "Yesterday's cheers have a very short echo."

Preservation is a tough issue, and certainly, some Brooklyn neighborhoods have more of a tendency to busy-body than others. We want our "original" buildings "in tact." We don't want our homespun quaintness messed with. It can sometimes become a sort of architectural not-in-my-backyard.



There was recently a stink over the sale of Bay Ridge United Methodist's beautiful stone building, selling for $12.5 million. The developer's plans were for a tear-down and condos. Community outrage. Attempts to block the sale. Yes, its destruction would be a near architectural crime; but was the city willing to pony up the change to save this neighborhood treasure? I think not. The congregation had dwindled. Upkeep is expensive. It is a stunning building, and a great historic loss. But the fact is, the Methodists own it. Hell, they built it.

In Park Slope, a forlorn little Presbyterian church on 8th Avenue recently sold its 50x100' churchyard (one of the only un-built-ever sites in Park Slope) for almost $4 million. Like many churches today, membership is small and times are tough. Community outrage. Attempts to block the sale. Yet, curiously, there were no private offers to selflessly pony up the $4 mil to create a park.

We often shout pretty loud in Brooklyn, but how quickly we forget. I doubt the new post-20th century residents are too put-out about the 1990s. Remember? That Seventh Avenue Barnes & Noble, Rite Aid, and parking garage replaced a previous block. Flea Market or not, who would be willing to sacrifice Seventh Avenue's PS 321 for a row of former saloons and milliners?



I can't imagine Windsor Terrace wishing away Bishop Ford High School for the old-fashioned romance of the trolley barns, or Park Slope residents dreaming their way back to to the 1940s to erase the presence of the Seventh Avenue Key Foods. (Yep, it really is that old. Maybe we should landmark it.)



The fact is, gentrification wants (needs?) convenience. Grocery stores and schools are a basic need, just as history is an invaluable important component in the fabric of Brooklyn. However, in our desire to keep our blocks pleasant, perhaps the burden of neighborhood character needs to be taken up with the buyers, not the sellers.

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Bay Ridge United Methodist photo courtesy of amg2000's photostream photostream at flickr.com via http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en-us

PS321 photo courtesy of albert_takes_photos at flickr.com via http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en-us

Seventh Avenue photo courtesy of the brooklyn public library, brooklyn collection

The Windsor Terrace Methodist Church originally stood at Prospect and Greenwood Avenues. The 1950s brought the demolition of a large part of Windsor Terrace for Robert Moses' Prospect Expressway. The 61 year old church was demolished in 1954. The site is now occupied by a ramp to the pedestrian bridge. During its life, the congregation was also called "Prospect Avenue Methodist," and histories of the church (not uncommon in the old days) were written in 1911 and 1946.

Below is an article from the 1890s announcing the opening of the church building, a photo of the church as it originally appeared, and the site today.








Brooklyn Eagle clipping and vintage photograph
courtesy of the Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Collection

b&w image courtesy of the Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Collection

In the days before television, and in Brooklyn especially, there was a theater (or five) in every neighborhood. Although the neighborhood South of Park Slope did not boast any 4,000 seat gems, when movies were King, Windsor Terrace had its share of smaller neighborhood venues.

The Venus Theater still stands, however battered, having just barely clearing the Prospect Expressway's wrecking ball. The building dates to 1906, but by 1957 the screen was down and the Venus served as an American Legion Hall. Later an Elk's Lodge, and finally racking up numerous violations, the building was recently for sale. Pictured is the Venus Theater in 2007, and a 1928 photo of Vanderbilt Street with the Venus visible at left.





265 Prospect Park West is rumored to have been a movie theater, but the anecdotal evidence is lost to the ages. I am doubtful, especially with a few much larger theatres a few blocks away. The building dates to 1914, and if not a proper theater, in the 1930s it is listed as a cabaret. By 1942 it had acquired a pool room. Today, it houses a church.



Just out of our Windsor Terrace purview, but nearby, the Minerva Theater stood at Seventh Avenue and Fourteenth Street. Built as the Palace, it then became the Armory Theater, and finally the Minerva. Pictured below, the building still stands today, as one of the weirdest buildings on Seventh Avenue.



1928's Sanders Theater is not really lost, and that's a good thing. It was re-opened as a multiplex in the 1990s. At Prospect Park West and Fifteenth Street, it is now the nine-screen "Pavilion." Knowing that it originally sat over one-thousand five hundred people, it feels a little silly to be sitting in the 56-seat version. But when you have a movie theater in the neighborhood, you don't complain too much. And the big space up in the old balcony is pretty cool. Pictured is the current incarnation, The Pavilion.



minerva photo courtesy of kencta's photostream at flickr.com

The caption from the 1950s reads, "Where are we to go? One of the families yet to be relocated from the site of the Prospect Expressway is the DePrisco family. Mrs. Angie DePrisco and her three children, Geraldine, 7, Joan, 5, and Ralph, 2, stand in front of their cold water flat at 336 17th St."







The lower photo is the site of the DePrisco's home in 2007 - a disused, gated and locked Community Garden contained within a fairly barren park, in the South Slope. It's just off 7th Ave, edging the side of the Prospect Expressway. Funny thing is, much of the Prospect Expressway is lined with (sometimes nice, sometimes even really nice) vest-pocket parks, especially on the South side of Windsor Terrace. Many are tiny. This one is pretty big. Speaking in the vernacular of the day, "What a dump."

What would Mrs. DePrisco think?

1950s photo courtesy of the Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Collection

I remember a world when you didn't have to dial 718, and I remember a world without 917. I do not, however, remember a world with lettered phone exchanges. (Such as the famous PEnnsylvania 6-5000 ... which really is the number of Manhattan's doomed Hotel Pennsylvania.)




image courtesy http://www.nationaltrust.org


It worked like this - The first two letters (PE) correspond to 7 and 3, making the number 736-5000. Lucy and Ricky were a "MUrray Hill-5." Conversant with America at mid-century, exchange names tended to be pretty bland and idyllic, even in little ol' New York.

Featuring status monikers such as "GRammercy," "PLaza," and "BUtterfield," Ma Bell evidently considered sobriquets like "HElls Kitchen-8" or "TEnement-6" out of the question. In most places, the lettered exchanges gasped their last in the 1960s (along with any personality the phone company ever had).

In the spirit of adaptive reuse, I propose we create new lettered exchanges and use them in our everyday lives. Print them on your business cards. Paint them on signs. The traditional Park Slope "499" could become HYperactive-9. Downtown Brooklyn's handle could read DOrmitory-9. Williamsburg could go by FUckyou-8.

The possibilities are endless.

I always enjoy Atlantic Yards Report. It's a great blog, always smart and timely stuff.

I think of the Atlantic Yards Project as the last-dangerous-link-in-the-deadly-chain of an uber-gentrified super-neighborhood stretching from Brooklyn Heights, down Fulton and Atlantic through Prospect Heights, to Park Slope and Windsor Terrace, downhill through Gowanus, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Red Hook, and back to the Heights. Featuring a Whole Foods, a Trader Joe's, two Targets, NYU Dorms, and the country's biggest Ikea. Brooklyn is the new Union Square.

Today AYP points out a great article by Sam Anderson in New York Magazine about the death of the Dodgers, and the loss of authentic Brooklyn. From Mr. Anderson's article ...

"At some point in the last decade, the borough scored its most lucrative contract since the Navy Yard closed: It became the main off-site production facility for Manhattan's hipness. But as any reflexively anti-Establishment blogger will tell you, what looks on paper like the dawn of a new Golden Era might actually be the death rattle of Brooklyn's authenticity.

Historically, Brooklyn has been the antithesis of everything Manhattanites value most: a handy bulwark against the voracious real-estate-industrial complex across the river. Now it's beginning to feel like an extension of Manhattan, the city's shabby-chic east wing. The colonizers' crimes against the spirit of Brooklyn are legion and heavily blogged.

Williamsburg is a hipster theme park soon to be augmented by luxury waterfront high-rises. Park Slope is a parody. There are $2.2 million brownstones in Fort Greene. The old Navy Yard now houses a film studio. Red Hook is now a dock for the world's largest cruise ship and will soon be home to the nation's largest Ikea ... we seem to have been left with the giant churning liver of gentrification, filtering out the toxins of poverty. We are witnessing the birth of post-mythic Brooklyn, an 81-square-mile metaphor for nothing."




Photo Courtesy of the Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Collection

The borders of Park Slope and its slightly-less-contested neighbors (Windsor Terrace, Gowanus, Sunset Park, and Prospect Heights) are always a lively topic. Add in the seemingly newly-named Greenwood Heights and South Slope, and you've got a debate on your hands. I'm a curious sort. I decided to do some digging.

I've always considered Park Slope, by definition, to be the-slope-on-the-side-of-the-park, Grand Army Plaza to 15th Street - sloping down to Gowanus. I was wrong. (Historically, at least.)

1890s Brooklyn Eagle items often refer to "the Park Slope" as the block immediately off the park (Prospect Park West). The rest of the neighborhood is repeatedly cited as ... Prospect Heights. (I'm not kidding.) Mirroring that, the church at Eighth Ave and 10th Street was originally named Prospect Heights Presbyterian. Prospect Heights Boys' School was at 51 Seventh Ave. There is record of a law suit to stop a stable from being built in Prospect Heights at Seventh Avenue and Union Street. Check out this notice about a concert by the Prospect Heights Choral Society.



So where does that leave the neighborhood on the other side of Flatbush, currently called Prospect Heights? It was was also Prospect Heights. This photo from the 1940s features holiday carolers at the (still kicking) Prospect Heights High School at 883 Classon.



On the flip-side, an early 1900s newspaper article reports a public water problem. One of the offending water samples was collected from Sixth Avenue near Berkeley... in Park Slope. Seems our ancestors were not as picky about their neighborhood monikers as we are today. Or maybe they were just as conflicted.

On the front-lines of neighbor neighborhoods, tiny Windsor Terrace has seemingly always been Windsor Terrace. At the dawn of the Twentieth Century, a scandalous Brooklyn Eagle article (about a young couple's elopement) quotes the girl's suffering Dad as a resident of Seeley Street in Windsor Terrace.



The Greenwood Baptist Church has stood watch at Seventh Avenue and Sixth Street for decades. Twelve blocks to the southwest, believe it or not, the name "Greenwood Heights" is not a new concept. Over one-hundred years ago, the Greenwood Heights Reformed Church was built at 609 45th Street, in what we would today consider Sunset Park ... but back then, Sunset Park was Bay Ridge.



In the early Twentieth Century, Sunset Park was not specifically a whole neighborhood ... just a park. The name "Sunset Park" grew up with the neighborhood around the public space. The actual park grew too, as pointed out in this Brooklyn Eagle article from September of 1902.



Of course, neighborhoods change, colloquialisms change with them, and our neighborhood names are not a governed, legal issue. (Except for Historic Districts, I guess.) Were I a little more idealistic and a lot more political, I'd suggest a movement called "Brooklyn Without Borders." But I'm not. I just like looking at old newspapers.

All photos and Brooklyn Eagle clippings
courtesy of the Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Collection.

This week in Windsor Terrace history, we were happy to dig up a pack of teens with their guitars on the stoop of long-gone 345 17th Street (now the Prospect Expressway), from the last week of September in 1954.




Photo courtesy of the Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Collection

As you may have assumed, this correspondent has a fairly epic interest in history.

Digging through old photos and newspapers via the Brooklyn Public Library, a new feature was born. Seems like there is enough ephemera to post some cool old neighborhood things here from time to time. For our first entry ...

The interior of Holy Name Church, on Prospect Park West, in 1933.




Photo courtesy of the Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Collection.