100 Years Ago

Posted on 2018-11-02 by admin

On November 1, 1918, the worst transit disaster in New York City history occurred just outside Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The wooden cars of the Brighton Beach line of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit (B.R.T.) company left the tracks, crashing inside the tunnel beneath the busy intersection where Flatbush Avenue, Ocean Avenue and Malbone Street met [Google map]. The Malbone Street Wreck killed nearly 100 people and injured more than 250. Criminal trials and lawsuits arising from the accident dragged on for years, contributing to the bankruptcy of the BRT. The name “Malbone Street” became associated with the disaster; it’s known today as Empire Boulevard.

The BRT line followed roughly the current route of the B/Q subway lines from Coney Island to Prospect Park, and the shuttle from Prospect Park to Franklin Avenue. Conditions for the disaster were created by a number of factors. World War I, and the influenza pandemic, were still raging. A multi-year project to consolidate the BRT and then-IRT required temporary rerouting of several lines, creating a sharp turn into a tunnel beneath what is now Empire Boulevard, just north of the current Prospect Park station of the B/Q lines and the Franklin Avenue Shuttle. This turn, called “Dead Man’s Curve” even before the accident, is still visible from the street today.

A strike by motormen who ran the BRT’s trains caused the BRT to run its trains with inexperienced staff:

As Edward Luciano began a run as motorman on the Brooklyn Rapid Transit’s (BRT) Brighton Beach line on the evening of November 1, 1918, getting home quickly and safely might well have been foremost in his mind. Luciano’s career as a motorman had started earlier that very day, when the BRT pressed the twenty-three year-old dispatcher into service after company motormen went out on strike. Weakened by a recent bout with influenza and emotionally anguished by the death of one of his children from flu the week before, Luciano nonetheless complied with his employer’s wishes.
…
The posted speed for the tunnel entrance was six miles per hour; witnesses estimated that Luciano’s train entered the curve at over thirty. The train’s first car hung precariously to the track, then derailed upon entering the tunnel. The second car slammed violently into a concrete abutment, losing its roof and one of its sides in the impact. The third car disintegrated into a tangled mass of wood and glass.
– Death Beneath the Streets, New York Underground, The American Experience, PBS

This is a photo of three of the five wooden cars of the train. You can clearly see that the top half of the second car is gone. In his review of the book, The Malbone Street Wreck, on rapidtransit.net, Paul Matus explains the image:

The Malbone Street train sits in the BRT’s 36th St. Yard after salvage. The relatively minor damage to 726 [the first car in the photo] shows why most in the first car escaped serious injury. Even the window of Motorman Luciano’s cab (left, front) is intact. Not so lucky were those in trailer car 80 immediately behind, with half the car sheared away. Behind 80 is motor car 725, also almost unscathed. Chillingly absent between 80 and 725 would have been car 100, the remains of which were dismantled at the scene.

The accident occurred during the evening rush hour. It was already night-time. In the closed confines of the tunnel, rescuers tried to save who they could. It was a horrific scene.

Dozens of passengers died immediately, many of them decapitated or impaled by shards of wood and glass. Others were electrocuted by the third rail, which had shut down on derailment but was turned back on by offsite monitors who attributed the shutdown to labor sabotage. [Note: The claim of death by electrocution is refuted in Cudahy’s book.] Rescuers rushed to the station, to help the dazed and injured and to carry away the dead. The power failure in the tunnel posed a problem for rescuers that was partially solved when automobiles pulled up near the entrance to the station to illuminate the ghastly scene.

Worried friends and relatives came from across the city and waited outside the station for news of loved ones who frequented the Brighton Beach trains. Medical personnel used the Brooklyn Dodger’s Ebbets Field as a first aid station. And Mayor John Hylan, a strong opponent of privately operated transit lines like the BRT, arrived on the scene with freshly-milled accusations of transit-interest malfeasance.
– Death Beneath the Streets

Newspapers of the day published the names and addresses of those killed and injured in the crash. From that, I created a Google Map with the names and addresses of the dead. The geographic distribution is striking. The majority of those killed were from greater Flatbush, including Prospect Lefferts Gardens, but also included victims from East Flatbush and Kensington, to the east and west, and, to the south, from Midwood, Gravesend, and Sheepshead Bay.

View Larger Map

Here’s the list of dead and injured. Most of this list is presented as it was reported in the Brooklyn Standard Union on November 2, 1918, the day after the crash. I made other edits and corrections from additional sources, such as follow-up articles in the new York Times. Some information was originally printed in error, some of the injured later died, and one man originally listed as dead was found to be safe at home. Where available, the addresses link to the Google Map I created which shows the homes of the victims. Some victims also received short descriptions in the paper of the time; I added that to the descriptions of the markers.

ALEXANDER, James, 647 Fenimore Street
ALFARO, Peschal, 160 Robinson Street [I can’t locate this street on current maps of Brooklyn. Has this been renamed to Parkside Avenue?]
AMREIN, Ada, Address unkown
ARENA, Mabel, 186 Lefferts Avenue
BARCINO, Eugene Edward, 42 Henry Street, Flatbush [sic, this address is in Brooklyn Heights, not Flatbush]
BARGIN, Etta, 1145 East 14th Street
Bechtold, Emily or Elise M., 362 East 9th Street
BERKOWITZ, Herman, Address unknown
Borden, Helen, 445 Riverside Drive, Manhattan, or 1011 Ocean Avenue [two addresses were given for Ms. Borden]
Bogen, David, 27 years old, 94 Kenmore Place [Originally listed among the dead as D. Borgen of 97 Kenmore Place]
Brunswick, David, 70 years old, 847 East 10th Street
BURTON, Mary, 1458 East 17th Street
Calibria or Calabria, Rose, 1935 East 9th Street [Published in NY Times, 2008-09-06, five days after the accident]
CLEARY, Margaret, 318 Parkville Avenue
Clifford, Ethel or Louise, 485 Argyle Road
COADY, Emily, 682 Argyle Beach [sic: Argyle Road]
Condra, Louisa G, 23 years old, Brooklyn [No address given. Not listed originally among the dead or injured. “Louisa G. CONDRA, also killed, was born in Newark twenty-three years ago and had been a resident of Brooklyn for three years. She was secretary to the vice-president of the National City Bank in Manhattan and is survived by her mother, Marguerite, and two sisters The funeral will be held to-morrow morning with a requiem mass at the Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Interment will be at Newark.”]
COOPER, Margaret, Detroit, Mich.
ENGGRAN, John W., 37 East 10th Street
FLEMING, Catherine, 7 East 10th Street
FITZPATRICK, Ed., Avenue H and East 17th Street
FLAHAVE, James F., 277 East 38th Street
Gardner (or Gardiner), Marion (Mary) Norcross, 347 Lincoln Road
GILBERT, Michael, 26 years old, 1510 East 18th Street or 1819 East 13th Street [two addresses were given for Mr. Gilbert]
GILFEATHER, Thomas F. 388 East 49th Street
GILLEN, Harry P., 29 years old, 1539 East 13th Street or 1634 East 13th Street [two addresses were given for Mr. Gillen]
GIVNAN, Thomas, 28 years old, 1601 Voorhies avenue
GUIDE, Nicholas, 1505 Neck Road
Hennison, Emelia, 95 Lenox Road [Listed only in association with Aline Schwaan at the same address]
HOLMES, George W., 611 Westminster Road
HOLTORF, Theodore, 60 years old, 984 East 18th Street
HOPKINS, Lewis, 2130 Bedford Avenue
JACKOWITZ, Sophie, 4301 Church Avenue
JOHNSON, Mary, Address unknown
KEMPF, Christina, 203 Parkside avenue
KERR, David B. 132 Nassau Street, Manhattan
KINSIE, Benjamin A., 79 Haven Avenue, Manhattan
KIRCHOFF, Clara, 877 East Fifteenth Street
LARSEN, H.W., 713 Avenue N
LAWREY, Nellie, 1782 Shore Road
LAWSON, T. C., 1716 Caton Avenue
LEE, Fred W. 212 South Oxford Street
LOMBACK, Harry 22721 77th Street [invalid street address]
LOMBARD, Henry, 1016 East 18th Street or 1919 East 18th Street [two different addresses were given for Mr. Lombard, in the initial list of the dead, and in a follow-up mention]
LOURING, Frank J., 1025 East 15th Street
LOVE, Bessie, 90 St. Marks Place
LOVELL, Aubrey, 1522 East 10th Street
LYONS, Caroline, 1616 Avenue H
MAIER, Joseph A. 204 Midwood Street
MALAMAUD, Abraham, 602 East 16th
MALONEY, Lillian, 178 Lefferts Avenue
MATTOOK, Ethel, 335 East 21st Street
MEEHAN, Helen, 22, 348 Eastern Parkway
METZGER, Ira H., 816 East 14th Street
McMILLEN, Carnette, Address unknown
McCORMACK, Mrs. Grace, 1404 Cortelyou Road
MUNN, Sadie, 25 Rugby road
MURPHY, Grace, a school teacher, 1297 Homecrest Avenue [invalid address]
NAGLE, Richard, 2124 East 24th Avenue
PALMEDO, Alexander M., 439 East 19th Street
Payne, Raymond, 18 years old, 1213 Avenue H
Pierce, Wilbur F., 23 years old, 244 Lefferts Avenue
PILKINGTON, Mrs. 214 Webster Avenue
PORTER, Willis D., 721 Argyle Road [Mistakenly reported as dead, as “William Porter, Argyle Road”]
PORTER, Edward Erskine, 309 Caton Avenue [Possibly 307 Caton Avenue?]
PROUT, Grover T., 275 Ocean Avenue
Rathe, John Charles Ferdinand (or Roth, Charles), 311 E 19th St
RUBIN, M. H., 675 Flatbush Avenue
RUSSO, Mamie, 485 Grand Avenue
RYAN, Michael, 36 years old, 2163 Nostrand Avenue [Possibly 2162 Nostrand?]
SCHWAAN, Aline, 95 Lenox Road
SCUDDER, Ethel, 1221 Avenue Q
SHEVIT, Syd, 224 East 26th Street
SHIEDEN, John, 420 Cortelyou Road
STEVENS, W. E., 150 Nassau Street, Manhattan
SCHAEFER, Harold, 2804 Farragut Road
Stephens, W. A., 83 Rugby Road
STERN, Adolph, 141 Central Avenue
SULLIVAN, Margaret, 19, 2745 Bedford Avenue
TEN BROUCK (or Broeck), Floyd, 46 years old, 1419 Avenue G (Glenwood Road, today)
THORN, C.C. 2023 Caton Avenue
TIETJEN, Johann W., 420 Cortelyou Road
TOLZE, Genaro, 2439 East 14th Street
TOWNSON, T.G., 1716 Caton Avenue
VINCENZO, Louis A. 493 Gravesend Avenue [Published in the NY Times, 2008-09-06, five days after the accident. I can’t locate this street. Is this know today as Gravesend Neck Road?)
VINEBERG, Morris, 1706 Bath Avenue
WALKER, Marion, 1670 East 10th Street
WEED, H.E., Address unknown
WATTS, Hazel, 48 East 22nd Street
WALSH, Genevieve, 4301 Church Avenue
WOELFER, Charlotte, 738 East 21st Street

Injured

AYER, Oscar, 600 East 16th Street
AMREIN, Kurt, 634 West 135th Street, Manhattan
ANTONELLO, Rosario, 1419 Lincoln Road

BAIRD, Loraine, 2542 East 5th Street
BANELSON, Vera, 170 Coleridge Street
BARRETT, Susan, 1550 East 12th Street
BOOM, Martin P., 635 Flatbush Avenue
BRAULT Zephrin, 107 Martense Street
BROSER, Mrs. Wm., 2641 East 21st Street

CALABRIA, Rose, 1935 East 9th Street [or Calibria, she died 4 days later]
Castellani, Marie, 2764 Haring Street, Sheepshead Bay
CLEARY, Mary, 318 Parkville Avenue
CLINCHY, Susan, 1704 Kings Highway
CORCOCILLO, Joseph, 1089 East 39th Street
COSTELAN, Marie, 24 Harrett Street

DRENNAN, Margaret, 1911 Homecrest Avenue

(No. listings for “E”)

FELICIA, Samuel, 38 Darby Street
FENNON, Edith, 826 Avenue P
Fitzpatrick, Edward N. [No address available. Mr. Fitzpatrick was not originally listed among the injured. He was awarded $35,000 in 1920 from injuries received in the crash. Reference: New York Times, 1920-01-08]
FUCHS, Pauline, 2902 West 17th Street
FULLER, Elizabeth, 364 East 18th Street

GOWARD, Harold, 234 Lefferts Avenue
GIILERDI, Sylvia, 2617 Jerome Avenue
GUTHRIE, James, 800 East 15th Street

HARLEY, Helen, Crown Street
HARRIS, Leonore, 62 Marlboro Road
HARRIS, Gertrude, 810 Avenue U
HARM, George, 2801 East 7th Street
HAYES, Nora, 287 East 17th Street
HALL, Martha, 2715 East 23d Street

(No listings for “I”)

JUDD, Francis, Manhattan Beach

(No listings for “K”)

LARSON, Lillian, 713 Avenue M
LEE, Henry A. 971 Utica Avenue
LERNER, Nathan, 15 President Street
LEES, Loretta, 619 East 4th Street
LEES, Mary, 619 East 4th Street

MITCHELL, Matilda, 3456 East 15th Street
MURPHY, Veronica, 1922 Homecrest Avenue
McGARRY, John, 120 Avenue C
MANDER, Walter, 840 Flatbush Avenue
MARTENSE, Gary, 1501 Avenue U
MULE, Ernest, 2421 East 18th Street
MUSSON, Silas, 402 Ocean Avenue
MELLOW, William, 568 East 18th Street
MESSIER, Josephine, 2163 Coney Island Avenue

(No listings for “N” and “O”)

PIERCE, Mrs. Kate, 1011 Ocean Avenue
PITTS, Frank G. 632 East 16th Street
POCHICHIE, Louis, 354 Prospect Place

(No listings for “Q”)

ROCHES, Mary, 2647 East 18th Street
REILLY, Alfred, 153 Martense Street

SCHMITT, Geo. W., 856 Est 5th Street
SEYMANN, Harry, 104 Woodruff Avenue
SCHUBERT, Arthur, 100 Webster Avenue
STOBEI, Rev. Joseph, 225 Emmons Avenue
SULLIVAN, Loretta, 437 East 15th Street

(No listings for “T” and “U”)

VAN ARSDALE, Betty, 3122 Mermaid Avenue

[bit.ly]

Links

Malbone Street Wreck, Wikipedia
Death Beneath the Streets, New York Underground, The American Experience, PBS

The Malbone Street Wreck, by Brian Cudahy [I’ve got this back-ordered from Amazon]
Review of the book by Paul Matus on rapidtransit.net

Franklin Shuttle, Kevin Walsh, Forgotten New York
BMT Franklin Avenue Line, Wikipedia
Lanes of Mid-Brooklyn, Kevin Walsh, Forgotten New York

Eve of Destruction, 1918: The Malbone Street Horror and Day of the Dead, A Year in the Park

Brooklyn Ron

Malbone Street Wreck, nycsubway.org, transcription of the article published in the New York Times on November 2nd, 1918
List of dead and injured, Brooklyn Standard Union
Alternative Map

Off-Topic: The Conversation

Posted on 2016-03-12 by admin

I moved to NYC the first weekend of 1979. By Spring, I had moved to the East Village, an epicenter of what was first called “gay cancer,” then “Gay-Related Immunodeficiency Disease,” or GRID. Four years later, by 1983 – the year of the symposium that led to this anthology – it was being called AIDS.

As of mid-April 1983, 1,339 people have been diagnosed as having AIDS. Five hundred and five cases were fatal. In New York City alone, there have been 595 cases, with 228 deaths. But even as the disaster escalated, the organized medical community was strangely absent. When a fatal infection had struck down veterans [34 deaths] attending an American Legion convention [1976, Philadelphia], health professionals around the country joined in the search for a solution [later identified as Legionella]. When women using tampons became ill with toxic shock syndrome [1980, though TSS was first described in 1978], medical societies and research centers immediately focused their enormous talents on the problem. But when the victims were drug addicts and poor Haitian refugees and homosexual men, their plight did not, somehow, seem as significant to those expected to speak for the health professions. No major research programs were announced, and until it became clear that the disease would spread to the general population through blood transfusions, organized medicine seemed part of the curious conspiracy of silence.

– “Preface: The Evolution of an Epidemic” by Kevin M. Cahill, M.D., editor, “The AIDS Epidemic”

Yesterday, there was this:

It may be hard for your viewers to remember how difficult it was for people to talk about HIV/AIDS back in the 1980s, and because of both President and Mrs. Reagan — in particular Mrs. Reagan — we started a national conversation, when before nobody would talk about it, nobody wanted to do anything about it, and that, too, is something I really appreciate with her very effective low-key advocacy. It penetrated the public conscience and people began to say, “Hey, we have to do something about this too.”
– Hilary Clinton, speaking to MSNBC at Nancy Reagan’s funeral, 2016-03-11

“Started a national conversation” my ass. Neighbors, friends, boyfriends, lovers died around me. My community was being expunged. We were all expendable people. I knew exactly what was going on – they WANTED us to die.

Update, 2016-03-13: Late on Saturday, after I wrote this post, Hillary Clinton apologized for her apology, and her original “mis-spokement”.

Links

Reagan’s AIDS Legacy / Silence equals death, Allen White, SFGate, 2004-06-08, following Ronald Reagan’s death

Grief & Gardening: Nine Years

Posted on 2010-09-11 by admin

Let’s get the usual question out of the way. This is where I was the morning of September 11, 2001.

This is Skytop Tower at Mohonk Mountain House at sunset the previous night. Blog Widow and I had planned a week-long vacation upstate, starting at Mohonk. The morning of September 11, we hiked up to Skytop. A rustic retreat, Mohonk had no televisions or radios in the rooms. As we left the massive wooden structure to go out hiking, I noticed people huddled around the few televisions in some of the common rooms. I thought nothing of it at the time. I later realized we left just after the first attack.
We hiked around the lake, then up to Skytop, and climbed up into the tower. We had the trails almost to ourselves. As we came down the tower, I sang loudly, my voice echoing through the stone structure: “I love to go a-wandering …” Part of the way, we encountered another hiker coming up the stairs. I stopped singing and said, “excuse me.” Only then did he lift his head to us, tears streaming down his face. “Did you hear what happened?” “No.” “They flew a plane into the World Trade Center.”

We hiked back. When we returned to the buildings, the common rooms were packed with people, watching the news on every available television. We went back to our room. Blog Widow went back downstairs to find out what happened. I had brought my laptop with me, so I tried getting online. He returned to tell me the World Trade Center had collapsed. I was incredulous; I couldn’t imagine what that meant. By the time I went downstairs myself, both towers were gone. I sat and watched those horrible images for the first time.

We decided to hold to our vacation plans for the week, somber though it was. There was nothing we could do back home. My workplace downtown, blocks from Ground Zero, would not reopen for two weeks. Reminders met us everywhere we went. And everywhere we went, we were ambassadors for New York City. When we told people where we were from, as often as not, they broke down crying. We were their reminders.

We drove back to my apartment in Brooklyn that Sunday. I was startled when I saw the first airplane flying overhead; with all flights grounded, the skies had been empty since the attacks. I got my first glimpse as we drove along the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway: twin trails of heavy smoke, orange and red from a setting sun. I burst into tears. Somehow, I had expected the fires to have burned out by then.

When we were allowed to return to work, I got my first personal glimpse of Ground Zero.

The fires continued to burn for months, through the winter, into 2002. For weeks, until a few heavy rains washed the city, everything was covered in ash and dust. It collected in drifts along sidewalks and gutters. Every day I went to work, for months, I smelled and breathed the smoke. All of Downtown Manhattan was a crematorium.

Thousands of shrines and memorials appeared and grew throughout the city. The most heart-breaking were those around St. Vincent’s Hospital, which prepped for massive casualties, but received very few. Few who didn’t walk, or run, away survived. Even today, remains have yet to be found for over 1,000 people murdered in the attacks.

The ash washed away, the fires died, the smoke cleared. The candles and posters gradually eroded. A year after the attacks, the memorials which covered the fences around St. Paul’s Chapel were carefully removed and preserved. Eventually, even the basin which held the foundations of the towers and other structures on the site was emptied. As the direct evidence of what happened faded, new symbols emerged. For me, these are far more powerful and meaningful than any flag or banner.

Tonight, the Tribute in Light will shine again.

The Sphere, the sculpture by Fritz Koenig that had held place of prominence in the center of the WTC Plaza, was heavily damaged in the towers’ collapse, but survived. It’s been on display at Battery Park for the past few years. It will be returned to the Memorial for its permanent home.

Another sculpture, Steve Tobin’s “Trinity Root,” was placed in the courtyard of Trinity Church, two blocks from Ground Zero. It was cast from the roots of a Sycamore that stood in the cemetery of St. Paul’s Chapel, a few blocks north, and directly across the street from Ground Zero. The tree was destroyed when the towers fell, but it shielded the church itself from even greater damage.

St. Paul’s Chapel has been a moving memorial all these years. It’s filled with an ever-changing display of artifacts and remembrances from all over the world.

And finally, the official, multi-million dollar memorial will occupy the footprints of the towers and the plaza between them. Here’s a model of the National September 11 Memorial at the Preview Site on Vesey Street, across the street from St. Paul’s near the corner of Church Street at Ground Zero in Downtown Manhattan.

The first of 400 trees for the grove were planted just two weeks ago, in time for today’s observations. These are Quercus bicolor, Swamp White Oaks. The other species will be Liquidambar styraciflua, Sweet Gum. A forest and waterfalls will take the place of devastation, natural elements no less powerful and evocative for being constrained to an urban grid. They will also remind me of where I was when I first heard of the attacks. A garden as the ultimate embodiment of reflection and recovery.

[bit.ly]
[goo.gl]

“Proud to be from … somewhere … over there …”

Posted on 2008-12-17 by admin

Update: Yup, the Eagle corrected the opening paragraph! Guccione was now “born in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn,” intersection unknown …

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle has a daily, On This Day in History, that features different interesting Brooklyn historical events. Today’s historic event is … the birthday of Robert Guccione:

Robert Sabatini Guccione was born on Argyle Road and Flatbush Avenue in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn on December 17, 1930. Bob well remembers his childhood Brooklyn home and is always proud to respond “I’m from Brooklyn,” when asked where he was born.
– Proud To Be From Brooklyn, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 2008.12.17

Okaaaay, except that Argyle Road – aka East 13th Street – and Flatbush Avenue never intersect. They run parallel to each other, nine blocks apart.

View Larger Map

So, proud to be from Brooklyn, sure, maybe even from Flatbush. Just doesn’t remember “his childhood Brooklyn home” as well as he thinks he does.

I notified the Eagle via the email address on their Web site. Hopefully they will correct it soon.

Links

Proud To Be From Brooklyn, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 2008.12.17

90 Years Ago: The Malbone Street Wreck

Posted on 2008-11-01 by admin

Finally, a strike by motormen who ran the BRT’s trains caused the BRT to run its trains with inexperienced staff:

As Edward Luciano began a run as motorman on the Brooklyn Rapid Transit’s (BRT) Brighton Beach line on the evening of November 1, 1918, getting home quickly and safely might well have been foremost in his mind. Luciano’s career as a motorman had started earlier that very day, when the BRT pressed the twenty-three year-old dispatcher into service after company motormen went out on strike. Weakened by a recent bout with influenza and emotionally anguished by the death of one of his children from flu the week before, Luciano nonetheless complied with his employer’s wishes.
…
The posted speed for the tunnel entrance was six miles per hour; witnesses estimated that Luciano’s train entered the curve at over thirty. The train’s first car hung precariously to the track, then derailed upon entering the tunnel. The second car slammed violently into a concrete abutment, losing its roof and one of its sides in the impact. The third car disintegrated into a tangled mass of wood and glass.
– Death Beneath the Streets, New York Underground, The American Experience, PBS

The Malbone Street train sits in the BRT’s 36th St. Yard after salvage. The relatively minor damage to 726 [the first car in the photo] shows why most in the first car escaped serious injury. Even the window of Motorman Luciano’s cab (left, front) is intact. Not so lucky were those in trailer car 80 immediately behind, with half the car sheared away. Behind 80 is motor car 725, also almost unscathed. Chillingly absent between 80 and 725 would have been car 100, the remains of which were dismantled at the scene.

The accident occurred during the evening rush hour. It was already night-time. In the closed confines of the tunnel, rescuers tried to save who they could. It was a horrific scene.

Dozens of passengers died immediately, many of them decapitated or impaled by shards of wood and glass. Others were electrocuted by the third rail, which had shut down on derailment but was turned back on by offsite monitors who attributed the shutdown to labor sabotage. [Note: The claim of death by electrocution is refuted in Cudahy’s book.] Rescuers rushed to the station, to help the dazed and injured and to carry away the dead. The power failure in the tunnel posed a problem for rescuers that was partially solved when automobiles pulled up near the entrance to the station to illuminate the ghastly scene.

Worried friends and relatives came from across the city and waited outside the station for news of loved ones who frequented the Brighton Beach trains. Medical personnel used the Brooklyn Dodger’s Ebbets Field as a first aid station. And Mayor John Hylan, a strong opponent of privately operated transit lines like the BRT, arrived on the scene with freshly-milled accusations of transit-interest malfeasance.
– Death Beneath the Streets

View Larger Map

Dead

ALEXANDER, James, 647 Fenimore Street

ALFARO, Peschal, 160 Robinson Street [I can’t locate this street on current maps of Brooklyn. Has this been renamed to Parkside Avenue?]
AMREIN, Ada, Address unkown
ARENA, Mabel, 186 Lefferts Avenue
BARCINO, Eugene Edward, 42 Henry Street, Flatbush [sic, this address is in Brooklyn Heights, not Flatbush]
BARGIN, Etta, 1145 East 14th Street
Bechtold, Emily or Elise M., 362 East 9th Street
BERKOWITZ, Herman, Address unknown
Borden, Helen, 445 Riverside Drive, Manhattan, or 1011 Ocean Avenue [two addresses were given for Ms. Borden]
Bogen, David, 27 years old, 94 Kenmore Place [Originally listed among the dead as D. Borgen of 97 Kenmore Place]
Brunswick, David, 70 years old, 847 East 10th Street
BURTON, Mary, 1458 East 17th Street
Calibria or Calabria, Rose, 1935 East 9th Street [Published in NY Times, 2008-09-06, five days after the accident]
CLEARY, Margaret, 318 Parkville Avenue
Clifford, Ethel or Louise, 485 Argyle Road
COADY, Emily, 682 Argyle Beach [sic: Argyle Road]
Condra, Louisa G, 23 years old, Brooklyn [No address given. Not listed originally among the dead or injured. “Louisa G. CONDRA, also killed, was born in Newark twenty-three years ago and had been a resident of Brooklyn for three years. She was secretary to the vice-president of the National City Bank in Manhattan and is survived by her mother, Marguerite, and two sisters The funeral will be held to-morrow morning with a requiem mass at the Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Interment will be at Newark.”]
COOPER, Margaret, Detroit, Mich.
ENGGRAN, John W., 37 East 10th Street
FLEMING, Catherine, 7 East 10th Street
FITZPATRICK, Ed., Avenue H and East 17th Street
FLAHAVE, James F., 277 East 38th Street
Gardner (or Gardiner), Marion (Mary) Norcross, 347 Lincoln Road
GILBERT, Michael, 26 years old, 1510 East 18th Street or 1819 East 13th Street [two addresses were given for Mr. Gilbert]
GILFEATHER, Thomas F. 388 East 49th Street
GILLEN, Harry P., 29 years old, 1539 East 13th Street or 1634 East 13th Street [two addresses were given for Mr. Gillen]
GIVNAN, Thomas, 28 years old, 1601 Voorhies avenue
GUIDE, Nicholas, 1505 Neck Road
Hennison, Emelia, 95 Lenox Road [Listed only in association with Aline Schwaan at the same address]
HOLMES, George W., 611 Westminster Road
HOLTORF, Theodore, 60 years old, 984 East 18th Street
HOPKINS, Lewis, 2130 Bedford Avenue
JACKOWITZ, Sophie, 4301 Church Avenue
JOHNSON, Mary, Address unknown
KEMPF, Christina, 203 Parkside avenue
KERR, David B. 132 Nassau Street, Manhattan
KINSIE, Benjamin A., 79 Haven Avenue, Manhattan
KIRCHOFF, Clara, 877 East Fifteenth Street
LARSEN, H.W., 713 Avenue N
LAWREY, Nellie, 1782 Shore Road
LAWSON, T. C., 1716 Caton Avenue
LEE, Fred W. 212 South Oxford Street
LOMBACK, Harry 22721 77th Street [invalid street address]
LOMBARD, Henry, 1016 East 18th Street or 1919 East 18th Street [two different addresses were given for Mr. Lombard, in the initial list of the dead, and in a follow-up mention]
LOURING, Frank J., 1025 East 15th Street
LOVE, Bessie, 90 St. Marks Place
LOVELL, Aubrey, 1522 East 10th Street
LYONS, Caroline, 1616 Avenue H
MAIER, Joseph A. 204 Midwood Street
MALAMAUD, Abraham, 602 East 16th
MALONEY, Lillian, 178 Lefferts Avenue
MATTOOK, Ethel, 335 East 21st Street
MEEHAN, Helen, 22, 348 Eastern Parkway
METZGER, Ira H., 816 East 14th Street
McMILLEN, Carnette, Address unknown
McCORMACK, Mrs. Grace, 1404 Cortelyou Road
MUNN, Sadie, 25 Rugby road
MURPHY, Grace, a school teacher, 1297 Homecrest Avenue [invalid address]
NAGLE, Richard, 2124 East 24th Avenue
PALMEDO, Alexander M., 439 East 19th Street
Payne, Raymond, 18 years old, 1213 Avenue H
Pierce, Wilbur F., 23 years old, 244 Lefferts Avenue
PILKINGTON, Mrs. 214 Webster Avenue
PORTER, Willis D., 721 Argyle Road [Mistakenly reported as dead, as “William Porter, Argyle Road”]
PORTER, Edward Erskine, 309 Caton Avenue [Possibly 307 Caton Avenue?]
PROUT, Grover T., 275 Ocean Avenue
Rathe, John Charles Ferdinand (or Roth, Charles), 311 E 19th St
RUBIN, M. H., 675 Flatbush Avenue
RUSSO, Mamie, 485 Grand Avenue
RYAN, Michael, 36 years old, 2163 Nostrand Avenue [Possibly 2162 Nostrand?]
SCHWAAN, Aline, 95 Lenox Road
SCUDDER, Ethel, 1221 Avenue Q
SHEVIT, Syd, 224 East 26th Street
SHIEDEN, John, 420 Cortelyou Road
STEVENS, W. E., 150 Nassau Street, Manhattan
SCHAEFER, Harold, 2804 Farragut Road
Stephens, W. A., 83 Rugby Road
STERN, Adolph, 141 Central Avenue
SULLIVAN, Margaret, 19, 2745 Bedford Avenue
TEN BROUCK (or Broeck), Floyd, 46 years old, 1419 Avenue G (Glenwood Road, today)
THORN, C.C. 2023 Caton Avenue
TIETJEN, Johann W., 420 Cortelyou Road
TOLZE, Genaro, 2439 East 14th Street
TOWNSON, T.G., 1716 Caton Avenue
VINCENZO, Louis A. 493 Gravesend Avenue [Published in the NY Times, 2008-09-06, five days after the accident. I can’t locate this street. Is this know today as Gravesend Neck Road?)
VINEBERG, Morris, 1706 Bath Avenue
WALKER, Marion, 1670 East 10th Street
WEED, H.E., Address unknown
WATTS, Hazel, 48 East 22nd Street
WALSH, Genevieve, 4301 Church Avenue
WOELFER, Charlotte, 738 East 21st Street

Injured

AYER, Oscar, 600 East 16th Street
AMREIN, Kurt, 634 West 135th Street, Manhattan
ANTONELLO, Rosario, 1419 Lincoln Road

DRENNAN, Margaret, 1911 Homecrest Avenue

(No. listings for “E”)

GOWARD, Harold, 234 Lefferts Avenue
GIILERDI, Sylvia, 2617 Jerome Avenue
GUTHRIE, James, 800 East 15th Street

HARLEY, Helen, Crown Street
HARRIS, Leonore, 62 Marlboro Road
HARRIS, Gertrude, 810 Avenue U
HARM, George, 2801 East 7th Street
HAYES, Nora, 287 East 17th Street
HALL, Martha, 2715 East 23d Street

(No listings for “I”)

JUDD, Francis, Manhattan Beach

(No listings for “K”)

LARSON, Lillian, 713 Avenue M
LEE, Henry A. 971 Utica Avenue
LERNER, Nathan, 15 President Street
LEES, Loretta, 619 East 4th Street
LEES, Mary, 619 East 4th Street

(No listings for “N” and “O”)

PIERCE, Mrs. Kate, 1011 Ocean Avenue
PITTS, Frank G. 632 East 16th Street
POCHICHIE, Louis, 354 Prospect Place

(No listings for “Q”)

ROCHES, Mary, 2647 East 18th Street
REILLY, Alfred, 153 Martense Street

SCHMITT, Geo. W., 856 Est 5th Street
SEYMANN, Harry, 104 Woodruff Avenue
SCHUBERT, Arthur, 100 Webster Avenue
STOBEI, Rev. Joseph, 225 Emmons Avenue
SULLIVAN, Loretta, 437 East 15th Street

(No listings for “T” and “U”)

VAN ARSDALE, Betty, 3122 Mermaid Avenue

[bit.ly]

Links

Malbone Street Wreck, Wikipedia
Death Beneath the Streets, New York Underground, The American Experience, PBS

The Malbone Street Wreck, by Brian Cudahy [I’ve got this back-ordered from Amazon]
Review of the book by Paul Matus on rapidtransit.net

Franklin Shuttle, Kevin Walsh, Forgotten New York
BMT Franklin Avenue Line, Wikipedia
Lanes of Mid-Brooklyn, Kevin Walsh, Forgotten New York

Eve of Destruction, 1918: The Malbone Street Horror and Day of the Dead, A Year in the Park

Brooklyn Ron

Malbone Street Wreck, nycsubway.org, transcription of the article published in the New York Times on November 2nd, 1918
List of dead and injured, Brooklyn Standard Union
Alternative Map

A recent history of Cortelyou Road

Posted on 2008-10-16 by admin

Cortelyou Road, North side, looking East from Westminster Road, September 2006, before the new streetscape was put in place in Spring of 2007.

Neighbor, friend, and local real estate agent Jan Rosenberg writes of changes in our neighborhood in the online journal NewGeography:

Twenty some years ago my husband, 2 young sons and I moved from our cramped 16-foot wide attached row house in Brooklyn’s trendy Park Slope to a free-standing, 7-bedroom Victorian house in the Ditmas Park section of Flatbush with stained glass windows, pocket doors, original wood paneling, a back yard, front porch, driveway and 2-car garage in a little-known, tree-lined neighborhood about 10 minutes away – on the other, high-crime side of Prospect Park.
– Gentrification from the inside out in Brooklyn’s Ditmas Park

I know everyone’s tired of hearing it from me, but this is not Ditmas Park. It’s Beverley Square West and Ditmas Park West. Or Victorian Flatbush. Or just plain Flatbush. I suspect the editors provided the title, not Jan.

We’re newcomers to the neighborhood. We’ve only been here since the Spring of 2005. Most of our neighbors have been here much longer than that, even longer than Jan’s “twenty some” years. Jan summarizes what we hear from the “old-timers:” not so long ago, moving to this neighborhood was a pioneering act:

When crime exploded in the 1960s and welfare tenants were moved into some of the apartments, much of the middle class – white and black – fled. By the early 1990s many assumed that nothing could be done about the collapse of the quality of life. It wasn’t unusual for police officers in that era, many of whom lived in suburban Suffolk County, to respond to crime victims condescendingly by asking, “What do you expect if you live in a neighborhood like this?”

Little changed even after the extraordinary Giuliani/Bratton efforts brought down crime, little changed in the mid-1990s. The district’s once thriving shopping street, Cortelyou Road , still had no bank, no coffee shop, no diner, no sit-down restaurant, no children’s store, no real estate office.

The “from the inside out” part describes the efforts by Jan and other long-time residents to build community through a variety of means. Jan focussed her efforts on the 7 blocks of Cortelyou Road, from Coney Island Avenue to East 17th Street, that are zoned to allow commercial use. She credits other neighbors, as well, with transforming Cortelyou Road into our Main Street:

One incredible woman, Susan Siegel, decided she wanted to bring a farmers market to the neighborhood. She worked on this full time, and a year later it opened! Some Cortelyou grocers objected to having it on their strip; a few vocal homeowners objected to unlocking a public school yard and using it to house the market. Ironically the fight over the market swelled into a local “pro-development” movement, made up of people alive to the new possibilities, and sparked a neighborhood newsletter.

Once it opened in 2002, the Farmers Market became an informal community center, a literal common ground, for our neighborhood. The Market became a place where the full range of neighborhood residents could come together to buy fresh fruits and vegetables and to catch up on what’s happening in the schools, the playgrounds, and stores including a highly successful organic food co-op. Until then, only the homeowners were organized but now new co-op owners, home owners, and renters all came, mingling freely with each other, and with “veterans”, in a way that had not previously been the case.

Red Jacket Orchards, Greenmarket, Cortelyou Road, July 2007

Although Jan doesn’t mention it in her article, the transformation of the Cortelyou Road streetscape resulted from many years of organizing and planning from several different sources, including the Flatbush Development Corporation (FDC). FDC has been active since arson for insurance fraud was a serious concern for the neighborhood, unthinkable today, when the same homes that might have been torched 20 years ago are going for over $1 million. FDC sponsors the annual Flatbush Frolic, which takes place on Cortelyou Road, and has been running for 31 years.

Cobblestones, Cortelyou Road, South side, West of Stratford Road, march 2007. That’s Coney Island Avenue in the background.

The new clock at night, in April 2008, shortly after it was installed this Spring, on the grounds of P.S. 139 at the corner of Rugby Road.

Even before we moved into the neighborhood, James Heaton’s Flatbush Residents Email Network Database – FREND – served as an introduction to the cultural landscape and issues of the neighborhood we were adopting.

Jim Heaton, a local advertising executive initiated an online newsletter, FREND, [which] served to “connect” nearly a thousand people and families to the new initiatives, particularly around the Farmers Market and crime …

The successor to FREND is The Flatbush Family Network, started by two other neighbors:

The on-line contribution really blossomed in 2003 when Ellen Moncure and Joe Wong revived the Flatbush Family Network (FFN) . This site has become an invaluable source of neighborhood and childrearing information for the many young families who live here. For many people moving into this neighborhood, FFN provides an initial introduction and orientation to life in this neighborhood. For those who live here, it’s a convenient, ongoing source of information and support.

Links

Gentrification from the inside out in Brooklyn’s Ditmas Park, NewGeography
Changing Ditmas Park, Ditmas Park Blog
Race, Class and Gentrification in Ditmas Park, Brownstoner

Flatbush Neighborhood History Guide published by Brooklyn Historical Society

Posted on 2008-09-23 by admin

MUST HAVE! Flatbush joins the neighborhoods of Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Red Hook/Gowanus, DUMBO/Vinegar Hill, Bay Ridge/Fort Hamilton:

The Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS) has just released a history of Brooklyn’s fabled Flatbush neighborhood. As one of the original six townships of Kings County, Flatbush has 400 years of recorded history, in which time it transformed from a rural Dutch hamlet of farmers into the “layered, complex, endlessly fascinating place” that the book’s co-author Francis Morrone described at the booklaunch last Thursday evening.
– Brooklyn Historical Society Releases New History of Flatbush, Phoebe Neidl, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 23, 2008

The book provides yet another response to the question, “Where is Flatbush, anyway?!“

The neighborhood is geographically defined in the book as being bound on the north by Parkside Avenue, on the south by Avenue H, on the east by Rogers Avenue and on the west by Coney Island Avenue. Flatbush encompasses several smaller communities, such as Ditmas Park, Prospect Park South, Beverly Square, Fisk Terrace, Midwood, Caton Park, and Albemarle-Kenmore Terraces.

Credit for this new history is largely due to the late Adina Back, a public historian who specialized in the civil rights movement, community activism and education here in Brooklyn. She passed away last month from cancer as the book was going to print.

With both anecdotal and statistical accounts, Back traces Flatbush’s evolution into the diverse urban area it now is with the help of documents and photos preserved by the Flatbush Historical Society, which closed its doors in 2002 and donated its collection to BHS.

Where is Flatbush, anyway?!, December 1, 2007

Links

Brooklyn Historical Society Releases New History of Flatbush, Phoebe Neidl, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 23, 2008
BHS Celebrates Publication of New Flatbush Neighborhood History Guide [PDF], Press Release, September 9, 2008

Boerum Hill, July 12, 2008

Posted on 2008-07-16 by admin

Buddy 50 Windowbox, 381 Pacific Street, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn

The Green With Envy Tour One of community gardens last Saturday was a walking tour. Lots, and lots, of walking, Five hours of walking interspersed by standing around, and occasionally sitting, in the beautiful gardens.

It was also a street-side introduction to Boerum Hill, a neighborhood with which I’m not familiar. Here’s some things which caught my eye, including some gardens which were not officially on the tour.

“Flags” (T-shirts, actually), 485 Pacific Street

Gardens, North Pacific Playground, Boerum Hill

At first glance this building seems out of place, but take a closer look. The brick and wood relate to the dominant materials on the block. The detailed brick lintel across the width of the ground floor echoes details of its neighbors. The windows reflect the street trees and sky.

Fellow Flickrites luluinnyc and mayotic and I were all intrigued by this unusual building at 385 Pacific Street.

The frieze above the door – I thought it was a wood carving, but on closer inspection it could be terra-cotta – reads “Cuyler Church.”

It really was built as a church building. It has a fascinating history. It served an “immigrant” community of Mohawk ironworkers and their families that settled in this neighborhood starting in the 1930s. In Spring 2001 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

The former Cuyler Presbyterian Church is located in the Boerum Hill neighborhood of northwestern Brooklyn, Kings County, New York. Designed by Staten Island architect Edward A. Sargent, the building is an example of High Victorian Eclectic design with elements of both Gothic and Romanesque styles of architecture. The Cuyler Presbyterian Church began as an extension of Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church to support its growing programs. The chapel was built one-half mile away from the Lafayette Church in the North Gowanus neighborhood (now called Boerum Hill).
– Cuyler Presbyterian Church

Here’s GRDN, a gardening store in Boerum Hill which I’ve been wanting to visit. It’s on the same block as the Hoyt Street Community Garden, but time did not allow me anything but the briefest entry into the front of the shop. I drooled over the hand-thrown Guy Wolfe pots. I want to go back.

Another beautiful building, this is the Brooklyn Inn, a local watering hole since the mid-1800s, at 148 Hoyt Street.

Rubbernecking at the Gowanus Community Garden, only time to admire it as we walked by.

Another lovely windowbox, this one at 218 Bergen Street.

Finally, here’s a different view of the Buddy 50 scooter and windowbox that opened the post. They were each so perfect and beautiful.

Hoyt Street Garden, Boerum Hill, Green With Envy Tour, I.2
Wyckoff-Bond Community Garden, Boerum Hill, Green With Envy Tour, I.3
David Foulke Memorial Garden, Boerum Hill, Green With Envy Tour, I.4

Links

Boerum Hill Association

Where is Flatbush, Anyway?

Posted on 2007-12-01 by admin

Update 2007.11.04: For others’ reactions to the Times piece, see the Links at the end of this post, or check out the list on Brooklyn Junction. Also added a link to a 1998 letter to the editor about their invention of “Greater Ditmas Park.”

Map of Flatbush in 1873

Today, the “Living In” feature of the Real Estate section of the New York Times looks at Flatbush:

More than a neighborhood, Flatbush often refers to a sprawling community in central Brooklyn comprising multiple smaller ones.
… But many smaller neighborhoods traditionally under the Flatbush umbrella, including Ditmas Park and Prospect Park South, have asserted distinct identities. So, the character of what might be called Flatbush proper — a rectangle anchored at the south by Brooklyn College — has come into sharper focus.
– Note to City Dwellers: Steals Available Here

The article claims “the borders of Flatbush are ambiguous”:

Neighborhoods once considered part of it have reclaimed their more specific names. Today, its western border is generally considered Ocean Avenue, beyond which are the various parts of Victorian Flatbush. Its eastern border is New York Avenue, beyond which is East Flatbush. The northern boundary is Parkside Avenue; on the south it is the Long Island Rail Road tracks, just above Avenue I.

This is not the first time the Times has gotten confused about the boundaries of the area. In 1998, they invented the term “Greater Ditmas Park” to cover several other neighborhoods, and a West Midwood resident took them to task for it:

Ditmas Park, along with Prospect Park South, Beverley Square West, West Midwood, South Midwood, Fiske Terrace, and the other neighborhoods in the area discussed are not part of ”Greater Ditmas Park” but of Flatbush.

Maybe that’s where Corcoran picked up their bad habits.

Part of the ambiguity is that the name “Flatbush” is used at two different scales, at least. There was the old Village, then town, of Flatbush, located along what was a trading trail and became the Flatbush Avenue of today. There was also the Township of Flatbush prior to consolidation, with Brooklyn in 1894, then with New York City in 1898. The township included the farmlands to the west of the town of Flatbush. These were developed at the turn of the last century into the “many smaller neighborhoods” the Times mentions.

The Township of Flatbush also extended north of the Times designation, bordering the Township of Brooklyn. In the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, a few hundred feet in from its southwestern entrance near the Carousel in Prospect Park, is a brass line and plaque marking this boundary:

The only substantial community garden in the area also gets a mention:

In 2002, the couple bought a one-bedroom co-op on Glenwood Road with an eat-in kitchen and spacious foyer … They started meeting neighbors through a residents’ association and the Campus Road garden, a community garden at Brooklyn College. In addition to the pleasure of tending their 10-by-13-foot plot, they enjoy summer social gatherings in the garden.

Forgotten Flatbush: The Albemarle Road Pedestrian Bridge

Links

Across the Park
Brooklyn Junction
Ditmas Park Blog
Fading Ad Blog
Hawthorne Street

Forgotten Flatbush: The Albemarle Road Pedestrian Bridge

Posted on 2007-11-25 by admin

In the first Imagine Flatbush 2030 workshop, we enumerated “Assets” and “Challenges”. At our table – and it sounded like the experience was shared at others’ – where someone lived emerged as a primary determinant of what appeared in which category. Sometimes shared concerns, such as transportation, appeared as both an asset and a challenge, depending on where one lived. It became clear to me that the lines can be sharply drawn, sometimes block-by-block.

I’m a newcomer to the area, having moved here only in Spring of 2005. I researched more and more about the area and its history as we committed to buying a home and moving here. I’ve still only visited a small portion of Flatbush. IF2030 is making me curious about exploring more of it.

Part of what I want to explore more of is literally “on the other side of the tracks” from where I make my home. The B/Q subway line runs through this neighborhood as an open trench. There are several places where there is no crossing, and the cut forms a geographical barrier, a steel river, separating one side from the other. It wasn’t always so. With homage to Forgotten NY, here’s a little piece of Flatbush that’s not quite forgotten, still part of living memory, the Albemarle Road pedestrian bridge.

Google Map of the location of the old Albemarle Road pedestrian bridge. 143 Buckingham Road is also highlighted; it’s a landmark in all the historical photos of this crossing. The markers show where I took the photos for this article.

View Larger Map

The BMT as I remember — never rode it much, but had relatives on East 17th & Beverley Road. We would always go to the Albemarle Road footbridge by the tennis courts over the BMT cut, and watch the trains.
– Steve Hoskins, SubTalk Post #93389, NYC Subway

Eastern Dead End of Albemarle Road at Buckingham Road. 143 Buckingham Road is at the left of the photograph.

Western foundation of Albemarle Road Pedestrian Bridge

“I seem to have a memory – or is it just a dream? – going back to my earliest childhood, associated with a place about a mile in a different direction from where I lived, towards Prospect Park: it is a stretch of about five blocks of Albemarle Road, going from the Brighton subway underpass to Coney Island Avenue. One got there from our side of the subway tracks by crossing over on a small footbridge. On the far end of the bridge, Albemarle Road suddenly widens, and in the middle of it there is a traffic island, covered with trees and extending a 11 the way to Coney Island Avenue; there are also trees on both sides of the street. My first encounters with this scene are in my memory entirely intermingled with my dreams of it, a recurring vision of overwhelming loveliness at the edge of things, beyond which something entirely new and different must lie.”
– Ronald Sanders, A Brooklyn Memoir, via Living in Victorian Flatbush

Western Dead End of Albemarle Road near East 17th Street. 143 Buckingham Road is at the right of the photograph, across the tracks.

East Foundation of Albemarle Road Pedestrian Bridge. 143 Buckingham Road is in the center, across the tracks.

Albemarle Road is interrupted by the subway cut for the B/Q lines. In the late 19th Century, several rail lines were developed to take passengers from the City of Brooklyn, what we now think of as downtown Brooklyn, through the other villages and towns such as Flatbush, to the beach resorts on Coney Island and Brighton Beach. By the 1870s the Brooklyn Coney Island Railroad ran along Coney Island Avenue. By the 1890s, the Brooklyn, Flatbush and Coney Island Railroad (BF&CI) ran along what is now the current route of the B/Q subway line. Most of Flatbush was still farmland at the time. When the Flatbush farms were sold and the area was developed at the turn of the 20th Century, the tracks still ran at grade.

In this 1873 map of Flatbush, Prospect Park and the Parade Grounds are already laid out to the north, and the Brooklyn Coney Island Railroad runs along Coney Island Avenue. On this map, Parkside Avenue is named Franklin Avenue, Church Avenue is named Church Lane, and Cortelyou Road is named Turner Harrow (or Narrow?) Lane. The Waverly Avenue shown on this map no longer exists; it’s later replaced by Albemarle and Beverly Roads Road, whose future locations are shown, but neither named nor yet built. The future route of the B/Q line is not shown. The families whose landholdings and houses appear on this map lent their names to several streets and neighborhoods: Turner, Hinkley, Ditmas and Vanderveer.

In an 1888 USGS Survey Map of Brooklyn, just a small portion of which is shown here, Waverly Avenue has been “de-mapped.” The roads built in its place, unnamed on this map, are Avenues B and C; these will be renamed later to Beverly and Cortelyou Roads. Between them run East 11th through East 14th Streets; in the early 1900s, these will be renamed to Stratford, Westminster, Argyle and Rugby Roads to cash in on the cachet of Prospect Park South. The BF&CI, which began service in July 1878, is also now in place. East of that, the eastern half of Avenue A (Albemarle Road) has been built, along with East 17th through 19th Streets.

Through the early 1900s, all these railroad lines ran at grade, at street level. There were also trolley lines, at first horse-drawn, then later electrified, on many of the crossing streets. Development brought a burgeoning residential population, more traffic, and more traffic conflicts and accidents. The decision was made to separate the rail and street traffic by moving them to different levels, passing above and below each other.

This photo from the 1918 “Reports of the Brooklyn Grade Crossing Elimination Commission” shows the Albemarle Road Footbridge. The line has been widened to four tracks and now runs below grade. Today, the local Q train runs on the outer tracks, while the express B runs on the inner tracks. 143 Buckingham Road is visible on the upper left of the photograph. Thanks to Art Huneke for permission to use this photograph. This photo appears on his page Brighton Beach Line, Part 3.

The physical contrasts could hardly be stronger across the tracks: a wide, tree-lined boulevard with large, detached wood-frame houses on one side, and tall, multiple-unit residential buildings with few trees on the other. It is tempting to imagine what it would be like to restore the pedestrian bridge, eliminating at least a geographical barrier between these two halves of the same neighborhood. Would it help us to make other connections, to recognize our common assets and challenges, and work together to create a future we can all live with?

Imagine Flatbush 2030

Links

My Flickr photo set
Brighton Line, NYC Subway
ARRT’s Archives, Art Huneke’s Web site
Rapid Transit Net
The Brooklyn Grade Crossing Elimination Project, 1903-1918

Flatbush Gardener

Urban Habitat Gardening with Native Plants

Tag Archives: History

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“Proud to be from … somewhere … over there …”

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90 Years Ago: The Malbone Street Wreck

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A recent history of Cortelyou Road

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Flatbush Neighborhood History Guide published by Brooklyn Historical Society

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Boerum Hill, July 12, 2008

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Where is Flatbush, Anyway?

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Forgotten Flatbush: The Albemarle Road Pedestrian Bridge

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