I ❤️ this 🔥 visualization by @chris_whong using the NYC subway construction photo archive! Did you know there’s SO much data for 1914 Brooklyn to link to each geocoded image? I put together an example using just one pic in the stroll–here’s a deep-dive with 3 highlights 🧵⬇️ 1/x
Let’s zoom in on the block of Flatbush Av north of St. Marks Av. First stop: the H. S. Nargizian storefront. No puzzle to guess the business name, but what did Nargizian do? The sign looks like it says “Repairing and Cleaning” – of what?
The 1912 Brooklyn City Directory starts to fill in the details: Hagop S. Nargizian dealt in carpets. But at 252 Flatbush Av then, across the street. (All the buildings in the foreground of these stroll pics are on the odd-numbered side of Flatbush Av.) archive.org/details/brookl…
Here’s an ad from the 1908 Brooklyn Daily Eagle for “H S Nargizian – Importer, Oriental Rugs & Carpets” again at 252 Flatbush Av (and telephone “705L-Prospect”). At some point between 1912 and 1914, the store must’ve moved to the location in our pic. bklyn.newspapers.com/image/53941659…
Hagop Nargizian died in 1915–here’s his Eagle obit. He lived up the block from his store. (Recall the Ottoman crescent & star on his sign in the 1914 pic. Would the Armenian immigrant have displayed this symbol after the genocide starting the next year?) bklyn.newspapers.com/image/57393100…
Finally, corroboration of the Nargizian store at the location in our pic. Here, a 1920 ad for the Oriental rug business of V H Nargizian at 261 Flatbush Av. Presumably “V H” is Hagop’s son Vahan. bklyn.newspapers.com/image/68685642…
Looks like Nargizian moved next door to 263 Flatbush Av by the time of the 1940 tax photo courtesy @nycrecords & here’s what 261 Flatbush Av looks like today, via Google Streetview.
Next up: this vintage automobile parked at the curb. (Were there really that few cars on Brooklyn streets in 1914? Actually no--traffic was already a problem. But I suspect some moving cars weren’t captured by the long exposures on these pics.)
This photo’s time period is a lucky break to get deets on the car. NY auto registrations started being required in 1901 - by 1910, with 100K+ registrations on the books, plates became standardized. Newspapers published the lists of new registrations in these early years!
Bingo! Incredibly, we can know who owned this car - here’s NY #12796 – first registered in 1912 to Henry Von Glahn of 229 Washington Av for a Pierce automobile. bklyn.newspapers.com/image/83142280…
Not surprisingly, a fancy car is connected to the kind of well-off person who gets lots of ink in the papers. Henry was half of the Von Glahn Bros. Made a fortune in the wholesale grocery biz and then moved into real estate. This pic from his 1923 obit. bplonsite.newspapers.com/image/55757974…
Sidenote 1: obit is from the Brooklyn Daily Times – digitized by @brooklynhistory like the Eagle, but behind a geofence, for reasons. During the pandemic, you can bypass the geofence & access by 1st clicking through the full content link here: bklynlibrary.org/brooklyncollec…
Sidenote 2: his Eagle obit was short with no pic, but the Daily Times, with origins in Brooklyn’s old Eastern District that included Williamsburg and Bushwick and oriented more to its German population, devoted a lot more space to this Hanover immigrant bklyn.newspapers.com/image/58029703…
Today, you might recognize the Von Glahn Bros. name from the eponymous terra cotta sign on their still-standing Washington Av building - right at eye-level when driving by on the BQE! The Real Estate Record reveals the details. h/t @averycolumbia rerecord.library.columbia.edu/document.php?v…
The elegant Von Glahn Bros. warehouse at Washington & Park Avs (shown on this 1904 Sanborn map from @NYPLMaps) was designed by prominent Brooklyn architect J. G. Glover in 1890. (Later, a chocolate factory where Tootsie Rolls were made!) h/t @Brownstoner brownstoner.com/architecture/b…
A few years later, Glover designed this matched pair of Romanesque Revival houses at 229 Washington Av for Henry & 231 Washington Av for John. Andrew Dolkart shares all the deets in the @nyclandmarks report for Clinton Hill s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/l…
Back to Henry’s car with plate NY 12796: looks like the famous Pierce Arrow. (He had an earlier 1910 registration for that model, too.) President Taft ordered two Pierce Arrows in 1909, the first official White House car! Here's a similar model. bklyn.newspapers.com/image/83221844…
Last, let’s take a peek across to the other side of Flatbush Av. In the distance behind Henry Von Glahn’s car, we can see this vertical sign for Nolan’s Cafe.
The 1912 Brooklyn City Directory (last one issued before phonebooks took over) doesn’t have any relevant entries for a Nolan establishment. But the Daily Eagle comes through with several ads which reveal the address, cross-street and phone (3316 Prospect). bklyn.newspapers.com/image/59737938…
Searching “224 Flatbush” doesn’t yield much either. But broadening the search on “Nolan” and “Cafe" turns up this 1914 ad, for Nolan Hall and Cafe. bplonsite.newspapers.com/image/54385210…
Turns out Nolan Hall was the primary moniker–site of a variety of social and political events like this 1914 Bull Moose Party, anti-Tammany rally. The “Cafe" part visible on Flatbush Av was possibly a side entrance to the main frontage on Bergen. bplonsite.newspapers.com/image/54387232…
224 Flatbush is now one side of the expansive Pintchik paint and hardware store on the Bergen St corner. Interestingly, today the Pintchik family owns a huge number of the low-rise buildings that make up the Flatbush Av stroll! bklyner.com/michael-pintch…
More to come soon with data pointers for ALL the pix in the stroll! <END>
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