Walkabout: Six Degrees of Brooklyn

In writing these pieces about Brooklyn’s history, more and more I realize how small, unconnected facts or people do, indeed, become connected. A random search into the history of the Pouch mansion for my last Walkabout led to a man in Crown Heights, then called the St. Marks District, which led to a famous architect, which led to a famous church, and then to the Pouch. And who knows who or what else will turn up in this story about a family and a love of music.

Robert Thallon was a Scotsman, who was born in Glasgow in 1816. In 1843, he wed the fair Jemima McCunn, and they had four children, one girl and three boys, the second of who was named Robert Jr. In 1853, the family came to America, and Robert Thallon, Sr. became a pioneer in the exporting of provisions, and one of the founding members of the New York Produce Exchange. The Exchange was the outgrowth of Peter Stuyvesant’s trading companies, and an important part of New York City’s growth as a commercial and trading hub. From the beginning of the city’s history, trade has been the life blood of the New York, and historical reports of vast amounts of provisions that were exported back to Europe, everything from corn, tobacco, produce, livestock and lumber, show the importance of the amount of trade that left from New York harbors.

The completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 brought even more provisions and trade to the city, and the area designated for the trade of produce and goods was established in the Bowling Green area of Manhattan. Over the years, as the size and importance of the Produce Exchange grew, larger and larger buildings were needed. In 1852, the New York Corn Exchange was established, operating out of a building on South Street and Broad. When Robert Thallon arrived a year later, he joined the Exchange, and helped to turn the Corn Exchange and other smaller similar trading companies into the New York Produce Exchange Company, which soon became the wealthiest and most influential produce exchange in the country. Much later, their new headquarters, built in 1881 through 1884, across the street from the Customs House, was designed by architect, George Post, a brilliant architect, who also designed the NY Stock Exchange building, and close to home in Brooklyn, the beautiful brick and terra-cotta headquarter of the Brooklyn (then Long Island) Historical Society, on Pierrepont Street.

Robert Tallon, Sr. didn’t work himself to the bone, like so many others. Now quite wealthy, he had time for his personal hobbies and pursuits. Like many Scots, he was fiercely proud of his native country, and he studied Scottish literature and, was an enormous fan and admirer of Robert Burns. He owned a number of original Burns manuscripts, and was a long time president of the Robert Burn Club of New York. He was also a very talented musician, and was well known in the city’s musical interests and organizations.

In 1864, Robert Tallon retired from the Produce Exchange, and took the family to Europe, where they lived for ten years. The Tallon’s mostly resided in Leipzig; many family members studied in the local conservatories and schools. Robert Thallon, Jr. studied at the Leipzig Conservatory, where he mastered the organ, piano, violin and conducting, all under the baton of Signor Vanucinni of Florence. When the family moved back to Brooklyn in 1874, Robert Jr. became organist for the Reformed Episcopal Church of the Messiah, a position he held for six years. After that, he became the organist at the famous Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn.

Robert and Jemimah Tallon moved back to New York in 1974, and settled into a house at 816 St. Marks Avenue, in the St. Marks District, a very wealthy portion of the old town of Bedford. This is now part of Crown Heights North. Robert Jr, bought a house nearby, at 900 St. Marks Place, and set up his music studio. Fortunately, we have an old photograph of this house. For twenty-five years Robert Jr. maintained a music studio at the house. Starting in 1885, Robert held more than six hundred weekly morning concerts at the house, inviting students, fellow musicians, family and friends. The weekly contests were soon one of the highlights of musical life in Brooklyn. One of the first things Thallon did was to purchase a custom made pipe organ for his music room. It was a handsome parlor organ with two keyboards and a pedal of 27 notes. The instrument was encased in walnut with large speaking piles in front decorated or gilded in gold, and had pride of place in the rear drawing room of the Thallon mansion.

Patriarch Robert Tallon Sr. died in 1882. He was known in community circles as a fine man who was loved by everyone. His obituary called him one of the most prominent merchants in New York City. In 1895, his wife, Jemimah, died. In 1901, Robert Thallon, Jr moved the organ and his music studio to the Pouch Mansion on Clinton Avenue, establishing a school there that would go on for at many more years, until his death. His numerous concerts and recitals by both himself and clients were often printed in the Daily Eagle. He sold the house on St. Marks Avenue, and moved away. He died in 1910, and was himself hailed as one of Brooklyn’s greatest musicians and teachers.

The massive and beautiful Produce Exchange, in Lower Manhattan, was torn down in 1959 for a modern glass and steel building, now Number 2 Broadway. 816 St. Marks Avenue, the senior Thallon home, was torn down for a 1930’s apartment building. 900 St. Marks would now sit in the middle of the children’s playground inn Brower Park, and is also long gone. Even the Pouch Mansion is gone, replaced by Navy Yard houses, now co-ops in Clinton Hill. The only things to survive from this story are Plymouth Church and the pipe organ James Tallon, Jr. bought for his house. After leaving the Pouch Mansion, the organ was bought by the Methodist Church of Naugatuck, Connecticut, where it delights a far generation of congregants and musicians and to this day, none of them familiar with any of this whatsoever.