Past and Present: Corner of 4th Avenue and 13th Street in Gowanus

A look at Brooklyn, then and now.

An eBay search for photographs came up with this great shot of the storefront building on the corner of 4th Avenue and 13th Street, on the Gowanus side of the street. The shot is from 1910, and shows the establishment of Mr. Henry J. Luck on the ground floor. Who knows, that may even be the man himself standing in front of the building. I love ordinary shots of everyday people and places, and these candid moments can also tell us a lot about how the average person lived in 19th century Brooklyn. I did a little research on Mr. Luck and establishment and here’s a bit of his story:

According to those who are experts on surnames and national origins, the name “Luck” is of German derivation, a variant of Lukas or Lϋck. It can also be English, or Dutch, as in “Van Luck.” All of those possible origins match nicely with the people who settled in Gowanus and lower Park Slope at the turn of the 20th century. Henry J. Luck’s business may have been a grocery store, or some kind of saloon. The corner location would have been excellent for either. The names on his awning or banner are all beers from Brooklyn breweries, three of the most popular brews, from three of the largest Bushwick breweries.

The photo is just blurry enough so that we really can’t see details from the Luck store, but we do know from the newspapers that he had been here since at least 1905. He was chastised by a judge for selling adulterated milk. He tried to explain to the judge that he didn’t know it had been watered down, or had potentially dangerous additives; he had just sold it as it came to him. There were others in the community that didn’t think it was fair for him to have been singled out for official chastisement, as tests for adulteration cost money and took days, by which time, in these days of iceboxes and cold rooms, before electric commercial refrigeration, the milk would have gone bad anyway.

Perhaps he had been a grocery store, and then became a saloon, or maybe he was a general store that could sell both milk and beer, like any bodega today. Whatever he was doing, he was doing just fine. By 1914, four years after this photograph was taken, Henry Luck became one of the lucky few to be an automobile owner. It still amazes me that there were so few cars on the road that the Automobile Club published a directory with the names of every car owner in the state, along with their addresses, the registration number of their cars, and the make. Luck owned an Auburn, registration # 19860.

In 1924, he was driving in Fort Greene, perhaps coming from or going to the Wallabout Market, when he hit five year old Pailo Gotkerio, on Myrtle Avenue, near Waverly Avenue. Fortunately the little boy only got cuts and bruises, and was treated at the scene and sent home.

Earlier, in 1918, during World War I, Henry Luck had gone to war. He was in a medical detachment that sailed on a vessel called the Saxonia. They sailed back into Gravesend Harbor December 27th, 1918, safely returning from a sea assignment. Luck was still listed at this address until at least 1924.

I don’t know if it was the same Henry J. Luck, but a Brooklyn man by that name became an assistant cashier for the Socony Oil Company. He lived with his wife and son, named Henry J. Luck, Jr. at 2662 E.24th Street, in Sheepshead Bay. He made the papers for two reasons. One, in 1926, he was a victim of a married pair of con artists who took him for over $16,000, in a Ponzi investment scheme. He was among a number of well-off people who were fleeced. The second event was in 1931 when he was a juror in a sensational murder trial in which a Filipino houseboy was accused of killing his wealthy Brooklyn Heights employer. Was he the same Henry J. Luck? If so, his life had improved greatly from his store on the corner of 13th Street and 4th Avenue. Today, the corner is still home to a grocery store, with apartments above. GMAP