House of the Day: 1290 Pacific Street Revisited

Brownstoner:

When I mentioned this house to my brother when it was first posted a year ago, he mentioned that it was one of his fundamental memories of our growing up in Crown Heights during the 1950's. (We lived one building down the block on Pacific Street.)

Seeing the interior shots is a real eye opener. Back then the house seemed very dark, especially because it was set behind the street and an iron fence. But the big windows, apparently, create a very different character inside.

We never got in the place, not even during Halloween, when we and our pals would go up and down the block hitting up the neighbors. Somehow we knew not to go past the fence, especially after the owner's gardener chased my brother and his pals off the grounds with hedge cutters one afternoon.

The occupant was an elderly lady who always sat in the window left of the front door. She was there most times of the day, never moving and never saying a word. How old? Looking back I'd guess in her eighties. How long had she lived there? Who knew. But judging from the house and the big black Lincoln always parked in her drive, she was clearly a hold-over from the street's richer days.

But how could someone live in such a big house all alone? This made her the subject of fascination and conjecture by us kids. Some suggested she was so old that she may have built the whole neighborhood. Others postulated she was crazy. Looking at the interior photographs now and imagining them filled with furniture from the teens and twenties when she may have arrived at the house, I imagine she was one of those Crown Heights ladies of probity and rectitude. The last of a type.

There were a few others like her on the block, including an elderly woman and her mother who occupied an apartment in our building's twin. Lots of lace, floral wall paper and tea cups. Hushed conversations with my mother as her two boys played on the oriental rugs. Impassive, Victorian expressions in public, smiles and melodious voices in private.

They moved from the block, and we did, too. But the old lady at 1290 stayed put. What happened to her?

When I spoke of 1290 to my brother, the man -- now in his fifties -- cracked a big grin. He was that kid scrambling over the fence all over again. A small thrilling moment that helps define a childhood. And helping to keep that old lady alive.

Nostalgic on Park Avenue

Posted by: NOP at October 23, 2008 2:43 PM

Thanks, Brooklyn Greene.

I'm in Brooklyn whenever I peruse Brownstoner!

NOP

Posted by: NOP at October 23, 2008 2:58 PM

No, Bayridge Girl, Montrose Morris and I are not the same person. Notice we write about different times and in different styles. We've never even met! (Although I've come to think of us as friends.)

But it's good you love the neighborhood, especially for its architecture, which is among the best in the city.

And Montrose, I'm anxious to know more about the apartments going up across the street from 1290. Can you somehow get the builder to share the plans with Brownstoner? That lot was the view from my family's living room and dining room. We saw straight through to the old LIRR station on Atlantic Avenue, a real old-fashioned "depot" with yellow-painted wood walls and a shingle roof. Does it still exist? In the far background above the trees was the tower of Boys High School -- a wonderful Brooklyn landscape. Too bad if that all gets blocked out, although having a nice building to finish Pacific Street is a good idea.

The "big" apartment house you mention must be 1292/4, where I had friends. I remember this as a Tudor-style number with heavily carved furniture and chandeliers in the lobby. I got stuck in the elevator there once. It had an accordion door and somehow I got my foot caught in the apparatus and had to wait for hours to be let out.

Pretty humiliating for a little Brooklyn kid who prided himself on his independence!

NOP

Posted by: NOP at October 23, 2008 4:54 PM

Bay Ridge Girl:

And I'll be pushing tulips!

;)

NOP

Posted by: NOP at October 23, 2008 7:27 PM

Thanks, Amzi, for the information. If this is the case, Ms. MacDougal had a front window to Brooklyn's changes. NOP

Posted by: NOP at October 24, 2008 8:14 AM