Heights History: BBQing for BUG

By on February 27, 2009 8:59 pm in Brooklyn Heights, History

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From Poppa Fink’s archives comes this promo shot of former NYC Commissioner of Public Events/ Knicks star Bud Palmer BBQing atop a building somewhere in Brooklyn Heights circa 1971.   The address of the BUG photo lab is stamped on the back of the picture: 195 Montague Street.  According to Pops, the shot was used in Brooklyn Union Gas pamphlets.   Palmer, who earned an honorary salary of $1 per year working for the city paid the bills as an ABC sportscaster and spokesperson. Anyone have an idea on where this was shot?

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  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com Claude Scales

    Judging by the distance between the building where the picture was shot and the East River, I’d say it was somewhere in Fort Greene.

  • nate

    No, that’s a Brooklyn heights view. I think it is the terrace of a penthouse apartment in one of the two 1960’s era apartment buildings on Clinton Street across the street from the public library. In fact, one of my friends sublet an apartment with a similar terrace. I don’t know the address, but it is a 12-or-so story building with a garage, on Clinton between Pierrepont St. and Cadman Plaza.

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com Claude Scales

    I hadn’t taken into account the distortion of distance resulting from the use of a short lens, which makes Manhattan look like it’s several miles away. I’m guessing that the tallish building in the middle distance near the left, with the airshaft on its south side, is the Standish (or is it the Maragret?).

  • AEB

    Ah, those male neckerchiefs!

    Now it can be told: I had a little ring that one could slide the silk ends through to keep everything as jaunty as jaunty could be!

  • Andrew Porter

    It’s the Standish. The Margaret had a roof that sloped to a peak.

    Which reminds me, I have to scan in all my photos of the Margaret fire and send them off to Homer. Dramatic stuff, esp. the ones that show the copper roof melting and dripping off the top of the building. Sigh….

  • Homer Fink

    Andrew, that would be great. Thanks!

  • http://mermaidsonparade.blogspot.com melanie hope greenberg

    Love the handkerchief scarf on the man.

    I enlargened the photo. I think the back of the Standish Arms Hotel on Columbia Heights is the tall whitish colored building on the far left of the photo, on the Brooklyn side of the river. Just in front of it (our foreground) is 135 Willow St, a tall longish looking building. I see these two buildings from my window. Trying to guess the cross streets visually I think these two are on a roof on Henry St. near Love Lane. There are taller buildings there.

    BTW Homer, you can see these two buildings in your BHB photo logo. I compared my window view with the photo logo and it doesn’t match. Is the photo a montage? I like it.

  • John Wentling

    Pardon, The Margaret had a penthouse, it was not a peaked per se, otherwise I would have certainly slipped and plummeted to my death on untold occasions, particularly when I was being shooed off by the resident artiste. What the heck was his name?

    Copper roof? Maybe under all the tar paper (?), and as I recall, there was an atrium attached to the penthouse – the artist’s studio.

    As Melanie suggested, the photo does seem to be from the apt. building on Henry and Love.

  • Andrew Porter
  • Rahm

    Looks like it could have been taken from the PH rooftop at 160 Henry Street.

  • bornhere

    Great postcard. And here’s a little more nostalgia (I didn’t know the history of the Mansion House).
    http://tinyurl.com/d3n7z2

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com Claude Scales

    Bornhere: Great find. I’m bookmarking it for my “Heights History” file. Thanks!

    Also thanks to Andrew for the Margaret postcard, which I’m bookmarking as well.