Open Thread Wednesday

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  • Andrew Porter

    Glorious summery photo, Claude. I wish I had access to a garden like this… Oh, wait, going to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden today, so I do, don’t I?

  • Andrew Porter

    Identified as from 1905 (with cars? really?) this photo courtesy the Municipal Archives looks toward Brooklyn Bridge, with the Old Post Office building at right:
    [unable to post image]

  • Andrew Porter
  • JeffB

    Looks to be around 1948.

  • JeffB

    Looking for some help on this image. I’m aware of and have read all about the churches depicted in this Dripps map from 1850, but I can’t find a single word about a Catholic Church on Pierrepont Street between Henry and Clinton, nor a Presbyterian Church located on Fulton between Clark and Pineapple. Were these in the works, but never built? https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/09966ed7d4bcf583ee309b720654114fdfd55a625a9ddec616f2eb2e1421d75c.jpg

  • Mary

    I called 311 this afternoon around noon. They said it should be checked out in the next ~8 hours.

  • MaggieO

    have you checked later maps to see whether they appear on those as well?

  • JeffB

    Neither structure appears on the 1855 Atlas of Brooklyn. I’ve only ever seen them referenced on that 1850 Dripps map.

  • JBD

    I called last night at 6:30.

  • Jeremy

    The Presbyterian Church on Fulton at Pineapple was alternatively known as “First of Brooklyn Presbyterian” or “First Presbyterian (Old School)” – they split off from the other First Presbyterian church. It was their first building before moving to Remsen & Clinton (still standing but now apartments). This link to Henry Stiles explains it all:

    http://www.panix.com/~cassidy/STILES/PRESBYTERIANCHURCHES.html#OLD

    “First Presbyterian Church (Old School). The seceding portion of the congregation of the First Presbyterian church, for about a year after their withdrawal, maintained public worship in the Court House; until, after several ineffectual efforts to secure an amicable division of the property, they set about the erection of a new edifice, the cornerstone of which, was laid on the 3d of September, 1839, by the Rev. Dr. Samuel Miller of Princeton. This building, which was finished during the ensuing year, was situated on the corner of Fulton and Pineapple streets, its dimensions being eighty-five by sixty-five feet, and was constructed of brick, in the gothic style. It was then considered one of the finest church edifices in the city, and its cost, including the ground, was $40,000. The Rev. Melancthon Williams Jacobus, was installed as the first pastor of this congregation in the fall of 1839, and was only dismissed on account of ill health, October 21, 1851. His labors here were faithfully carried on in the face of difficulties which few young ministers have encountered and overcome. For over two years. after his departure the pulpit was vacant, and the congregation in a very unsettled and distracted state. When his successor the Rev. Henry J. Van Dyke, came here in May, 1853, the church edifice which had been removed, in 1850, from Fulton and Pineapple streets to its present location, on the corner of Clinton and Remsen, was still unfinished and the membership had dwindled to one hundred and forty or one hundred and fifty. Mr. Van Dyke was installed as pastor on the 29th of June, 1853, and since that period the church has expended about $12,000 in the completion and the improvement of the building, and some $15,000 towards the extinction of their debt. Its progress in other respects has been encouraging.”

  • Jeremy

    Here’s the answer on your “Catholic Church” on Pierrepont:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c815cf1e0991e87df8b4c01aed30ceb6be1c643079d29f541aa578228af0e42d.jpg

    (Brooklyn Evening Star, March 22, 1849)

    The map mistakenly labeled it as Catholic. In fact, it was a temporary home for Plymouth Church while their new building fronting on Orange Street was under construction before it opened in 1850. Should’ve been labeled “Congregational” not Catholic.

  • AnonyMom

    DEP truck pulled up yo the clogged drain at the corner of Henry and Clark just as I was about to go up the block in search if the water source. I walked with a nice gentleman named Soto. The water is bubbling up from both sides of the street across from 130 and 133 Henry. Soto called his supervisor and the report of the leak is on record. The city has 3 days to fix it. So we should expect Henry between Clark and Love Lane to be dug up in the next few days. The drain also needs to be dredged.

  • Andrew Porter

    Horrible news. I guess the white water rafting business I’d planned to set up won’t happen.

    With all our calls, someone finally paid attention!

    Here’s a nice babbling brook GIF:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/61d93202d9c4058841729119f451eb4c1ac6682620ce23fe3f34a198f152ca68.gif

  • Andrew Porter
  • Jeremy

    No, that pic is the Reformed Church (north side of Pierrepont near Monroe Pl), demolished to make way for the Appellate Division courthouse. The Plymouth building shows on the map on the south side.

    I highly doubt there are pics of the two churches JeffB asked about, because they were both torn down by 1855 (with the temporary Plymouth building probably being nothing more than a big auditorium).

  • CassieVonMontague

    this guy knows his heights churches.

  • Karl Junkersfeld

    This is just the tip of the iceberg. Jeremy should capture this knowledge in a
    book.

  • JeffB

    Amazing detective work, Jeremy. Thanks for all of this.

  • JBD

    I thought I would post here for recommendations. We are looking for help with our 2018 taxes. Really, nothing at all complicated. We filed our extension and now just want to get them completed.

  • JeffB

    Further info about the temporary Congregational church on Pierrepont from “History of Plymouth Church (Henry Ward Beecher) 1847 to 1872.” https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3c71e7e8497a33e5ca2500b42daf7ba3bfe6d3a62015dbd49c92710f02803ff6.jpg That footnote is interesting.

  • Susan O’Doherty

    Marcin Plachta, on Court Street, has done our taxes for many years. He is efficient, knowledgeable, and reasonable: https://www.manta.com/c/mmdggfp/m-plachta-tax-solutions-inc

  • AEB

    Very disappointing–and costly–dinner at the new Henry’s End the other night. A duck mouse that was almost liquid. Overcooked fried chicken with a Bakelite crust; salmon also overcooked.

    When I asked for a side of mashed potatoes–which turned out to be of the high-school dining room variety–I wasn’t told that same came with my entree. So double potato order.

    Tab for three with two glasses of wine, without tip: $208. Yikes!

  • JBD

    Thank you!

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7nPOzGeyaw Arch Stanton

    Yikes! Thanks for the heads-up. I was thinking of checking out the new location but now I’m gonna wait to hear more feedback. I hope they pull it together, we have so few good restaurants in the nabe and they were always reliable. It would be a shame if it’s Henry’s End indeed…

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

    Martha and I had dinner there Thursday evening; maybe we were there at the same time as you. I ordered my old summer favorite, soft shelled crabs with Moroccan butter. Martha wanted sole citron, and found it was on the prix fixe menu, so she ordered it with a green salad and rice pilaf, along with Persian lime pie dessert, all of the latter of which were for us to share. We were given a caesar salad by mistake; it was delicious and, to my delight, came with two anchovy fillets on top. Mark, the owner, came by – he knows us as long time regulars – and Martha mentioned that we were surprised to get this as the prix fixe green salad. He said it was the caesar, but we wouldn’t be charged for it.

    We had some difficulty getting bread to go with our salad – the wait staff seemed harried and overburdened. Our entrees were slow to arrive. Martha got two sizeable fillets of sole. One was delicious – she gave me a sample – but the other was dry and almost inedible. My crabs were good, but the Moroccan butter dressing seemed to have been left on the counter a little too long, and had almost solidified. The rice pilaf, and the dessert, were both fine. We had a half carafe of a Washington State sauvignon blanc that was excellent. As a nice grace note, although Martha had forgotten to bring her birthday card entitling her to half off on an entree, she was allowed to have it.

    Clearly, Henry’s End is having some problems with the new space. The kitchen doesn’t seem to be able to keep up with what, on a Thursday night, seemed ordinary restaurant demand and, as I mentioned, the waitstaff seems to suffer, perhaps as a result of problems in the kitchen. Maybe the complexity of Henry’s End’s menu, compared to that of Sociale’s, contributes to this.

    I hope Henry’s End can overcome these problems. We’ve loved this place for many years.

  • Heightsman

    Was there Wednesday and experienced the same. Hard to get bread on the table. Refills on the water only done by Mark. The server (female) was almost curt, no smiles. Fries were terrible – tasted frozen and/or baked. Steak was the same…very good. I do love the new space. Where is the old bus staff? They were the best. So attentive to tables. I’d love to know who’s cooking, same chefs?

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

    Our server, a young woman I hadn’t seen before, was very pleasant and apologetic about the delay in getting bread.