Old picture of my house, circa 1936

Last weekend, as I was standing on the sidewalk talking with Regina, a nicely dressed couple, Dorothy and Alec, stopped their car and were staring at my next door neighbor's house. He rolled down his window and said, "that was my grandparents' house in the 1930s".

It sounded like this was gonna be a good story so I told them to hold on while I got Betsy (it's her house). Betsy, who is mid-40s now, was born in the place. Her grandparents bought it when they were a young couple. So these peoples' grandparents might have been the previous owners.

As it turned out, he had spent a lot of time in the house when he was a little kid in the '30s. Betsy took them on a tour of her place, much of which is still original, and you could tell he was having flashback moments as he recalled the things he used to do in the house and what things used to look like. He related lots of cool stories about the block, what it was like here during WW2, the Liberty ships jamming the harbor waiting to be loaded at the Brooklyn Army Terminal, etc.

They sent Betsy a photo of my house from the 1930s.


I have an old tax photo of my house from the 1940s but this one is so much better. Was that a previous owner on the steps? That's obviously the owner's Model A(?) parked in the driveway, who apparently had the same problem with the garage's low ceiling that the house still has.

Dorothy and Alec said they have more photos of the neighborhood and they sent them over.  Here are the same houses in 1916, pre-garage:

My house is the one on the left, with the small tree in front of it. I found my original CO which shows 1935 as the year that grassy mound of a front "yard" was removed and the garage was built. I guess that window and door canopies must have been all the rage at the time. Then again, these houses get blasted by southern exposure and the photo predates residential air conditioning by several decades so it makes sense.

Check out how big that little tree got from 1916 to 1936! I don't understand why the POs built a garage and didn't remove it but it explains why he's parked in the driveway.

The little girl sitting on the stoop I was told is still alive today and in her late 90s.