[As always, Mr. Trivia Guy insists he should only be asked questions he already knows the answers to.]
LANCE TUKELL: I heard through the grapevine there will be a new City ordinance regarding structures 40 feet and higher. So, do you know how tall my house is at 667 Argyle?
TRIVIA GUY: The height of your roof above ground elevation is 38.25 feet. You can replicate the search at https://bit.ly/2YA3Hoy. Local Law 26 of 2004 required all NEW residential buildings at least 40-feet tall (and existing residences taller than 100 feet) to have commercial fire sprinkler systems installed within 15 years.
SAMANTHA & WARREN BLOOM: Over here, Mr. Guy! During the September Block Party these two Men in Black approached as we sat on our porch on Glenwood and they told us two things. First, they said Charles Ebbets, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers who built Ebbets Field in 1917, lived in our house. Could that possibly be true?
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| Charlie in His Prime |
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| Ebbets Family Plot |
TRIVIA GUY: No. It’s another myth. Ebbets lived across the Cut in Fiske Terrace at what is now 1666 Glenwood but back then was numbered 1466 for reasons too complicated to explain. The 2008 NYC Landmark Designation Report for Midwood Park/Fiske Terrace documents his residency there from 1912 until 1925 (see http://s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/2208.pdf).
Newspaper accounts of the Ebbets funeral in April 1925 described a crowd of 500 gathering outside his house at 1466 Glenwood (now 1666). Multiple papers reported that the cortege then "proceeded down Glenwood Road to Ocean Avenue." Obviously they could not have proceeded "down Glenwood Road" from your house because there was an enormous foot bridge (erected in 1908, demolished in the mid-1980s) and a rather large sunken railroad bed in the way!
1925: April 21 Excerpt from Standard Union Page 1 Story
[Boring Note: I have encountered the issue of re-numbered houses in this area back in the first two decades of the 20th Century. Why? I presume it had to do with the Department of Buildings being confused by the new streets with new names interrupted by surface railroad tracks later depressed, or maybe the dog ate their homework.]
Anyway, what was the othe thing the MIBs said?
BLOOMs: That they were the galaxy defenders, the ones we won’t remember.
TRIVIA GUY: And yet, you did remember them! Props to you, Warren & Samantha!
CHARLTON McILWAIN & RAECHEL ADAMS: Hello? Are we interrupting? We just moved to the corner house at Glenwood & Argyle. Anything interesting about it?
TRIVIA GUY: Welcome! The original owner of 685 Argyle was an Irish-American physician named Burke who in 1909 circulated 5,000 – yes, FIVE THOUSAND – copies of a letter excoriating the railroad company that ran a trolly down the center of Coney Island Avenue. He claimed without any evidence that it was causing all sorts of disease and death, arguing the only solution was to remove the tracks and pave the avenue.
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| 1909: November 2 Dr Burke's 5000 Letters, Brooklyn Eagle |
Six months later the same Dr. Burke, using an alias of "B" (but specifying his exact address) posted an ad for vacant lots on Coney Island Avenue he had owned for the past four years that he wished to sell, adding “when the Avenue is paved, they will be worth a lot more.” Tsk, tsk, tsk.
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| 1910: May 15 - "B" To Sell Parcels |
Then, in the late 1920s the exterior of the house was altered to enclose the front porch and move the entrance from Glenwood to Argyle Road. The home was then owned by Irwin Edelman, the general counsel for the Ex-Lax Corporation which was founded by his spouse’s father, Israel Matz, a great philanthropist, a benevolent employer, and a pal of Albert Einstein. The Matz family lived in the mansion built by Dean Alvord, the “Father of Prospect Park South,” at the end of Albemarle Road, which was later destroyed by vandals. That land is now a private park alongside the Brighton cut.
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| 1906: July 14 Brooklyn Eagle - 1309 Glenwood Rd aka 685 Argyle Rd |
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| 1940: Tax Photo for 1309 Glenwood Rd aka 685 Argyle Rd Note Entrance Has Been Moved from Glenwood to Argyle |
CHARLTON McILWAIN & RAECHEL ADAMS: Wow, thanks, Mr. Trivia Guy!