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| 1940 |
Six families have occupied 725 Argyle Road since it was built by John R. Corbin in 1905 and they provide an interesting mix of professions: publishing, policing, music, facilities management, sales, nursing, architecture and teaching.
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| 1910 Census: Mr. & Mrs. Peck |
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| 1910 Census: The Rest of the Pecks |
The first residents were Joseph and Ruth Peck and their two young daughters. The Pecks were born in Cincinnati, married there in 1903, and shortly thereafter moved to Brooklyn, buying a home in the new suburban development of West South Midwood. Ruth’s parents, Harry and Cecilia Crossley, then in their 70s, joined them in the spacious dwelling. Sorry baseball fans, the Crossleys were not related to Powel Crosley (with one “s”), a radio manufacturer who bought the Cincinnati Reds in 1934 and re-named their ballpark after himself, naturally.  |
| 1916 Peck's Patented Coloring Book |
No, the Pecks were purveyors of an older media: books. In the offices of Platt & Peck at 42 Broadway you could pick up works they published ranging from Black Beauty and Charles Dickens to unique children’s coloring books that Joseph himself patented (many of their titles can still be purchased from rare book dealers).
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| 1915 Jul 21 Brooklyn Times Union |
In 1915 tragedy befell the family when grandfather Harry, who’d been suffering from cancer, died in an upstairs bedroom of asphyxiation from gas said to be “streaming from an unlighted lamp.” One of the tabloids labeled it a suicide. A memorial service was likely held at Wells Memorial Church across the street on the corner of Glenwood Road where Ruth had been active in funding their new kitchen and dining room.
The Pecks moved to Manhattan and sold the home in June 1917 for $7,500 to Charles & Nellie Zanes and their three children. Charles’s forebears founded Zanesville, Ohio, and he was related to that city’s favorite son, the western novelist Zane Grey. The Brooklyn Zanes experienced plenty of real-life drama. First, Nellie, age 53, died of a stroke in her bed less than two months after moving in. And seven weeks later Charles accompanied his eldest daughter, Louise, to an Army base in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where she married her Erasmus High sweetheart Charles Wolff III (both were Class of ’13). Wolff had enlisted after graduating Dartmouth that Spring, only weeks after the US entered the World War, and with deployment overseas looming, the couple tied the knot. Despite being seriously wounded and contracting the Spanish Flu while serving in France, the groom survived and returned to live with the Zanes family. That’s when the drama escalated.
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| 1912 Lt. Zane's Pct at 5th Ave & 15th St in Slope |
Charles Zanes had been an NYPD Lieutenant stationed at the 5th Avenue Precinct on 16th Street for 12 years when he moved the family to Argyle Road. More importantly, he managed the charity Police Games for Orphans and Widows at the old Sheepshead Bay Racetrack which annually drew 75,000 ticket-buying citizens. In April 1919 Police Commissioner Richard Enright (no relation) promoted him to Captain during a Departmental reorganization to manage some of the new “Flying Squads” working out of NYPD Headquarters on Centre Street (now a landmarked luxury co-op building, home to Leonardo DiCaprio among others). These squads descended on bookies, pimps, and speakeasys for a few years until the next Commissioner derided them as elitist, dispersing its 300 members to walking beats in 1926. Zanes, then a Deputy Chief Inspector, immediately retired, remarried, moved to 554 Argyle Road, died in 1933 and is buried in Green-Wood.
The third family to occupy 725 Argyle was headed by a World War vet who served as an “Army song leader,” the famed choral conductor and vocal coach, Herbert Stavely Sammond. Census records reveal he was born in Wisconsin in1872 but grew up in an Atlantic Avenue orphanage run by the City of Brooklyn. Once an organist at Temple Beth Emeth, he advertised as a music teacher for many years, working out of his studio at 725 Argyle where many an accomplished out-of-town musician would spend the night tinkling the ivories with Herbert, his school teacher wife, Lena, and their three children.
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| 1940 NY Telephone Directory |
The Sammonds sold the house in July of 1943 to Raymond Blitzer Leinbach and his wife, Mildred. Raymond spent his younger years as a lodger at the Brooklyn YMCA at 55 Hanson Place, then after a brief career as a chemist, went on to become the manager of the huge facility. Following Raymond’s death, Mildred sold the house to Victor Krauthamer in 1975.
Victor arrived at Idlewild Airport from Poland in 1949 at the age of two, with his infant sister, Julie. They were the precious children of Auschwitz survivors.
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| 1949 US Immigration Form for Krauthamers |
Victor became a salesman at Macy’s and then Newsday. He and his wife, Ruth, a nurse who wrote a health column for the WM Newsletter for many years while Victor provided all the graphics, bought a snow blower back in the early 90s. Neighbors scoffed when only two inches fell the entire winter. The next year the Krauthamers’ wisdom was widely recognized when Brooklyn was buried in epic blizzards. In 2017 Victor passed after a long illness. Two years later Nate Rogers and Allidah Muller arrived with their two-year-old son, Caleb, just in time to suffer through the pandemic with the rest of us, made a lot more bearable by watching Caleb beat his drum during the evening pot-banging ritual. Nate is an architect specializing in historic preservation while Allidah, when not writing a cooking column for the WM News, teaches art at a charter school in Fort Greene. Since moving in, they’ve encountered interesting problems in restoring their home’s exterior, relying on the craftsmanship of Bullseye Exteriors (“fabulous,” raves Nate). Work along the way included asbestos abatement and even the “humane eviction” of a squirrel colony residing in the eaves. Amidst the chaos of construction, they also added a new member to the household, Ethan, born this past Halloween.
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| Nate, Allidah & The Wee Ones |
Quite a cavalcade. And that’s what I love about West Midwood: you can’t beat our variety!
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| 1983 |
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| 2020 |
