The Stories Your House Could Tell: 1430 Glenwood Road

1910 Census: Hearn Family Bracketed in Red Font

In November of 1907 John R. Corbin sold a house he had just erected 35 feet west of the just submerged Brighton railroad for $12,500 (or $1,500 down and $50 a month for 20 years). The well-to-do buyer, Louis E. Williamson, owned an ink business on William Street, two blocks east of “Printing House Square” at the intersection of Spruce Street and Park Row, then more commonly known as New York’s “Newspaper Row.” Williamson likely bought the property as an investment (he owned two other houses in southern Brooklyn) and sold it less than two years later to FREDERICK W. HEARN, a prosperous merchant who had been living for most of his 48 years in the “New Lots” east of Flatbush – later dubbed “East New York.” The Hearn family would own 1430 Glenwood Road for the next 31 years. 

1795 Hyde Hall

The ancestry of Frederick’s wife, Sadie Lois Hyde, has been traced back to Sir Robert Hyde, Lord of the Manor of Norbury, 150 miles northwest of London, who died in 1571. A grandson emigrated to New England three decades later and after a lot of begatting, Sadie was born in New York in 1868. Frederick’s family history is not as well documented because there were no “Sirs” or “Lords” in his lineage. We do know that his mother emigrated from Holland and his father from England. Upon settling in New Lots during the Civil War, the Hearns became dairy farmers. Frederick expanded his father’s business and with his brother Cornelius became a wholesaler of butter and eggs at the Fulton Market (later dubbed the Fulton Fish Market, which relocated to Hunts Point in 2006). In 1899 the New York Times reported on Frederick Hearn’s  trip to Cuba, which had just become a US Protectorate in the wake of the Spanish-American War. Hearn represented a syndicate of investors with $6 million in capital (a quarter billion bucks today) who wanted to establish sugar and tobacco plantations near Santiago. The result of his trip is unknown but judging from his subsequent activities – expansion of his dairy business, multiple realty purchases in East New York, a new home on one of the finest blocks in Flatbush, and a  vacation house in Setauket – we’d have to guess he made out OK.

1899 Mar 20 Hearn departs for Cuba - NY Times

Hearn, like his fellow “Rough Riding” New Yorker, Teddy Roosevelt – whose Presidential term ended in 1909 – was a Republican. He served as a party representative for the district during the First World War, along with his next-door neighbor. At that time, most homeowners in Flatbush were Republican, while the working class in their employ remained loyal to Democratic “Tammany Hall.”

 

In August of 1918 Frederick Hearn placed a classified ad in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle to sell “elegant” 1430 Glenwood with its “new garage” for $12,500. However, the ad was pulled after just two days. In 1930, Frederick would peg the home’s value at $20,000 for the US Census taker but by 1940 he estimated it had plunged  back to its initial sales price of $12,500 as a result of the Depression.   

1930 Census: Hearns on Lines 11&12

 The Hearns’ two children, Lester   and Gertrude, were wed in 1928   and 1929 respectively. By then   Frederick’s income derived from   his extensive realty portfolio and   for the next decade the Hearns   experienced an empty nest. On the   eve of the Second World War, Sadie (age 72 in 1939) and Frederick (age 80 in 1940) died in the home.

 

1940: NYC Tax Photo

During the war, 1430 Glenwood Road became a two-family house and it remains so designated today – an oddity for the block – although it has only been occupied by single families since 1946 when the home was bought by JOHN & JENNIE LAURO. John owned a plumbing business but when he died in 1948, his wife managed it. Per the 1950 US Census, Jennie took on boarders and in-laws to make ends meet. In 1954 she sold the house to BETTY C. FISCH & DR. MARTIN L. FISCH, who by 1961 had become the Director of Clinics and Chief  Psychologist of Long Island College Hospital, lecturing on “the morals of the young adult” per multiple 1960s’ press clips. The 1954 purchase price was $13,000, somewhat above its assessed value at that time of $11,800.

 

In 1969 Dr. Fisch sold the home to EUGENE A. CZAP & CAROLYNE EBINGER CZAP of 1360 Ocean Parkway. Eugene was awarded the Conspicuous Service Cross for his military service as a TEC 4 in WWII, and Carolyne was the daughter of Ebinger Bakeries President Arthur Ebinger. Arthur’s father George founded the famous bakery at 1110 Flatbush Ave. near Cortelyou Road in 1898, growing to over 40 locations in Brooklyn by the time of George’s death in 1935. Arthur further expanded the business and went public in 1969 to raise capital for a five million dollar plant in Melville to serve outlets in Queens & Nassau counties. But Ebinger came under fire for discriminatory hiring practices in the early 1960s, hemorrhaged money during the late 1960s recession and declared bankruptcy, closing abruptly in 1972.

1940: Ave H Just West of Brighton Station

 

1940: Colorized Ebinger 1506 Ave H

 In 2001 Carolyne passed away at   the age of 83, followed by Eugene   in 2008 at the age of 93. A   charitable foundation was   established in their name, with the   Alzheimer's Program at New York-   Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist   Hospital funded in their memory. It   provides “a full continuum of care for patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and other memory and cognitive disorders [and] brain fitness training for older adults.”

The Czap’s estate sold the home to PAUL WEINTRAUB and ROBYN WOLINTZ for $935,000 in December 2009. Paul (Brooklyn Tech), created a very successful CPA with his own firm, while Robyn, (Midwood High), became a neurologist associated with NYU Langone and Maimonides. with a local practice on Avenue P.

In January of 2019, after raising three daughters alongside the clatter of Brighton trains, Paul & Robyn moved to Woodmere, Long Island, selling the house to Dr. RAMESH S. GULRAJANI, a pulmonologist & AGGIE SMITH-GULRAJANI, a recently retired nurse. They had been living in Marine Park for many years and each had two children from a prior marriage.

1983: NYC Tax Photo

 

Ramesh graduated from India’s G.S. Medical College in Mumbai in 1975 and then emigrated to the U.S. the following year to begin his training at Cumberland Medical Center. Since 1981 he has been affiliated with Brooklyn Hospital Center where he was appointed Associate Chief Medical Officer in 2007. Over the years, he has been responsible for training numerous students, residents, and pulmonary fellows, and has served as Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University. He has also co-authored several articles in scientific journals; was inducted into the “wall of fame” by the American Lung Association; and was named as one of the “Top Doctors in New York”' by Castle, Connolly Medical Guide, New York Magazine, and Consumer Research Council of America. His son Avinash is a cardiologist in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and his daughter Samara worked in Human Resources at BAM before moving to Florida.

Aggie & Ramesh

Aggie is also an immigrant with a distinguished medical career (BSN, MSN, OB-GYN, NP degree from SUNY-Downstate). She was a toddler when the Soviets invaded Hungary to crush the famous 1956 uprising – her family fled with Aggie to Austria and then to America. Her son Sean Smith is an architect in Pennsylvania and Breann is a make-up artist in Florida. Aggie met Ramesh while running the Women’s Health Center Clinic at Brooklyn Hospital almost 20 years ago: a compassionate social worker first introduced the divorcées and love bloomed. Five years ago, Aggie was working in an OB-GYN office on Newkirk Avenue and would take walks around the leafy cocoons of Victorian Flatbush. She appreciated the quiet streets, in sharp contrast to the blare of the nightlife on her Marine Park block. By chance she met Marilyn Cuff, who would accompany her on weekly walks, introducing her to welcoming neighbors, leading to driveway parking spots, membership in the Victorian quilters group and an overall sense that she had found a mini-Arcadia in Brooklyn.

When 1430 Glenwood came on the market, Paul & Robyn welcomed her to sit on their porch at any hour to gauge whether the Brighton trains rushing past would be a deal-breaker. She found it “an easy background noise,” and eventually convinced Ramesh they should move from their transit desert. In doing so, Ramesh found subway travel preferable to traffic jams and Aggie learned to live with less pickleball. “We lived in Marine Park for so many years, yet barely knew any of our neighbors and never had a drink or shared a meal with any of them. Here it’s a daily occurrence. We love how friendly and caring our neighbors and the community is.” The Gulrajanis’ only complaint? “When we have porch company, you have to gap your conversation from 6 to 8 seconds as a train rushes by, but it’s well worth it to live here.” [Her only wish now is that her son Sean, who has been actively looking for a place in this area for his wife (a therapist at Maimonides) and two children, gets lucky so she can babysit more often.] 

Given his specialty in treating respiratory disease, Ramesh was frequently overwhelmed with work during the COVID pandemic and Aggie went back to work to administer vaccine shots. We’re fortunate they chose to live on our side of the tracks.