In August 1907, Harry Flory, the son of a wealthy eastern Pennsylvania businessman, bought a house on Glenwood Road erected by John Corbin that was then nearing completion. It was only 40 feet west of the Brighton line, which had just been lowered 15 feet below the surface and expanded to allow for express tracks and third rails, all part of the Grade Crossing Elimination Project. Managed by a state commission created in 1903, it was primarily promoted by the all-powerful Pennsylvania Railroad to eliminate delays in transporting freight from barges in Bay Ridge to points east. But the electrification of rail lines and upgraded rail service also unleashed an army of real estate speculators. Harry and his father Milton Flory were two such men.
Five months before moving into his new
Flatbush home, Harry incorporated an eponymous realty firm with his father
Milton on Remsen Street. A few weeks later, they closed a deal to buy a large
empty tract extending from Coney Island Creek to Bensonhurst and Bath Beach,
and expanded their company by naming seven new directors, who ponied up more
capital funds to clear the land, and install utility lines, sidewalks and
streets. In 1909 they incorporated the Lower Bay View Realty Company and began
selling housing tracts in their development they now dubbed “Ocean Park.”
The Flory household at 1431 Glenwood
consisted of Harry, age 27, his spouse Lilian, 25, their 2-year-old daughter
Ruth, and a Norwegian maid, an immigrant named Hilda. In 1908, Harry joined the
Wells Memorial Church, which was then using a building at the corner of Foster
and Argyle to hold its services and meetings. A very active Flory managed their
newsletter, became an elder, and helped secure funding for the English Gothic
church built at 700 Argyle Road, which was dedicated in 1913.
All seemed to be going swimmingly until
Sunday, May 29th 1910, when Milton, born a year before Lincoln was elected
President, decided to take three of Harry’s younger sisters on a sight-seeing
tour of their land down by the Creek. On the way through Sunset Park, on 52nd
Street, a seven-year-old lad jumped in front of Flory’s car to retrieve a ball,
and was run over. Grievously injured, the boy was carried inside by his father
and Flory knelt alongside the family to pray at his bedside.
A doctor was summoned from nearby
Norwegian Hospital, who pronounced the boy dead, and police promptly carted
Milton Flory away. He was placed in jail until his arraignment a few days
later. Milton’s brother, dispatched from Pennsylvania with bail money, secured
his release. Milton returned home, and the incident, which was eventually ruled
an accident, became front page news in the Allentown newspapers.
By 1911, most of the Ocean Park lots had
been populated, and Harry continued to buy land. In October of that year, he
and two other Pennsylvanians entered into a big deal with the Pennsylvania
Railroad, which wanted to buy a 12-story loft building in Manhattan. That
purchase was funded by selling hundreds of lots in Flatlands to Flory’s team
for a whopping $400,000 ($14 million today).
By June 1915, however, Flory might have
tired of New York’s cut-throat realty business, since later that month he
claimed to the NYS Census taker that he was a piano dealer. By 1918, he had
dissolved Lower Bay View Realty and the Flory family returned home to Bangor,
Pennsylvania, 27 miles north of Allentown. Harry spent the rest of his life
overseeing his father’s business empire, principally a water company that
supplied the region. His spouse died in 1924 of stomach cancer, his father died
in 1946 and Harry passed in 1965.
They first lived in the luxury Imperial
apartment house at Bedford Avenue and Pacific Street, but a year after they
were married Vera fled back to her Bed-Stuy family and filed for divorce in
Kings County Supreme Court. Under the banner news headline “Former Actress
Isn’t Exactly Happy as Mrs. Stackpole,” Helen complained of gunplay, drunken
behavior, threats of violence, lack of support, and unwarranted accusations.
Reconciliation quickly ensued, however, and they were never separated again.
On a rainy Friday evening, days after moving to Glenwood Road, Helen entertained her 73
year-old father, Paul Keiser, a brewery representative. He reportedly left their house in good spirits and
headed toward Newkirk Plaza, but dropped dead of a pulmonary hemorrhage just as
he reached Rugby Road.
In 1920 Thomas accepted a new job as the
chief buyer for the May Company Department Store in Cleveland, and the
Stackpoles relocated to Shaker Heights. Hellen became something of a tabloid
heroine in her new city when she rescued a dog and then was tried for refusing
to hand Rover over to the pound. She won. Thomas traveled world-wide to keep
May’s stores stocked until he died in 1935. Helen was buried alongside him in
1965. They left no heirs.
In the Fall of 1920, Felix McKenna bought
the Stackpole house. Felix, born in Northern Ireland in 1852, owned a liquor
store in Park Slope and was well known in that area before he moved his large
family of three boys and three girls to “the suburbs” below Prospect Park. He
died in his new home of “natural causes” in 1924 and after a funeral mass at
St. Rose of Lima, was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery.
According to the 1925 NYS Census, four
teen/young adults were being cared for by Felix’s widow, Catherine, an
immigrant from England. Her most notable offspring was Felix Jr., a Brooklyn
Prep and Columbia grad who became an architect, building many Catholic schools
and churches throughout the New York City. By 1930 he and his spouse Angelica
and their four daughters lived in Crown Heights, where he died of pneumonia in 1934, at the young age of 39.
In 1935 the Trebitsch’s eldest daughter
Marjorie married a Manhattan Beach lad in the yard of the Society for Ethical
Culture on Prospect Park West and by 1940 the Trebitsch nest was empty. Thomas
was still in the home, but now unemployed, he might have been the reason a male
attendant lived there, perhaps to care for him. while Oscar operated a
“fashion service” out of the home. Sometime in 1942, Oscar, Margaret, and
Thomas all relocated to Los Angeles, where Oscar died in 1946. Margaret was
buried next to him in Forest Lawn in 1951.
Following Pearl Harbor, homes became more difficult
to sell. In October 1942, the Reilly family signed a long-term lease on 1431
Glenwood. In 1913, Hugh Reilly, born to immigrant Irish parents, married Elsie
Kreisel, a daughter of German immigrants. They were only 21 and 19
respectively. In 1917, according to his WWI draft card, Hugh was employed as
the manager of a steamship insurance business on lower Broadway, and in 1920 he
was a freight agent for the US Army. When the stock market crashed in 1929, he
was a bond salesman. Uh oh. In 1940 he was an insurance agent. By then, their
son had married and moved away, but two daughters were still at home: Audrey -
a college junior - and Muriel, 27, recently divorced with a two year old
daughter.
The devaluation of property brought on by
the Depression is apparent when examining where the Reillys had been living for
the previous 17 years: 753 E. 22nd Street, in South Midwood, a 1900 wood frame
11 room house. In early 1930 it had an estimated market value of $18,500, but
by 1940 it had plummeted to $9,500 and by July 1944, still unsold, it was
listed for $7,500 (by December 1945, with soldiers returning home, the listed
price rose to $10,500).
It could be that for the Reillys, a
long-term rental on a new home - only a seven block walk to the Glenwood Road
footbridge - was more affordable than the mortgage on their house. Or it could
be that their daughter Muriel, who married architect Robert Euler in July 1936,
had some expensive tastes: Euler sued for divorce less than two years later,
and posted announcements that he was not responsible for her debts.
David Stuart Copeland (born 1957) and Jane
Madeline Raskin (born 1949) had been married ten years and were living in a
coop apartment in a four-story building on Avenue C in Kensington with their
five-year-old daughter Amanda. They wanted more space, and by all accounts they
were happy with the move to West Midwood.
In
2008, two attorneys - needing more room than their apartment in Park Slope
could provide for a growing family - didn’t think they could afford this area,
but 1431 Glenwood Road needed a lot of work and was priced accordingly, so they
pounced and bought the Copeland home.
Tom Smith is a lawyer for the Securities
and Exchange Commission: Laura Ross is a former prosecutor, now serving as
an attorney for a Bronx Supreme Court judge. Two daughters are in college
(Caroline at American University, majoring in political science
and Elizabeth at Loyola University, double majoring math and anthropology)
and Abigail is in the Law Program at James Madison High.
Says Laura, “We didn’t really know much
about the neighborhood, but soon after we moved in, Ron Russo told us we had
landed on the best block in Brooklyn. We couldn’t agree more. We loved
that the kids could walk to school at PS 217, and the many friends they made by
going there. They actually tell us how grateful they are that we raised them
here. We also love that the Halloween parade, with its hundreds of
trick-or-treaters, starts right in front of our house. And what a joy it
is, gathering with neighbors on each other's porches or in our back yards for a
drink to catch up. We could not think of a better place to be!”
CAPTIONS FOR IMAGES
1. 1908 Sep 30 Glenwood Footbridge looking northwest to West Midwood from Fiske Terrace. 1431 Glenwood is the 2nd house on the upper right
2. 1905 Dec 5: Photo looking NW from “Ave. G” days before the big dig started. Structure on right is John Corbin Co. sales cabin which was demolished in 1913 with the development of Matlborough Court.
3. 1905 Dec 28: At Glenwood looking north. Grade Crossing Elimination of Brighton line begins here on this day.
4. 1907 Jul 3: Looking south from Foster Ave. On the distant upper right: houses on Glenwood are under construction, as is the railroad bed.
5. 1908: Corbin Ad Detailing Construction.
6. 1909 Sep 5: Flory ad for their new Bath Beach development.
7. January 1913: Wells Church nearing completion
8. 1910 May 31: Boy Ball Player Killed by car driven by father of Harry Flory of 1431 Ave G. New York Tribune mistakenly identifies Maine instead of Pennsylvania as the location of Flory's Bangor home.
9. 1911 Oct 06: Harry Flory in big deal with Penn RR who sells several hundred lots in Flatlands.
10. 1924 Jun 19: Mrs Helen Stackpole - Brooklyn Daily Times
11. 1922: Thomas Stackpole Passport Photo
12. 1918 Oct 26: Paul Keiser age 73 found dead after visiting daughter at 1431 Glenwood - Brooklyn Daily Times
13. 1925 Jun 1: NYS Census Catheine McKenna age 63 & 4 children 33-27 (indicated within green rectangle).
14. 1925: Oscar Trebitsch passport photo.
15. 1936 Jan 26: Muriel Reilly 753 E 22 to wed Robert Eulor - Brooklyn Eagle.
16. Nick Mancino - LinkedIn Photo
17. David Copeland - LinkedIn Photo
18. The stars of this episode.
19. 1907 Aug 22: Flory purchases house from John R. Corbin Co. - Brooklyn Eagle.
20. 1910 Insurance Map - 1431 Glenwood Road highlighted in red rectangle on the far right.
21. 1940 NYC Tax Photo - 1431 Glenwood Road
22. 1983 NYC Tax Photo - 1431 Glenwood Road
23. 2025 NYC Tax Photo - 1431 Glenwood Road
NOTE:
For the development of the Marlborough Court bungalos, click here.