[HN Gopher] A magnificent 1850s house dubbed the Blue Belle of B...
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       A magnificent 1850s house dubbed the Blue Belle of Brooklyn
        
       Author : samclemens
       Score  : 66 points
       Date   : 2023-09-22 22:31 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com)
        
       | dang wrote:
       | [stub for sweeping offtopicness under the rug]
        
         | voidfunc wrote:
         | Nice house, don't actually think it is supposed to be painted
         | that color - looks dumb with that blue on it.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | Aeolun wrote:
         | That is some eye searing blue. I appreciate the whimsical
         | nature of it, but I wouldn't want it on my own house.
        
       | susodapop wrote:
       | I just moved to Brooklyn and have seen this property. Stories
       | like this are precisely what gives this city texture and
       | excitement. Just about every visible feature has a long and
       | compelling history.
        
       | mikegioia wrote:
       | I lived on 10th street and 4th avenue for a few years and I used
       | to walk past this house frequently. I love it, and I love
       | Brooklyn and the entire feeling the city has. I miss it so much
       | and this article has really taken me back there.
        
       | ughitsaaron wrote:
       | Apropos of nothing about the house, I'm confused why someone
       | would use the "Antebellum era" to periodize something in New
       | York?
        
         | jonahbenton wrote:
         | I dunno, the wars are good bookends/shorthands for eras in NYC.
         | 
         | "Pre-war" is a term of art in real estate, meaning post-
         | WW1/pre-WW2, when the first big apartment buildings went up.
         | Many of these buildings were the work of craft and are
         | desirable residences today.
         | 
         | "Post-war" is also a term of art- post WW2- and generally means
         | ugly/junky, in real estate terms.
         | 
         | Many of the brownstone/single family townhouse/rowhouse
         | neighborhoods were built before and around the WW 1 time frame,
         | 1890s to 1920s.
         | 
         | The need to refer to it is infrequent, but "antebellum"-
         | literally also "pre-war"- is recognizable for pre- but
         | proximate to the Civil War. The Civil War was so momentous, it
         | deserves its own latin reference, lol. In real estate terms few
         | structures remain of course, but it is helpful in terms of
         | history to distinguish from the Revolutionary period (1760s to
         | 1790s) and the immediate post-Revolutionary period, when tons
         | of things happened. 1810 in Manhattan was when the grid plan
         | was laid down and that period through the 1840s saw a huge
         | population boom and the initial transition of NYC real estate
         | from home/workshop of artisans to predominantly income
         | production.
        
         | gumby wrote:
         | Was the state of New York not a combatant in that war (Brooklyn
         | was not yet part of New York City; at that time the city was
         | only Manhattan).
         | 
         | Also that war had a major impact on NYC, as that city (and
         | Boston) were the major sources of slave mortgages, which were
         | all invalidated at the end of the war.
        
         | gcanyon wrote:
         | Because they know that word, and not another more
         | geographically relevant word for the time period?
         | 
         | They could have just repeatedly said "the 1850s" but they
         | wanted to be more diverse. Kind of like how "temblor" gets
         | hauled out every time someone writes about earthquakes.
         | 
         | I'm super-curious if you know of a term for the 1850s that is
         | geographically relevant to New York, or the region?
        
           | ughitsaaron wrote:
           | Mid-19th century?
        
             | pixl97 wrote:
             | The term doesn't have much cultural recognition in the US.
        
               | [deleted]
        
           | anjel wrote:
           | Mid-Tammany https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammany_Hall
        
       | tr3ntg wrote:
       | Is the door actually off center or is that just every single
       | photo making it appear that way?
        
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       (page generated 2023-09-23 23:01 UTC)