I’m not going to give you the information on the deed, because I don’t have it yet. As I write this It’s the hottest summer around the world. So, I’ll stay here on the South Shore of Long Island until it cools down to make my journey into Queens for archival information.
I want to go in person to meet the librarian for the first time. Then we can resort to the internet and email. I think personal works best, so stay tuned.
My first memories of the house (by the way, it’s still there) were that it was H-U-G-E, cavernous, like a play city. It’s style is that of a typical attached house built around the turn of the last century. You can find these houses in Ridgewood and Brooklyn. Only this house was not attached to other houses. It stood alone and still does even though it is surrounded by a city of attached houses, more modern in style.
When I lived there, the family owned a quarter of a city block to accommodate the business which needed land to grow the flowers.
The house itself (see the photo) was two stories, three if you counted the basement which in many cases housed another family. The narrow front view made it look taller. The left third showed a handsome front door with a window above. That was my bedroom, the size of a California closet. The other two thirds sported the nicest feature of this style of home, the three windows built into a bay on two stories.
There originally was an entrance to the right and below the front steps or stoop. It reminds me of “Upstairs, Downstairs”. Who was not entering by the front door, but by this less pretentious doorway? That entrance was blocked off for as long as I can remember.
The house went back along the driveway almost to the property’s end. At the end of the house on the basement level was another door. The back of the house had a porch with another door and a long stairway to the ground level. A silly thought brings to mind a line from an old song, “Close the doors, they’re comin’ in the windows.”
Speaking of the windows, they were about five feet tall, about the same height as my mother. She would horrify me as a small child when it came to washing these windows. She would sit on the windowsill with her body on the outside of the sash and her legs dangling inside the house. I would hang on her legs to keep her from falling two stories to the cement below. She was a plucky lady. More to come about her.
Next, I’ll tell you about the inside of the house and then the property.
Built circa 1910 the house still stands today. The neighborhood has changed so much. I’ll be getting into that in the next blog. It will be a string of memories and tales my family told me.
Annie Tillery Mysteries 