Prospect: A Year in the Park

Eve of Destruction, 1918: The Malbone Street Horror

On the Celtic feast of Samhain, (we call it Hallowe'en), it was the Irish custom to set a place for the dead and talk about the ancestors. Curiously, that is just what I did this morning.

These are the tracks of the Brighton line, today's B and Q subway, as they run south from the Prospect Park station. Ninety years ago tomorrow, at least 93 souls perished hideously, moments before their train would have exited the station and headed south toward the Brooklyn beaches. Yes, tomorrow—All Saints' Day, or the Day of the Dead—is the 90th anniversary of the Malbone Street wreck, the worst disaster in New York transit history. It took place right beneath the periphery of the park's Willink entrance (the one by the carousel), and today I set out in search of some trace of it.

There are no plaques memorializing the victims of the disaster in the renovated Prospect Park station. This graffiti'd fence inside an MTA parking lot, at the intersection of Flatbush and Ocean Avenues and Empire Boulevard, blocks the view of the tunnel from which the dazed (but uninjured) motorman staggered out onto the tracks after the derailment and crash. As I left the lot, I asked an MTA conductor who was standing around if he had ever heard of the Malbone Street wreck.

No, never heard of it, he said.

He looked guarded and skeptical as befits anyone who works the subways for a living, but in the spirit of Samhain, I told him the story of what happened in the evening rush hour of Saturday, November 1, 1918, beneath our feet.

Thanks to a strike that morning, the Brooklyn, Flatbush and Coney Island Railroad (forerunner of the BMT line) rushed an inexperienced and minimally trained motorman into service--a young man just recovering from influenza during that infamous epidemic, which had claimed his own 3-year-old daughter just the previous week. The train consisted of wooden cars, which had to approach the Prospect Park station along a hairpin turn at the foot of a steep downgrade (along today's Franklin Avenue shuttle line). The greenhorn conductor successfully navigated the train from Manhattan and across the Brooklyn Bridge, but for reasons never established, he allowed the train to accelerate to at least 30 m.p.h. on a curve posted for a maximum of 6 m.p.h. Survivors knew even before the impact that something was terribly wrong. What happened next, according to the New York Times:

 The first car left the rails a few feet in front of the opening of the tunnel and rammed one end of a concrete partition separating the northbound from the southbound tracks… coming to a stop 200 feet down the tracks inside the tunnel.

Packed together as in a box without structural strength to give them any protection, the passengers in the first car were crushed and cut to pieces. Not one is believed to have escaped. After breaking through the first car, the rest of the train dashed it against the partition wall and strewed wreckage and passengers along the tracks ahead, where the wheels of the cars following passed over them. Only splintered fragments of wood and broken and twisted bits of iron and steel remained of the first car.

The second and third cars, leaving the rails after their impact with the first, ran sidewise into a series of iron pillars supporting the roof of the tunnel at intervals beside the partition. The pillars cut great gashes in the sides of the cars, which were still traveling at high speed, and mowed down the passengers who were standing, striking the heads of some from their bodies.

The crash was heard a mile away. It took close to 45 minutes for emergency responders to begin rescue efforts:

Police and firemen, making their way by the light of lanterns into the tunnel. and moving cautiously among wreckage and dead bodies, chopped openings into the second and third cars and then began the painful task of lifting wounded men, women, and children from the tangle of steel, glass and sharp splinters which stuck out like bayonets in all directions, some of the having already pierced those in the cars.

The Kings County Hospital morgue, already taxed by the flu epidemic, annexed a laundry room for the tide of victims, and triage was performed at nearby Ebbets Field. In patterns we know all too well, family and friends of the missing descended in droves to seek information about loved ones, while politicians converged to start demanding answers and the train company officials started to stonewall and spin. The conductor, one Edward Luciano, was found back in his home and arrested, although neither he nor any of the railway officials would ever be convicted of any charges relating to the wreck.

The tunnel and tracks where the train met its doom are still there, but the actual section of tracks (on the local side) are used only rarely. The wreck was an indelible tragedy for generations of Brooklynites, but today is all but forgotten except for this book and some excellent references on Forgotten New York.

And the trains are no longer able to speed uncontrollably, said the conductor I spoke to; sensors in the rails detect whether the speed is excessively high and enforce the limit. Tomorrow, a little more on the scene of mayhem, 90 years later.

Spooky treats for chubby cats

My park walk fell victim to the ever-shifting logistics of parenthood today; I hope someone got out there and enjoyed the sun. Meanwhile, I have got to get the family over to the Prospect Park Zoo to see these outrageous "Pallas cats." They look like a cross between furry beach balls, owls, and Oscar the Grouch, and their keepers have given them a jack-o-lantern with the very best kind of treat inside: the kind that's crunchy and creamy, with a tail. In the full video here, you can watch "Nicholas" savor Vanilla Mousie Surprise after fishing it out of the pumpkin. (And to think I was going to buy boring old Snickers and Reese's for the trick-or-treaters at the CrazyStable! This is much more our style.)

Home-time dark

  Lake, 6:10 p.m.

October

   By Jacob Polley

   

      Although a tide turns in the trees

       the moon doesn't turn the leaves,

though chimneys smoke and blue concedes

       to bluer home-time dark.

Though restless leaves submerge the park

       in yellow shallows, ankle-deep,

and through each tree the moon shows, halved

       or quartered or complete,

 

the moon's no fruit and has no seed,

             and turns no tide of leaves on paths

      that still persist but do not lead

             where they did before dark.

Although the moonstruck pond stares hard

       the moon looks elsewhere. Manholes breathe.

Each mind's a different, distant world

       this same moon will not leave.

Source: Poetry, September 2006. Jacob Polley is an English poet born in 1975. Posted with the gracious permission of the poet.

       

Did not enter

Yesterday, in bone-chilling, wind-whipped rain, I made it as far as the fence along Prospect Park Southwest. Fumbling with the unfamiliar sensation of gloves and a hood, I got out my camera and recorded the loveliness within. Then I headed home and made hot cocoa. Some National Geographic photographer I'd make! Today, the sun is out, and I will do better.

On this day in history: Depravity on the park

At the end of a long and frantic day with no park visit, I decided, just for the heck of it, to see if the Brooklyn Eagle had any references to Prospect Park for this very day, starting with 1902, the most recent year in their online database. I hit a doozy. Right opposite the park's Willink Entrance, at Flatbush Avenue and Malbone Street (now Empire Boulevard), complaints were heating up about a notoriously "objectionable resort" where booze was sold on the Lord's day and the dancing went on til the wee hours.

Image, left: Evelyn Nesbit and Jack Clifford, via Streetswing.com.

 

This den of iniquity was called Niederstein's, although it seems to have had many alternative monikers, including the Hotel Royal, the Hotel Meteor, and the Haymarket. I'm betting the picture at right is it; in their nifty photo book Brooklyn's Flatbush, archive-meisters Brian Merlis and Lee A. Rosenzweig label it "hotel and beer garden, northeast corner of Flatbush Avenue and Malbone Street, 1902," adding, "This old saloon was demolished when construction on the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens began, about 1905."

By any name, this "hotel" was apparently of the hourly-rate variety, a dance-hall appendage intended to get around the city's "Raines law" forbidding alcohol sales on Sunday except in hotels. The dance hall itself had bedeviled the good burghers of Flatbush since at least the previous year, when a virtuous Eagle reader, signing himself simply, "A Young Man," proclaimed, "It is a shame that such a place as this dance hall should be allowed to exist in the borough, and especially at the principal entrance of our beautiful park."

In 1902, an Eagle reporter staked out the place before midnight on Saturday. "Promptly at 12, the majority of the incandescent lights in the barroom were extinguished," he wrote, "the entrance from the street barred, and those in that section...compelled to repair to the wine room immediately adjoining, the dance hall pavilion beyond, or the glass-enclosed veranda upstairs which runs around the exterior of the building on two sides. The shades...were pulled down...and a trusty attendant retained a cautious hold on the door...an exodus of sporty youths, some in tan driving coats, and young women from inside ensued." The crowd dispersed in "pneumatic tired runabouts, automobiles, coaches, and trolley cars."

But at 12:15, the reporter gained entrance with some other after-hours revelers to discover "nearly 100 couples...in the mazes of the 'half-time' inside the pavilion, and the enclosure, dense with tobacco smoke, was crowded." Admission: 25 cents for men, 10 cents for women. Dancing was still in progress when the reporter left at 1 a.m. to file his story for October 27.

Apparently, this vice magnet attracted clientele from as far away as Manhattan. In 1901, the Eagle reported that "during the dancing, nearly every woman held her skirts so her ankles could be plainly seen by the men...who ogled them as they danced by." Despite these outrages, proprietor John Niederstein seemed to outwit prosecution. (I suspect he belonged to the dynasty that owned a historic German restaurant in Middle Village, Queens, demolished in recent years for an Arby's). The residents of Flatbush tried and failed to buy up the block and build a flower garden; by 1903, the annual report of the New York City parks department stated that the land opposite the Willink entrance "bounded by Washington Avenue, Malbone Street, Flatbush Avenue, and the present southerly border of Institute Park" [the Botanic Garden's future site] was "now in process of condemnation." Curiously, the report also states that J. Niederstein gave the park "one pair red foxes and one golden eagle"; if this zoological gift was intended to curry official favor, it doesn't seem to have worked.

As for Malbone Street, a grimmer legacy awaited it; almost exactly 16 years later, its name would become so steeped in tragedy that the city fathers rechristened it Empire Boulevard. That, children, will be our haunted bedtime story for this Halloween weekend.

Ghouls on the hill

For those of us who survived New York's nadir in the Seventies, some of the performers in Prospect Park's "Haunted Walk" yesterday were too eerily reminiscent of street reality. The weather was perfect for this series of gruesome vignettes on Lookout Hill: warm but witchy, with a storm that brewed but didn't break until we'd all gotten spooked and gone home.

My prize for artistic merit went to several ghouls of Asian descent; Spouse attributes this to a cultural trend called "J-Horror" of which I was previously unaware. 

Some of the set-ups were quite elaborate, like this rather over-active "funeral parlor."

This solemn young spawn of Satan attached himself silently to my elbow and accompanied me for rather longer than I wished. The little blighter could have had no idea (could he?) that I had seen this movie only the previous night and was therefore getting kind of freaked out, if you must know.

Several of the littlest kids had to be reassured by jocular grown-ups that it was "all pretend," that "they're really nice!" and other truisms we apply to the horrors in our lives. I mused on the familiar psychology of why we stare death and decay in the face for fun: facing our fears of mortality, cutting the Grim Reaper down to costumed size. The very hill we walked, laughing and squealing at zombies and ghosts, was the site last summer for a brutal murder, whose victim lay alone in the woods for at least a day before anyone found him. Take that, Mr. Death. We laugh at you, and even our little children laugh at you.

Artists and pumpkins

     

At the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket, Saturday was a pumpkin-painting extravaganza.

There was actual produce for sale; we got Mars blue grapes, a slab of albacore tuna for supper, and this delicate red mustard called "Ruby Streaks."







But before long, we were again distracted by artists—this time, some guys out on a "Sketch Crawl." It's a worldwide drawing event, with an online community to share the results.

                                           

"When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college—that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared back at me, incredulous, and said, ‘You mean they forget?'"  — Howard Ikemoto, artist and teacher

GREENMARKET DOG POL OF THE WEEK

Several dogs intrigued me this morning, but all were shy when approached. Never a problem for New York's press-conference-loving Senator Charles Schumer, who posed willingly with his daughter (who must be used to this sort of thing). Chuck must have spent a lot of time at the beach this summer; he was wearing shorts and had a striking sock tan.

Amidst the mists and coldest frosts

This morning, the Long Meadow had both ingredients in the old tongue-twister.* Fog moved across the Upper Pool, and a light frost lay on all the grass until the sun touched it.

*Amidst the mists and coldest frosts,
he thrusts his fist against the posts
and still insists he sees the ghosts.

The bummer about being a grown-up is you can't flop down and lie in the leaves anymore. Wait a minute—I'm a grown-up, I can do anything I want.  [Flop] Hey, look, there's the Tennis House in the background!

 

Leaf-peeping is a good excuse for dog-watching. This goofy little Papillon was watching me.

And finally, another call for help to my birding buddies: Anybody care to ID today's Blurred Bird? He and several pals were ground-feeding and tree-flitting on a big linden at the edge of the meadow. The streaky breast has me all confused.

TWIPP
This weekend in Prospect Park will be one big Hallowe'en party. On Saturday there's the Haunted Walk and Carnival on Lookout Hill and the Nethermead from 12 to 3. And on Sunday, the intrepid explorers of Forgotten New York set forth to tour the "Secrets of Prospect Park" at noon (go here for details and to reserve a spot).

A Brooklyn kid remembers 'the sad ark'

Missed a park visit Thursday, for the usual dumb reasons. Now that it's colder, more willpower is required. To tide ourselves over, here's a fine undated photo (1940s? 50s?) of the Prospect Park Zoo in its rather woeful middle incarnation (after the Victorian menagerie had been replaced by the current WPA-era structures, but before its 1993 renaissance as a humane, education-centered delight).

Image: Brooklyn Public Library archive

Love the expression on that parkie's face. (Compare to sea lion interaction with today's zoo staff here!)  For a brief, marvelous memoir of the zoo in 1965, go here and listen as big-hearted* Brooklyn lawyer Kenneth P. Nolan recalls a summer job from hell that turned into something more:

So for minimum wage, a whopping $1.25 an hour, I cleaned tables, prepared food and watched the thousands—blacks, Puerto Ricans, Hasidic Jews, ethnic whites like myself—pour into this Depression era zoo on hot weekends because they had nowhere else to go. With their kids running wild, they would stare at the two pathetic polar bears or the unlucky seals in their pool or walk through the stench of the monkey house where an old Parkie would whistle and one mischievous monkey would hurl a piece of apple at the people. He rarely missed. He was the good one. The bad monkey pissed on the visitors.

Rebuilt in 1935, the zoo was like Noah’s ark, only sad.

The piece deepens into a wise, funny, and poignant sketch of a lost time and place, much rougher in some ways (certainly on the animals) but far more civil in others. *(Mr. Nolan walks the walk when it comes to Brooklyn nostalgia, not least as a staunch supporter of Holy Name, his old Catholic parochial school, now attended by our daughter.) The story is on a site of non-fiction tales called Mr. Beller's Neighborhood that is new to me, but I will be returning there often. Like Nolan, I come from Irish forebears for whom "a story never loses."

The ghost cat of Wellhouse Drive

No golden autumn afternoon today; leaden skies and a cutting wind took the place of warm sunshine. Very few souls were about. There is always one day that turns the soul toward All Hallows Eve, and this was it.








I followed the curve of Wellhouse Drive up from the lake and stood alone on Terrace Bridge. The Lullwater looked lovely but melancholy, and somewhere in the woods a blue jay scolded, breaking the near-silence.

A tree at the base of Lookout Hill, near the monument to the Revolutionary martyrs of the Maryland Regiment, raised twisted limbs in the wind. As I passed the old Wellhouse, which I've always found utterly deserted, something caught my eye.

On the padlocked old door, this sign. If it is a joke, it is a seemingly pointless one; if it is true, then, "For the love of God, Montresor!"—the ancient little building is completely boarded up, and whatever creature is immured within would be dwelling in near-total darkness. (I circled the building and called at the windows, and heard no sounds from inside.) If this is someone's idea of shelter (or rodent control), you are hereby called to surrender the unfortunate feline—to this blogger if no other merciful caregivers can be found. We will keep you posted. Meanwhile, in time for the approaching hallows, I recommend this cautionary tale.