Thursday, January 19, 2012

At Hicks

3 comments:

Marty Wombacher said...

Very cool photo! Like a portal to another world, nice work!

Laura Goggin Photography said...

Awesome photo! The grays and reds make such great contrast.

onemorefoldedsunset said...

Thanks guys. This is on top of the former Tower & Home buildings (now Cobble Hill Towers) - model tenements buildings from the 1870s. In 1906, Jacob Riis wrote about them:
"They are six stories (sixty feet) high, are almost absolutely fireproof, and have excellent means of egress…Every apartment not only opens outdoors, but has a through draft,…are " self-contained " ; rooms are supplied with water, a clothes-press with shelf and hooks, a place for a stove, and a coal-box, holding a quarter of a ton…. Children can play in the courtyard, and also in the cellar or covered verandas when it rains. There is a band of eight pieces for two hours on Saturday afternoons in summer. The Home building has a reading-room for its own tenants and for those of the Tower building and the general public, which takes daily papers and weekly and monthly magazines, and also has a circulating library of 334 novels. The buildings have open stairways, but the tenants do not seem to object.”
Different times.
If you go today, & claim to be looking for a condo (ha!) you can get quite a tour. Six flights of stone spiral stairs, tiny apartments designed in pairs, with wrought iron balconies & courtyard gardens. You could be very happy here if it weren't for the infernal ROAR of the BQE. Right now it's an uneasy mix of condo & rental.