We lived in the Henry Street apartment from mid-1957 to early 1961, with a gap during our time in Italy, from September 1958 to Summer 1959.
Before Italy (1957-1958)
Brooklyn Heights was filled with brownstones or brick row houses with many floors, often divided into apartments. We found one on Henry street, that was owned by Mr. Morales, at 174 Henry Street. It had steps up to the front door. On the first floor it opened on to the street. The upper floors were also rented as separate apartments. Downstairs through a corridor we entered into a tall dining room and kitchen. (pics) The windows had shutters with wood louvered shuttered windows. It looked old and elegant and we took it. We invited Jack and Virgie for drinks before dinner and showed them our new apartment (pic). Mary Elizabeth was in a crib in the back room and we had the room on the other side.
Our bedroom had door into the back yard garden. It was like a little storeroom, where you had all the garden stuff, and then from there a door to the outside. All the while we hauled the gravel to the back yard we hauled it through the bedroom. There was an alley behind the back yard with cans and trash and all kinds of things, and within a week I talked Mr. Morales into helping me build a fence to screen the back alley.
I ordered one by six and two by four for the structure and Mr. Morales cut them all to the right size, actually I cut them, I borrowed his saw. We had a fence which secured the alley and the trash left there. It also provided an edge for flower beds. I brought in railroad ties to edge the flower beds on three sides so they were raised beds.
What would we put in the middle? After we got back from Italy I ordered gravel that got dumped n front of the street on Henry Street. This is not allowed in the city so we called all our friends and we all took buckets and carried through the house from the street to the back yard. Now we had a real landscaped garden. Of course we could have a birthday party for Mary Elizabeth.
e had created this back yard, and by now Catherine had arrived. Her crib will have to share the bedroom with Mary Elizabeth. the bedroom was large enough for two cribs (pic).
Mary Elizabeth instructed Catherine to talk. Mary Elizabeth said, “Say No!” and Catherine would repeat “Say No!”
Laundry was done in the kitchen sink and carried out to the clothesline in the back yard. I remember a very cold day, stretching out the diapers on the clothesline, and they froze. (pic)
The bedroom had two cribs and chest of drawers a toy box and building blocks. e needed more square footage. e searched Brooklyn Heights in the newspaper. The old brownstones which could be used as apartments were very expensive. We saw a listing of a house in Carmel Hill, across Atlantic Avenue, for $28,000. We had no way of affording that and so we just kept dreaming about it.
One weekend visiting my parents in Manhasset, we drove around Manhasset Bay to the area I remembered next to Leeds Pond, that drained into Manhasset Bay. We drove by to look at a small house on a point on Manhasset Bay but the house was falling apart. The roof and the windows were falling out but it had good bones for house. We found out that the house was owned by Mrs. Attabury who lived in tNew Mexico. Clovis when we got home looked up her name, address, and telephone number and called. She was planing to repair the house with new doors and widows. Clovis came up with a great idea. We could repair the damage to the house and replace the doos and windows instead of paying rent. We would put $135 per month into a bank account that mrs. Attabury set up for draw on for the repairs and we would draw on it for the repairs. .
She agreed and this began our career in restoring old houses. cIt would take imagination and hard work. Mrs. Attabury would become the tenants of the little cottage looking over Manhasset Bay. We found out out our water came from a well under thouse and our heat was from a coal furnace beneath the kitchen. Which was fed every morning in the winter. The entry into our dining room was the drafting room until Clovis got job with Harrison and Abramovitz and they were working on the entry area of LaGuardia airport.
Clovis could take the Long island Railroad into work and then would come back. if we wanted to do anything in New York I would drive in, and pick him up and we would drive bak. (pics) The kitchen had high benches perpendicular to the wall, with the stove on one side and the door on the other. like a Goldilocks kitchen wi
The house had a fireplace. It went from the basement chimney and fireplace in front and all the parties we did we had roaring fire.
Catherine was born in September 1958. She and Clovis were both baptized before we went to Italy. Catherine was baptized at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Brooklyn Heights, just two blocks away, and the Hennessys came to be her godparents.
Inage of Catherine’s baptism goes here.
Clovis called Father O’Brien shortly before we went to Rome, and after Catherine was baptized. Clovis did not want people to thin he joined the Catholic Church just because he went to study in Rome. So he wanted to be baptized before we left, and Father O’Brien agreed. We went to St. Charles Borromeo and Clovis was received into the Catholic Church. Father O’Brien was a Yalie, so everything was done properly.
We departed for Italy on an ocean liner the “Cristofero Columbo”, and happened to be photographed by a Mademoiselle journalist who was writing a story about young people who had Fulbright Scholarships.
(link to the article and photo goes here)
We spent almost a year in Italy, Jack and Virgie and their two young children lived in our apartment until they could find their own apartment. When we returned from Rome, we moved back into our same Henry Street apartment, and the Pancoast bought a house across the street.
After Italy (1959-1960)
When we returned from Europe, the Pancoast were still living in our Henry Street apartment, and were planning to return to Texas for a visit. We lived with my parents in Manhasset for a couple of months, then when the Pancoast left for Texas we moved back into our Henry Street apartment. Later the Pancoast would return from Texas to move in to their new house across the street from us.
In this picture you can see Mary Elizabeth and Catherine wearing their outfits from Italy.
Story about Mr. Moralesand the railroad ties goes here. Mr. Morales lived in the basement. He had a waster and dryer.
Maryann walking with Mary Elizabeth and Catherine on the promenade overlooking the East River in Brooklyn Heights.
Mary Elizabeth in her playpen in the back yard at Henry Street. The fence is in the background.
A couple of our friends using a roller to level the gravel in the new patio. The fence is visible in the background. Later we put the brick in.
Mary Elizabeth and Catherine sitting on a bench in the back yard.
Maryann in an Italian grocery store on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn Heights.
Mary Elizabeth and Catherine sitting on the railroad tie steps in the back yard.
John, Star, Mary Elizabeth and Catherine sitting on the railroad tie steps in the back yard.
Mary Elizabeth and Catherine sitting on the railroad tie steps and a birdbath — a metal holder – behind them.
Mary Elizabeth and Catherine are playing in the gravel.
Inside Henry Street apartment, we had Roman chairs, with a paining hanging behind them.
Clovis holding both girls.
Both girls in the bathtub.
After we moved from our Henry Street apartment to our house at 2 Water Lane in Manhasset (next chapter), we continued to return to Henry Street to visit our cousins, the Pancoasts, who lived across the street, until they eventually moved to Bronxville.
