The names chiseled onto city tenement building entrances are often pretty puzzling.
The typical tenement is more than 100 years old. With the original builders long-gone, who can explain where some of these names come from, and why they were chosen?
Like Novelty Court, on Driggs Avenue in Williamsburg. Actually, a little research turned up an explanation: this used to be the site of the Novelty Theater, according to Cinema Treasures, which disappeared from city directories by the 1920s.
A. Segal’s (Secal’s?) Apartments are also in Williamsburg. But who was A. Segal, and why did he put his first initial and last name on his building?
Blennerhasset sounds like Manhasset, a town in Long Island. I’ve never seen the name anywhere else but on this tenement near Columbia University.
Who was Frances, and how would she feel about the terrible shape the building named for her is in, on Lexington Avenue in East Harlem?
Tags: A. Segal's Apartments Williamsburg, Blennerhasset, East Harlem tenements, New York City tenements, New-law tenements NYC, Novelty Court, Novelty Theater Williamsburg, tenement names
Ephemeral New York 
December 24, 2011 at 6:29 am |
I’ve always wanted to live in a building with a name… I’ve lived in 6 buildings in New York, all nameless.
December 24, 2011 at 8:24 am |
Blennerhasset might relate to Harman Blennerhasset, a figure in the Aaron Burr conspiracy, who had a tenuous connection with New York. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harman_Blennerhassett. I expect there are websites and books that tell his story in interesting detail. E.g., search under Blennerasset Island.
December 24, 2011 at 8:25 am |
Typo in last sentence: Should be Blennerhasset Island.
December 24, 2011 at 8:31 am |
I don’t know which Blennerhasset the building is named after, but they were an interesting and important family. They built a home on Blennerhasset Island in the Ohio River, which has recently been restored (i.e., rebuilt) and in which they sheltered traitor Aaron Burr.
Author Elizabeth Enright (also friend of the Glackens family mentioned in your recent “Green Car” post) wrote a story about a woman who was named “Bonnadilla” after a New York apartment building, and then traced the name to an old Western mining town.
–Road to Parnassus
December 24, 2011 at 1:09 pm |
There is also “Blennerhasset and Torpenhow,” a civil parish in the Allerdale district of Cumbria, England. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 437.
December 24, 2011 at 5:03 pm |
Great sleuthing! The Aaron Burr connection links this English name to New York, but why the developer took it for his building remains to be seen.
December 25, 2011 at 12:53 am |
I had located the Novelty Theatre myself last week. I found it in Trow’s business directory for Brooklyn & Queens from 1899:
http://books.google.com/books?id=gPkvAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA7&dq=Novelty+Theatre,+brooklyn&hl=en&ei=1F_mTpTkLcHw0gGEjdmBAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CHEQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=Novelty%20Theatre%2C%20brooklyn&f=false
December 25, 2011 at 9:27 am |
Hey, I recently did some research on Novelty Court. It’s also the building where Frank Serpico was shot in. If you’d like to see a copy of a report on it, I’d be glad to send it to you.
Or simply check out this website me and the Pratt Institute worked on this past semester. Feel free to link to it!
http://southwilliamsburgproject.weebly.com/
December 25, 2011 at 3:19 pm |
Sure, send it on! I had no idea. Love your micro-Williamsburg site.
December 25, 2011 at 7:43 pm |
If you have an email address, I can send you the paper in a word doc. It’s chock full of information (nigh 15 pages worth!)
December 27, 2011 at 1:22 am |
I was always curious why WWI-era dumbbell buildings often used the word “Arms” in the name. Thoughts?
December 27, 2011 at 5:31 am |
I have no idea. Anyone know?
January 25, 2012 at 4:21 am |
I believe “arms” originally referred to heraldry (coat of arms) in the naming of English public houses.
March 17, 2012 at 4:26 am |
What street was A. Segal’s Apartments on?
August 21, 2012 at 2:11 pm |
A. Segal’s (or Secal’s, it’s hard to tell) is on Roebling between S. 2nd and S. 3rd.