This is the boys (Grandpa, Frankie and Jimmy) in front of their home on North 5th St.
Monday, October 26, 2009
A wolf without a foot!
Come! Come sit by the fire and lets look at some family photos together. This is La Famiglia Monteforte. My grandpa is the dashing child in the middle. Great-grandma Ana was a wealthy dame in her time (her mother even more so...couldn't even speak English!) and owned 16 houses on North 5th and 9th Streets in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Great Grandpa lost it all on the tracks..pffffff (TMI?)
This is the boys (Grandpa, Frankie and Jimmy) in front of their home on North 5th St.
This is the boys (Grandpa, Frankie and Jimmy) in front of their home on North 5th St.
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9 comments:
16 houses in Williamsburg! Tiny tuxes and sailor suits! A pony!!! I think you were born two generations too soon!
seriously...
to think 'what if'
Those photos slay me. But even more than that is a possible connection...I used to live at 154 North 9th Street in the Civil War carriage house in the back of the building. (You have to pass through the ground floor hallway to access it...it's hidden from the street.) Did your relatives own that? How funny if they did... I wrote about it in Mr. Peacock's profile of me a while back...here it is if you're interested (it's about halfway into the interview):
http://mrpeacockstyle.blogspot.com/2009/02/lady-with-panachelisa-borgnes-giramonti.html
Loving your blog...have to say it again... xx
I want to die!! My family did not own that building...BUT:
Carmine Monteforte was a great-great uncle (my great grandfathers brother) and VERY successful in the moonshine business. So successful that when he came to America, he one by one, paid for his 10 brothers and sisters and parents to come over too.
During the Prohibition times, the NYPD were on his trail. One night, four policemen followed him and shot him, where else, but in front of the carriage house on North 9th!! I just found out this story this summer from my great uncle Frank.
I'm ecstatic! You have no idea how much these kind of connections thrill me!
Wow, seriously? You mean MY carriage house at 154? If so, that's creepy... I loved living there but it had a definite ghostly aspect to it. Of course, it was an old house, but sometimes at night I would hear creaks coming all the way up the stairs to my bedroom and I would lie there frozen in fear for like, hours (I swear -- I'm a timid li'l thing). The basement was earth even when we were there and I always felt that if we were brave enough to hoist a shovel and start digging, who knows what we'd find. Very, very, very cool, Daniel! xx
i want to go there now, dressed in a black cloak, and tell present residents about the blood shed on their doorstep...
I don't have anything that amazing to share, but I LOVE these pictures. At least the family butcher block remains...
My grandfather grew up in Williamsburg, too, though closer to the Navy Yards where his father worked.
Awesome pictures. I think I need to go sit and page through my families old albums again next time I'm home.
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