Of Cabbages and Kings County: Agriculture and the Formation of Modern Brooklyn

489 Pages·1999·23.47 MB·English

by  Marc Linder

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71
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Marc Linder and
Lawrence S. Zacharias
University of Iowa PresIso,w a City 52242
Copyright 0 1999 by Marc Lmdear nd
Lawrence S. Zacharias
All rights reserved
Printed int he United States of America
http:llwww.uiowa.eduI"ipress
No part of this boomka y be reproduceod r used in any foromr by any
means, electronico r mechanical, including photocopying and recording,
without permissioni n writing fromt he publisher. All reasonable steps
have been taketno contact copyright holderos f material used int his book
The publisher would bpele ased to make suitable arrangements with any
whom it has not been possiblet o reach.
Printed on acid-free paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lmder, Marc.
Of cabbagesa nd Kings County: agriculture antdh e formation of
modem Brooklyn I by Marc Lindearn d Lawrence S. Zacharias.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical referencesa nd index.
ISBN 0-87745-670-4 ISBN 0-8774yp4-x (pbk)
1. Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)-History. 2. Brooklyn (New York,
N.Y.)-Economic conditions. 3. Land use, Rural-New York
(State)-New York-History. 4. Urbanization-New York (State)-
New York-History. 5. Agriculture-Economic aspects-New York
(State)-New York-History. 6. Farms-New York (State)-New
York-History. I. ZachariasL, awrence. II. Title.
Fl29.B71L9 69 9
98-51779 333.76'13'0974723-DC21
00 01 02 03 04 P 5 4 3 2 1
Publication of this bookw as made possible in part by a grant tfhreo m
Iowa Law School Foundation.
Dere’s no guy livin’d at knows Brooklyn t’rooa n’ t’roo
. . .
(only thed ead know Brooklyn t’rooa nd t’roo). He’ll
neveh livel ong enough tkon ow duh whole of Brooklyn.
It’d take a guy a lifetime to know Brooklyn t’rooa nd t’roo.
An’ even den, yuh wouldn’t know it all.
- Thomas Wolfe, “Only the Dead Know Brooklyn,”1 935
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Acknowledgments ix
1 Introduction: Urban Removal of Agriculture I
PART ONE
The Rise anFda ll of Kings Countya s
Vegetable Capitalo f the United States
2 Kings County Farms 19
3 Competitiveness and the “Courageous Capitalist” 52
4 Labor Supply: Agricultural Workerasn d Labor Relations 79
PART TWO
From Farms to Suburbs:
The Real Estate Market-Induced Sellout and the Resistance
Comparative Demographica nd Economic Development
5
in Brooklyn and RuralK ings County 109
6 The Prehistoryo f the Conversion of Rural KingsC ounty Farms
into Suburban Real Estate 124
7 Modernizers Thwarted The Great Annexation Debatoe f 1873 156
8 The Impacto f Property Tax Laws on Deagriculturalization 185
9 Were All Kings.County Farmers Descendanotsf the
Original Dutch Settlers? The Farm-TenuSrteru cture 202
What Was the Dutch Farmers’ Price?
10
Profits, Taxes, Land Pricesa, nd Incomes 220
11 Case Studies in Suburbanization 245
IZ Conclusion: Is Urban Agriculture Oxymoronic? 278
Tables 301
Abbreviations
337
Notes 339
Bibliography 437
Index 467
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Arthur Bonfield could not know that hew as provoking this book
when he idly reminisceda bout commercial vegetable gardensi n the Ben-
sonhurst of his childhood. Sylvia Linder, who livedi n nearby Bath Beach
in the 1930s and has lived in Flatbush during the last half of the twentieth
century- on land once part of a large Flatlands farm owned byJo hn A.
Lott, a major agento f the suburbanization of rural Kings County - made
signal contributions to this book. Despiteh er 81 years and failing eyesight,
she meticulously reado, n microfilm, ar are copy of the Kings County Rural
at the Brooklyn Historical Society just befoirte s hut down forf ive
Gazette
years, identifying and photocopying crucial sources. She also shamethde
author-lawyers by showing how simple title searches at Brooklyn City Hall
and finding at the Kings County Surrogate’s Court can be.
wills
Frank,AUen, Dick AndressA, rthur Bankoff, Daniel BluestoneJ, ohn Ce-
lardo, Lola Schenck Cheney, Christopher ClarkK, en Cobb, David Cohen,
Merle Davis,C arlotta De Fillo, Andrew Dolkart, Firth Fabend, CFyonxth, ia
Charles Gehring, Joy Holland, Gail Hollander, Kenneth Jackson, Jeffrey
Kroessler, Paul Mattingly, David Ment, AnnettMe ont, Stuart Mont, Delia
Nelson, Eric Nooter, Judy Polumbaum, Tom Prendergast, Rev. Daniel
Ramm, Debbie Randorf, Peter Rapelje, Eleanor Rapelje, Christopher Ric-
ciardi, Eleanora Schoenebaum, Catharine Weber Scarborough, SVeyin- cent
fried, Steve Sullivan, Louis Tremante, Reginald Washington, Craig Wilder,
and William Younger pointed the way to important sources or questions.
Librarians, archivistsa, nd others at the Brooklyn Historical Society, Brook-
lyn Public Library, Reformed Protestant Dutch Church Flatbush, Hol-
of
land Society of New York, LeffHerotsm estead, Museumo f the City of New
York, National Archives (WashingtonD, .C., and Northeast Region),N ew-
York Historical Society, New YorkC ity Department of Records and Munic-
ipal ArchivesN, ew York Public Library, New York State Archives, New York
State Library, and Staten Island Historical Society made essential materials
available.
Several custodians deserve special mentionK: en Cobb of the New York
City Municipal Archives for sending scores of microfilm reels of Kings
County documents; Joy Holland and Judith Walsh oft he Brooklyn Division
of the Brooklyn Public Library for facilitatingt he reproduction of that li-
brary’s possibly unique microfilm copy of the entire run of the Rural
Ga-
zette, whose 706 issues provedt o be the single richest sourcoen daily lifei n
rural Kings County in the 1870s and 1880s; and Annette Mont and Stuart