The Text Messages of the 1910s
While on vacation, neighbor Sarah From was in an antiques store in Bennington, VT. She reached into a huge stack of NYC postcards, and the very first one she pulled out was the postcard pictured above of Albermarle Road. She also found another related to our area, shown below, addressed to a resident of “Fiske Terrace, Flatbush.”
“The brevity and banality of the messages (‘I’ve moved’ and ‘send the trunk’) and the fact that they were sent between Brooklyn and Manhattan lead me to imagine that postcards must have been the text messages of their day,” Sarah says.
The postcard of Albermarle Road, Flatbush, Brooklyn, NY, has a postmark of 1911:
Addressed to:
Miss H. Kilroy
214 W. 69th Street
New York, NY
Message:
Dear Hazel;
Will you kindly send the trunk as soon as you can + oblige
Lovingly Aunt M.
The second postcard is postmarked September 25, 1910, and is mistakenly addressed to Fiske Terrace, when it should be West Midwood–people have apparently been calling our neighborhoods by the wrong names for over 100 years. And they’ve never been able to spell “Westminster” correctly, either:
Addressed to:
Miss Anna Wiedenman
762 Westminister Road
Fiske Terrace
Flatbush
N.Y.
Message:
Dear A.
We are moved to 180 Sixth Ave. & are very well pleased with the change. My sister has been sick again but is better again to-day. Come soon to see us. With love to all.
Agnes H.
So it’s not just eBay where you might come across a bit of local history–keep your eyes peeled next time you’re out of town, and you never know what you might come across.
