When I first walked down Dennet Place to visit a friend, I immediately felt like I was in a magical place. This hidden alley street in Carroll Gardens is a rare gem, made more distinguished by the basement level apartments with half-size doors which give it an almost fairy-tale like quality.
Lucky for me I managed to find and rent one of these basement apartments! My friends jokingly call my place the “hobbit home.” After moving in I’ve become more and more interested in the history of the little street, and also perplexed by the name of the street itself. There are a few discrepancies with the name “Dennet Place” and for the most part the street itself is still somewhat of a mystery. For example, people often ask why the doors are so short and were they always like that?
One mystery is the street name that is misspelled on most documentation. If you are to type in “Dennet Place” as the street sign depicts in Google maps, the street name will come up as “Dennett Place.” This is a problem for using GPS devices for directions, where you will just have to misspell the street name to get where you want to go! The street sign is spelled “Dennet Place” which would seem to be the official street name. Even when I search the Department of Building database for building information “Dennet Place” doesn’t exist.
Here at the Othmer Library at BHS a lot of reference inquiries include house or building research, and there is a great list of house history resources to use.
I first searched the historic atlases, which is a good resource to pin point the date range of when a building was built. My landlord initially told me that she thought the building was built around the 1860s – 1880s, but she wasn’t sure. The earliest atlas I looked at was from 1855. The residential dwellings on Dennet Place were there in 1855, so I already know that the building is earlier than the assumed date. Right behind the dwellings is the Roman Catholic Church, which was also there in 1855, and first established in 1851. The church is called St Mary Star of the Sea, now also infamous as the place where Al Capone got married. Unfortunately, the street name is not indicated on the atlas so I can’t verify what it was referred to then.
Maps of the City of Brooklyn, Perris. 1855; Historic Atlases collection; Brooklyn Historical Society.
A later 1860s atlas also doesn’t indicate the street name, but the 1898 atlas does. The street name is “Bennett Place” which is most likely just a misspelling but again not adequate in confirming the origin of the street name.
Atlas of the Brooklyn Borough of the City of New York, Utlitz/Hyde. 1898, Historic Atlases collection; Brooklyn Historical Society.
The Othmer library also has a collection of land conveyances, which documents Brooklyn land ownership from the late 17th century to 1896. Organized by tax block, these abstracts show seller (grantor) and buyer (grantee) information. Going through the land conveyances of tax block 472 (Dennet Place) I found one which shows that the church of St. Mary Star of the Sea owned some property on the block during the 1850s, when the church was first established. It was an interesting find, since I wondered if the church right behind my apartment could have a possible connection with the dwellings on Dennet Place. The abstract below documents that they did purchase land on that block.
Tax Block 472, 1858, The Land Conveyances collection; Brooklyn Historical Society.
A great visual resource for house history is the Tax photographs from the NY Municipal Archives. In the 1940s and 1980s, a photograph was taken of every block and lot in the five boroughs. I ordered the 1940s tax photo for my street number that you see below.
Tax Block 472, Dennet Place. CA. 1940, Tax Photographs collection; NY Municipal Archives
Here is a current image from a similar view that I took recently:
Not all of my questions were answered. I still have no clue about the “hobbit” doors, but it was fun to go through the various resources here and see what I could find. Regardless of the remaining unsolved mysteries, the best thing about living on Dennet Place are the people here. My neighbors are the friendliest most welcoming people I have ever met. It feels like home.
Interested in doing your own house history research using BHS’s collection? Visit BHS’s Othmer Library Wed-Fri, 1:00-5:00 p.m.
*Unless indicated, all photos from this post were taken by me.
I might try researching Rev. Erwin Dennett of the Tabernacle Baptist Church on Smith Street to see if he had any connection with your street.
http://www.brownstoner.com/blog/2012/03/part-one-a-history-of-the-strong-place-properties/
Read this, might be a clue.
Dennett Place was known locally as Cat’s Alley
It could be likely that Dennet is actually the misspelling of Bennett as the street could have been named for Famous NYer Flyod Bennett. Half doors on houses were often used by ice carriers to deliver ice to houses but from a google search those doors seemed even smaller than the one’s shown in the pictures. Now that I think of it these could have also been coal doors for delivering loads of coal into the basement/furnace area to heat houses. I love this story and quirky little mysteries like this.
I lived on Dennet Place in the ’80 and have nothing but wonderful memories of my years there. I rented a studio in the lower level with the tiny door. I LOVED IT.
I worked with Sennior Citizens in the neighborhood and was told by several that at one time there was a small gate at both ends if the street. The neighborhood cats “over-populated” the block, thereby giving the block it’s nickname. Made sence to me.
The New York Times just wrote about Dennet Place over the weekend, giving a bit more insight into the nickname, “Cat’s alley” and their theory on why the doors are short. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/28/nyregion/on-dennet-place-in-brooklyn-a-tight-knit-community.html?_r=1&smid=tw-share
Thanks for the comments, I am interested in looking more into the Bennett name and Rev. Dennett.
If Dennet is a mistake, it’s avery old mistake. There’s a city directory from 1876 that has ‘Dennet’. Linked here…
http://forgotten-ny.com/2008/11/dennet-place-cobble-hill/
Leah: I suspect the NYT article contains more urban legend than fact, and that you’ll have better luck chasing Bennet/Bennett than Dennet. Try BHS’s own archives: http://brooklynhistory.org/library/wp/bennett-family-collection-1783-2005/
See also: http://www.flickr.com/photos/emilio_guerra/4619481868/
Floyd Bennett, though a Brooklyn resident at the time of his death, was born upstate NY.
My mother was born in 1908 on Court Street between 2nd & 3rd Place. At an early age she moved to 3rd Place between Court & Smith Street. She (as well as my father) attended and graduated from St. Mary Star of the Sea Elementary School and she told the story that as a child of about 8 years old, her mother (of Irish decent) would often have her skate down a small street behind the Catholic Church and buy her some fresh spagetti made by the Italian ladies living there. She told me it would be freshly made and hanging on some sort of racks. In 1984, after my return from many years teaching in PR, my mother asked me to drive her back to the old neighborhood and, in particular, drive down Dennett Place. The car just about fit (not a problem for me because many of the streets in Puerto Rico are just as narrow) & she was delighted to see it looked the same as she remembered as a child. It was such a meaningful and nostalgic trip back in time for her and I hope to visit it again with some of my interested nieces.
Thank you for sharing such a wonderful memory. I’m glad that you found this post!
My family have lived and owned a house on Dennet place since 1905. The “alley” has blessed me with a childhood that one can only dream of. My grandmother became known as the matriarch of the alley until her death in 1995, the title was then handed down to my mom. If I could give you a mental image of what the alley was like- this is what I would like you to imagine… it’s a summer night, the kids (15kids) now dried off from playing all day in the corner johnny pump are eating their ice cream from the Mister Softee ice-cream truck, the corner once soaked and occupied by the children is now set with a card table and 4 older gentleman are playing cards on the opposite street are the “old ladies” of the block enjoying each other’s company and the neighborhood gossip, the 2nd generation (my mom’s generation) are sitting on the stoops drinking coffee and having conversations across the street to each other… ice-cream is over, kids are playing ringo-leavo, red rover, skellzey, handball and praying the street light is broken because once it goes on- they all have to go in. This scenario played out every summer, every day and on Sunday’s the smell of Sunday sauce permeated from every house and the block from one end to the other smelled delicious. Now living in Jersey, I wish I had a time machine so that for 1 day I could give my children this experience.
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