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BROOKLYN — These days local police have their hands full nabbing reckless drivers, but a century ago they were dealing with gangs of thugs destroying property with baseball bats.
#ParkSlope Urns vs Baseball Bats (1914). Before 15th became #ProspectPark SW, trouble brewing. http://t.co/66pqRWO8kI pic.twitter.com/iab2BjxXeH
— BrownstoneDetectives (@BrownstoneDetec) April 7, 2015
The historical research service Brownstone Detectives wrote Tuesday about a September 1914 crime spree during which a gang of street toughs smashed fancy concrete flower pots adorning houses along what's now Prospect Park Southwest in Windsor Terrace.
A "Patrolman Murphy" said "hoodlums, probably on their way home from a night of revelry at the Coney Island Mardi Gras" were probably responsible for the destruction, according to a Brooklyn Daily Eagle story (You can read the full text in the Brooklyn Public Library's cool Brooklyn Newsstand archive).
Back then Prospect Park Southwest was still called 15th Street between Ninth Avenue (now Prospect Park West there) and 10th Avenue. Brownstone Detectives calls the area Park Slope but it's considered Windsor Terrace today.
Five of the urns were completely destroyed during the rampage, but several of them live on today in front of limestone rowhouses on Prospect Park Southwest, Brownstone Detectives wrote.
Sadly, the Coney Island Mardi Gras celebration ended in the early 1950s, according to Bowery Boys History. It's not clear why the 1914 Coney Island Mardi Gras celebation was held in September, not in February, the traditional time for Fat Tuesday festivities.
