Tuesday, June 14, 2022

Lost Apartments of the North Shore: the Baltimore Flats

 

17-23 Victory Blvd, ca. 1940

When my parents got married, they lived at 115 Stuyvesant Place. It's where I lived my first three years. They bought a house on Cebra Avenue when their rent went up to $137 and exceeded a mortgage. As a baby, my mom and I went to all sorts of stores in St. George and Tompkinsville. I had memories of eating in a luncheonette at the corner of Victory and  Bay, but I couldn't remember anything specific about it except that my mom was friends with a waitress. It was only doing some research a few years ago that I discovered pictures of it.

The luncheonette was called DeFranco's and it was in the corner of a string of apartments called the Baltimore Flats. They're a beautiful example of late 19th-century buildings, designed by Edward A. Sargent. Unfortunately, after part of them caught fire in 1980, it wasn't long before the entire block of flats was demolished.


DeFranco's Luncheonette, 1969 - My mom and I could be inside 


Baltimore Flats on fire - 1980


the Baltimore Flats, 1980 - awaiting their fate


1989 - rubble



2021

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