by I passed by this building on my way to visiting my friend in Brooklyn the other day. Imagine being one of the old ladies who had to go home to that sign every day! “Yeah, yeah. I’m old. I live here in a home for old people. What of it?”
Built in 1851, to live there you had to be over 60, have your own bed and furniture, and be respectable. By the 1980’s it was a brothel. In 2001 it was converted to condos. Oh, the current sign is new. Originally, it was the Brooklyn Society for the Relief of Respectable Aged Indigent Females. That’s a little friendlier to come home to, although humbling (and a little condescending). Graham comes from John B. Graham, the 19th century lawyer who financed the project.
