Howe’s Brooklyn: Sonorous tones, hokey songs all to Help Promenade Gardens
All of New York knows the comforting, sonorous voice of Tom Stewart, the station announcer for Thirteen. But he is also a beloved fixture at home in Brooklyn Heights, where he lives a couple of octaves down from his wife Maureen Kelley Stewart, an acclaimed cabaret singer. And, yes, as trained singers, the two of them often collaborate on musical programs. But in a few weeks they will be doing (as the Monty Python Troupe often proclaimed) “something entirely different”.
To benefit the Promenade Garden Conservancy, the Stewarts put together a program of antiquated Brooklyn-centric sheet music, long forgotten by time and talent, for a program of what they call “fetching, catchy and delightfully-hokey Brooklyn songs dating from 1883 to 1948…” Found in the Brooklyn Public Library archives, these gems include ‘Brooklyn Belle Barn Dance’, the somewhat ominous ‘Brooklyn Daily Eagle Bridge Crush March’, and sub-titled ‘Born and Bred in Brooklyn’, a song that tells of “The Rise of Rosie O’Reilly”.