TE Clue TCSS

The current Tour Client Group do not seem like bad people. They have nice, ordinary, nearly interchangeable names: "Eden", "Eliot", "Eloise", "Emile", "Emmy" "Eric", and "Eve". A few times, one member of the group has addressed another by the wrong name. No one seems to mind. They must all be comfortable with one another's little lapses. That is a relief -- it is always more difficult to create a successful tour when the client group mutter and snipe at one another.

Their

special interest

does strike Tabitha as being uncanny, however: They ignored all of the common end-of-year holidays. (They found the customary late-December crowds and near-solstice business closures befuddling!) They had no interest at all in New Year's Eve activities.

They want only to tour

1. -- physical structures in the greater Hudson Bay area --
2. -- that predate Joseph von Fraunhofer's
   1814
   invention of the spectroscope --
3. -- which continue to stand in their original site --
4. -- and consist mostly or completely of the original materials.

These seven people had quite the snit about the

Schenck Houses

located inside the

Brooklyn Museum

. Not in original locations! Horrors! And the original sites, in what is now called "

Mill Basin

", host modern homes that are not at all what the tour group wants to visit.

N

ow they have added to the itinerary an address in Brooklyn:

Probably Pointless Tour Destination by Jarissa

on Degraw Street in the 130s, an old brownstone, two doors down from the nearest corner, currently vacant due to a court dispute between the renovation company and the previous owner. Last year, this was a bike shop on the "below street" level and an artisanal candle + tisane shop on the "above street" levels. Three years ago, this was a vintage clothing boutique. The reno company plans to turn the building into an eclectic furniture store specializing in multi-functional convertible pieces designed to fit well in typical NYC small spaces. Near the end of 2009, they halted all work in mid-renovation and filed several grievances against the real estate company and the seller of this building.

Why on

Earth

do the clients want to see this place?

Oh, sure, Tabitha can arrange it. She could talk to the real estate company, who may be looking to line up another buyer if the courts vacate the closing contract or otherwise find for the plaintiff. She can drop by City Hall to do a hasty records check, find out the original age of the brownstone row and some of its history. (Brownstones started in the early 1800s, but most of those buildings decayed under typical NYC winter weather. This particular rowhouse, if it even is real brownstone and not a tinted concrete shell over brick walls to simulate the "brownstone" look for a cheaper price, was probably built after 1850.) Surely this comes decades after the 1814 cutoff date?

It is not close to a subway stop. It is not above even an abandoned subway tunnel. It is not close to an elevated section of track.

The nearest public transit options are bus stops, all on a cross street.

(In fact, Tabitha will have to have the chartered luxury van driver drop them off, then go several blocks away to park until the clients are done. Locals have filled all available side-of-street parking, which is normal. The nearest parking garage is not particularly "near".)

It is close enough to Buttermilk Channel to walk, if someone had reason to do that. New Yorkers are proficient walkers. That area has a pleasant view of the famous Manhattan Skyline and Governors Island, but not nice enough for postcard photographs. Often the view will be blocked by industrial shipping traffic in the Channel.

This requested stop breaks all the theories Tabitha had considered to explain her clients' crusade.

Some clients are simply odd; this is a universal fact.

Nevertheless, Tabitha's mystery sense is tingling....