Brooklyn Eagle, June 9, 1851, p.3. According to the 1850-1851 directory for Brooklyn, Patrick Casey’s shoe store was at 77 Hudson Street, not 79 as reported in the Eagle. He and his wife, Catherine, were both Irish immigrants, per the 1855 New York State Census. In 1851, at the time of this murder, the couple were raising two-year old twin girls in Irishtown.
Harrison Alley, once known as Garvey’s Alley, looking towards the rear of houses on Hudson Avenue, Brooklyn, NY. September 3, 2024. Photographed by Tim Morrissey on iPhone 14.
The New York Reformer (Watertown, NY), June 26, 1851, p.2. Garvey’s Alley is known as Harrison Alley as of 2024. The Cororner’s jury found Michael Spinks (alias Kehoe) guilty of her death “in the heat of passion, but without malice aforethought,” as reported in The Spectator (NY), June 12, 1851, p.2.
77 Hudson Avenue, Brooklyn, New York (1940). Credit: New York City Department of Records and Information Services – 1940 NYC Tax Photos, Series 3: Brooklyn (1940)
This building in Harrison Alley is on the site of the rear dwelling at 77 Hudson Avenue where Catherine Spinks lost her life in June 1851. Photograph by Eric Patrick Cameron with iPhone 15 Pro Max, September 3, 2024.