ONCE UPON a time there were two men named Karel Ebbets, or as they spelled their first name in English: Charles. They were second cousins, both of Dutch descent, and they both left an indelible mark. Charles Hercules Ebbets was the driving force behind the Brooklyn Dodgers. Charles Clyde Ebbets took the famous lunch break photo during the construction of Rockefeller Center’s RCA Building, an iconic image still hanging on office walls around the world almost a century later.
The family tree of both gentlemen is a succession of Dutch family names. The name Ebbets itself belonged to Dutchmen who had fled the Eighty Years War and went to live in Norwich, England. In America they married one Dutch woman after another: Jannetje Waldron, immigrant from Reusel-de Mierden, Marietje van Vorst from Voorst, Els Kip from Amsterdam, Marianne van der Veer from Wemeldinge, and many more, including Annemarie Quick from Laren, but originally from Cuyk.
DODGERS Charles was from New York, whereas photo Charles was born in Alabama. He came to Manhattan because there was a lot to photograph there, especially after the Rockefeller family, formerly from Breskens, asked him to take pictures of the construction at Rockefeller Plaza. He was a daredevil, flew small airplanes when most people were still scared of them, did stunt work on airplane wings, became a wrestler and took part in car races. Climbing a skyscraper and taking pictures out on a ledge was in his book a piece of cake.
The photo was staged. It wasn’t a real lunch break, but they were real construction workers. Charles took a whole series of photos of them in September 1932, on the 69th floor, and Rockefeller used them for promotional purposes. As soon as his job was done, he headed back to the warm South, to Florida, got married four times, shot more photos for forty more years, but never one as iconic as Lunch Atop a Skyscraper.
HIS COUSIN was already dead by then. He was Annemarie from Cuyk’s son. He was an accountant and had gradually bought shares in the Brooklyn Bridegrooms baseball club until he owned eighty percent. In the meantime, for 15 years he had been selling tickets and peanuts, and no one knew more about the club than he did. Charles Hercules, like the original Norwich immigrant who was a bricklayer, knew a thing or two about building something, so he gave the club a new stadium, Ebbets Field, capacity 18,000 spectators, later double that many.
To get there, in Flatbush, formerly Vlacke Bos and, earlier, Midwoud, you sometimes had to be willing to risk your life. The Brooklyn trolleys had switched from horses to electric power, they were faster and therefore more dangerous, and baseball fans learned to dodge them. They gave the club their new name, Brooklyn Dodgers.
But Charles died, the new owner moved the team to Los Angeles, and Ebbets Field was eventually torn down. There’s now a giant apartment complex there. It is named for Jackie Robinson, Major League’s first black ball player. The Dodgers contracted him to play. At Ebbets Field.
