The Houseman family lived near Dahill Road in Brooklyn

The 1940 Census recorded that Eleanor Bergstein's family was living at 601 Dahill Road in Kings (i.e. Brooklyn), New York.

Click on the image to enlarge it.

The family comprised father Joseph (age 36), mother Sarah (age 30), older daughter Frances (age 5) and younger daughter Elenore (not spelled Eleanor; age 2). Also living at that address were Sarah's father Max Rein (age 63) and a main Rina Baldessari (age 26).

That address 601 Dahill is the location of the large building shown in the following photograph.

601 Dahill Road in Brooklyn, NY

It's likely that this building was built after 1940 and that the Bergstein home looked similar to the buildings on the right.

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The 1935-1936 Medical Directory of New York, in its Kings County section, lists Dr. Joseph Bergstein as follows.

Click to enlarge.

The word Tael near the end of the top line is a misprint for Tel (i.e. telephone number). According to the Key to Abbreviations, the asterix means that he is a "Member of County and State Society", and the abbreviation Ped. means that he is a "Member Pediatric Society".

In this context, the address 526 Dahill Road seems to be his office address. That is the location of the building in the following photograph.

526 Dahill Road in Brooklyn, NY

The drive from 601 Dahill to 526 Dahill can be seen on Google Maps.

Dr. Bergstein's drive from his home to his office
in 1936 (two years before Eleanor was born) 

The Bergstein family still was living at 601 Dahill in 1940, but perhaps the office location changed after 1936. Below is a series of screenshots (click to enlarge) from the 1940 home to the 1936 office.:

601 Dahill is on the right.

The next block

The next block

526 Dahill is the large building on the photo's upper-left corner

I searched the Internet for several hours and could not find any clue about Dr. Joseph Bergstein after 1936. I could not find any clue about Sarah or Frances Bergstein in any year. Not only did I use Google searches, I also searched through all the old newspapers available at the Newspapers website. (Beyond Newspapers, I did not use any search method that would require me to pay a fee).

I could not find any clue about Eleanor (or Elenore) Bergstein until 1973, when her novel Advancing Paul Newman was published. Then the Internet becomes blank about her again until 1980, when her movie It's My Turn was released. Then the Internet becomes blank yet again until 1987, when Dirty Dancing was released.

It seems that the Bergstein family has lived very obscure lives. Perhaps Eleanor has spent some of her mountain of money to hide her Bergstein family's lives from the Internet.

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Using the information that I did find, I will presume in this blog that the Houseman family lived in the area of Dahill Road in Brooklyn. Eleanor has remarked many times that she grew up in a doctor's family in Brooklyn and that the Houseman family is based somewhat on her Bergstein family.