House Research

[House on back of parking lot at 47 McDonald Avenue], 1956, v1974.16.1423; Edna Huntington papers and photographs, ARC.044; Brooklyn Historical Society.

This week’s photograph is interesting on many levels.  First, it’s a wood frame house (although in a sorry state); second, it’s on a weird shaped lot in Windsor Terrace; and third, it was taken by our own Edna Huntington.

Let’s start with the first area of interest: wood frame houses.  Wood houses were common until the fear of rampant fires set in within urban environments caused them to be banned.  Wood was replaced with brownstone and brick and what we think of today as the housing stock of Brooklyn.  Unfortunately, it means there are few wood frame houses left.  Those that are still around date to the early to mid 1800s.

Weird shaped lot and information about the building: is this structure still standing and covered over in aluminum siding or some other fate?  Sadly or thankfully, it was replaced by a modern residential building across the street from Green-Wood Cemetery.  If I wanted to know more, I would start by doing a Building Information Search at the Department of Buildings which tells me it’s located on block 895, lot 7502: the tip of the iceberg for house research.  We have an extensive guide to doing house research on our website.

Finally, the photograph was taken by Edna Huntington, a long time librarian at Brooklyn Historical Society – from 1926 until 1960 when she retired.  While a librarian here, she documented Brooklyn in photographs dating from the late 1930s to the mid 1940s.  She cataloged them extensively and they are available for searching our image catalog in our reading room.

Interested in seeing more photos from BHS’s collection? Visit our online image gallery, which includes a selection of our images. Interested in seeing even more historic Brooklyn images? Visit our Brooklyn Visual Heritage website here.  To search BHS’s entire collection of images, archives, maps, and special collections visit BHS’s Othmer Library Wed-Sat, 1:00-5:00 p.m. photos@brooklynhistory.org