Cherry Blossoms

[Blossoms], 1975 ca; Donald L. Nowlan Brooklyn collection, ARC.120, v1990.2.214; Brooklyn Historical Society.

After a long winter, it is a welcome sight to see blooms popping up all over Brooklyn. On one particularly warm day last week, I walked to Prospect Park and sat under a blooming tree and felt so grateful for the beauty that is Brooklyn in the springtime.

With that in mind, the photo of the week is a view of the Cherry Esplanade in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, taken by photographer and Brooklynite Donald L. Nowlan in 1975. When the cherry blossoms bloom every spring, it is a hopeful reminder of warmer, longer days ahead. In celebration of this season, Brooklyn Botanical Garden hosts their annual cherry blossom festival Sakura Matsuri. BBG has over 200 cherry blossom trees, which can be found along the Cherry Espanade, the Cherry Walk and many other locations throughout the garden. The first cherry trees were planted after World War I, as a gift from the Japanese government. Landscape architect and master gardener Brian Funk of BBG reports that the trees are blooming earlier every year, mostly due to climate change. You can view them through mid-May, so don’t miss this special experience.  You can map the blooms here.

The Donald L. Nowlan Brooklyn collection consists of materials pertaining to Nowlan's high school and college years in Brooklyn, N.Y. and to Nowlan's effort to document various Brooklyn sites. This series contains 122 color photographic prints, 165 color slides, and three black-and-white photographic prints, taken by Nowlan, that document locations in Brooklyn in the 1960s and 1970s. Subjects include Coney Island, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Prospect Park, and a Reenactment of the Battle of Brooklyn in Prospect Park (circa 1979). Check out more of Nowlan’s photographs here.

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