Blog posts by Cecily Dyer

Coordinating Dance Moves and Community in Brighton Beach

Cecily Dyer

George Cohen, Brighton Beach YM-YWHA Jewish Community Center, 1987.  George Cohen photograph collection, COHEN_0093. Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
If your New Year's resolutions include getting more exercise, perhaps these gals in a Brighton Beach dance class can provide a little inspiration. Photographer George Cohen captured the scene in 1987 at the Shorefront YM-YWHA (Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association), a Jewish Community Center on Coney Island Avenue in Brighton Beach.  The first YMHA…

The Brooklyn Theatre Fire of December 1876: a community's response

Cecily Dyer

At the Center for Brooklyn History, a variety of collections document Brooklyn's vaudeville and theater scenes—from scrapbooks where individuals preserved programs and tickets, to periodicals like The Opera Glass, the Brooklyn Daily Programme and The Brooklyn Daily Stage. These serve as a testament to the popularity of these performances among a wide and diverse segment of Brooklynites.

The Brooklyn Daily Programme, October 17, 1874, and The Brooklyn Daily Stage, December 4, 1876. Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History…

POTW: Brooklyn's Dog and Horse Parade

Cecily Dyer

 

The winner of the "smallest dog" title meets an Irish Wolfhound—the winner of the "largest dog" title.  Brooklyn Dog and Horse Parade, 1935, gelatin silver print. Brooklyn Daily Eagle photograph collection, NEIG_1738. Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History. 
  The Thanksgiving holiday often revolves around food, family, and friends, but awaiting those holiday mainstays brings its own traditions. For some, one of these might be tuning into the National Dog Show. With a nod to that event, this week’s Photo of the Week…

The Kanawake Teieriwakwata hymnal: aiding Mohawk services in the city of churches

Cecily Dyer

[Cuyler Presbyterian Church] , CHUR_0529. Brooklyn Daily Eagle photographs, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
Today's Photo of the Week takes us to Boerum Hill, where residents of the Kahnewake Mohawk territory near Montreal, Canada, settled in the early and mid-20th century. The Mohawk are one of six nations that belong to the Haudenosaunee, also known as the Iroquois Nation. The large number of Kahnewake Mohawks who resided in this section of Brooklyn while pursuing economic opportunities in New York City earned the area the…

Water, Water Everywhere

Cecily Dyer

[Flood at Sutter and Saratoga Avenues], 1923, NEIG_0291. Brooklyn Daily Eagle photographs. Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
This week's Photo of the Week takes us to the intersection of Sutter and Saratoga Avenues in Brownsville in July 1923, when severe storms turned the borough's streets into rivers, flooded subway stations and basements, and caused guysers to erupt from manhole covers. Lightning blasted apart wood paving blocks on Cortelyou Road in Flatbush, threw a construction worker from his ladder on Ocean…

POTW: Bulger's Hotel: Subway Construction Photographs Shed Light on a Lost Brooklyn Business

Cecily Dyer,

[Sidewalk conditions on southeast corner of Pearl and Willoughby Streets looking south from roadway of Willoughby St], 1915. Subway Construction Photographs, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
One of the most frequent challenges for staff and researchers in CBH's Othmer Library is finding photographs that provide evidence of Brooklyn's past built environment. The city's 1940 tax photos are our go-to resource, but these can miss houses, businesses, and community landmarks that were razed in earlier years. For some…

A Story of Sands Street

Cecily Dyer

[Brooklyn Navy Yard Buildings], NEIG_1249, 1908; Brooklyn Daily Eagle photographs; Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
Today's photo of the week takes us to the corner of Sands and Navy Streets in Vinegar Hill, a section of Downtown Brooklyn adjacent to the Navy Yard. While the neighborhood was named for the final battle of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, reflecting the large Irish population who settled here in the early to mid-1800s, people of all backgrounds resided in Vinegar Hill's densely-built streets. The…

POTW: Park Slope's Old Tower House

Cecily Dyer

 

Old Tower House, NEIG_1696, 1910; Brooklyn Daily Eagle photographs; Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
  Today’s photo of the week takes us to Park Slope, where a residence locally known as "the old tower house” once stood on the south side of 8th street between 5th and 6th avenues. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle published the above photograph of the old tower house in 1910, two years after the death of the building’s longtime owner, Asa B. Richardson. The Eagle claimed at the time that the…

POTW: One Bedford-Stuyvesant Block's Industrial Past

Cecily Dyer

[Former Joseph Wild & Co factory, 218 Kosciusko Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant], circa 1935; Bommer family collection, 1992.033, Box A0142; Center for Brooklyn History.
This week’s Photo of the Week takes us to Kosciusko Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant, on the block that forms the northern boundary of Herbert Von King Park (known in the 19th century as Tompkins Park).
[Former Joseph Wild & Co building, 196 Kosciusko Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant], circa 1935; Bommer family collection, 1992.033, Box A0142; Center for…

Community and Activism in one Brooklyn Family's Roots

Cecily Dyer,

A few years ago, I went in search of background information about a periodical in the Center for Brooklyn History collections called Afro-America. It was published in the late 1960s from Fred Richardson’s African American Bookstore in Crown Heights, which sold books by and about Black writers, poets, and political leaders, as well as picture books for children and art by Black artists. Fred opened the store when he was just 22.

Fred Richardson in his newly opened store with sculptor Ruth Inge Hardison. New Amsterdam News, Brooklyn Edition, December 12, 1964…