Blog posts by Sarah

Williamsburg Bridge

Sarah

[Waterfront basketball], 1951, PARK_0050; Brooklyn Daily Eagle Photographs, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History. 
The Williamsburg Bridge was completed in 1903, making it the second of three bridges to connect Brooklyn to our neighbors in Manhattan. Make no mistake, this middle sister is no Jan Brady. At completion, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world and quickly became a vital artery for movement between the boroughs. The bridge was one of the last to be designed to accommodate horse and carriage traffic and…

POTW: Mourning the Victorian Way

Sarah

[Hair Link], circa 1875, M1986.72.7; Artifact collection, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
This simple, braided bracelet holds a special meaning. If you look closely, you’ll see that the braid is actually made of human hair. Although not widely practiced today, collecting a lock of hair from a deceased loved one to incorporate into a piece of jewelry was quite common in the Victorian era. According to author Allison Meier “There was also a hair jewelry industry that emerged with workshops and retailers to support this fashion…

Wonder Wheel

Sarah

[Coney Island Wonder Wheel], circa 1945, CONE_0239; Brooklyn Daily Eagle photographs, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History
The world-famous Wonder Wheel is a Ferris wheel (also known as a pleasure wheel) designed by Romanian immigrant Charles Herman and operated by his business partner Herman Garms. Herman walked away after the Wheel’s completion, reportedly earning no money for his invention. Garms ran the Wheel for sixty years, spending his summers sleeping in a home beneath the ride. In 1983, the Wheel was sold to Denos…

The Eberhard Faber Pencil Company

Sarah

The Eberhard Faber Pencil Company traces back to 18th century Bavaria, where carpenter Casper (Kasper) Faber began crafting and selling lead pencils in the small town of Stein. Casper’s son Anton Wilhelm (A.W.), took over the business in 1784, renaming it the A.W. Faber Company.  

[Faber family], 1924; Eberhard Faber Pencil Company Collection, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
In 1790, French scientist Nicholas Jacques Conte developed a method for heating a mixture of graphite and clay to form a superior writing tool that could be…

POTW: Early Years of the Pratt Institute

Sarah

[Pratt Institute blacksmith students], circa 1905, SCHL_1603; Brooklyn Daily Eagle photographs, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History. 
Today’s Photo of the Week looks at a classroom in the early years of the Pratt Institute. The school was founded by businessman and philanthropist Charles Pratt, who envisioned a school for working-class people to get hands-on experience in industrial trades, arts, and engineering. The school opened in 1887, just a few blocks from Pratt’s home at 232 Clinton Avenue. Starting with only twelve…

POTW: Shark attacks in Brooklyn? Fuhgeddaboudit!

Sarah

[8-foot shark caught on Sheepshead Bay fishing trip], 1950, NEIG_1852; Brooklyn Daily Eagle photographs, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History. 
They probably won’t need a bigger boat to haul in this little shark, caught off the coast of Sheepshead Bay. Although sharks can be found in Brooklyn’s waterways, attacks are extremely uncommon. In fact, the last shark attack in Sheepshead Bay was in 1916, when swimmers Gertrude Hoffman and Thomas Richards escaped with non-fatal injuries. Brooklynites have little to fear from these finned…

POTW: Gil Hodges Gets His Due

Sarah

[Brooklyn Dodgers first baseman Gil Hodges, with six baseball bats and duffel bag over shoulder], 1952, gelatin silver print, DODG_0498; Brooklyn Daily Eagle photographs, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History. 
We’re thrilled that Gil Hodges has finally been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Hodges was one of the famed “Boys of Summer,” but he started life as a son of the Midwest. Born in Princeton, Indiana in 1924 he excelled at high school baseball, basketball, track, and football. After attending…

POTW: Trommer's Near-Beer

Sarah

Brooklyn Daily Eagle photographs, 194-?, WORK_0054, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History
Today's Photo of the Week takes us to Trommer’s Brewery at Bushwick Avenue and Conway Street. Brewery President George Trommer (right) is smashing a beer bottle to celebrate a new fleet of delivery trucks. George was the son of founder John F. Trommer, a German immigrant who worked as Brewmaster at Ulmer’s until 1897 when he purchased an existing brewery and changed the name to Trommer’s Evergreen Brewery. George took over the business…

A Legacy in Lead

Sarah

[Women working in the Eberhard Faber pencil factory], circa 1915, V1988.35.6, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
As New York City students return to the classroom, we’re dreaming of fresh school supplies. Notebooks, rulers, folders, and of course: pencils. Were you the kid who always had two freshly sharpened pencils ready to go at a moment’s notice? Were you the monster who borrowed a pencil and never returned it? Either way, there’s a good chance you've used a Faber pencil. The Faber family started manufacturing pencils in Germany…

POTW: Hat Works of Knox the Hatter

Sarah

Brooklyn Eagle postcard collection, [Knox Hat factory, St. Marks and Grand Avenues], circa 1905, POST_0558, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
Today we're looking at the imposing apartment building at 369-413 St. Marks Avenue that began life as the world’s largest hat factory. Founded by Irish immigrant Charles Knox, the Knox Hat Company began operations in lower Manhattan, selling beaver hats in a small store he opened in 1838. Through promotion and word of mouth, the business built an impressive clientele, including Abraham…

POTW: Lionel the Lion-Faced Man

Sarah

Marie Roberts Dreamland Circus side show photographs, CONE_0590, c1924, Center for Brooklyn History, Brooklyn Public Library. 
Stephan Bibrowski (1890–1932), also known as "Lionel the Lion-Faced Man," was born outside Warsaw, Poland with a rare condition called hypertrichosis. Often called “werewolf syndrome” hypertrichosis causes excessive hair growth on the body and is now thought to be hereditary. While Stephan’s mother was pregnant with him she watched as his father was attacked by a lion, an event she believed caused Stephen’s condition. At four…

Taking a Bite Out of Spiritualism

Sarah

When the Scientific American offered a $2500 prize to anyone who could produce a visible psychic manifestation, Chicago medium Elizabeth Allen Tomson answered the call. In the Fall of 1923 she arrived in New York with her husband and spokesman, Dr. Clarence Tomson and their daughter. Tomson performed several seances in homes across the city, using a technique that involved her entering a large cabinet where she fell into a trance and manifested spirits of the dead. 

The Chat, November 29, 1924
One attendee not impressed with Tomson’s spiritual…

POTW: Brooklyn in Blue

Sarah

WILC_0085, 1892, Center for Brooklyn History, Brooklyn Public Library
Today's Photo of the Week is a cyanotype created by New York City photographer Julius Wilcox. Wilcox was born in Vermont in 1837, moving to New York at the age of 29 and settling in Brooklyn. He made his living as a writer for the New York Evening Gazette and as part owner of a bicycle business. He seems to have taken up photography as a hobby, photographing mostly in Manhattan, favoring architecture and the city’s working-class and poor. His album of original cyanotypes with…

Brooklyn's Teen Poets

Sarah

The teenage years are a difficult time, with emotions running high and relationships with the people in your life changing quickly. Poetry is a universal outlet for teens to explore feelings about themselves and their world. While most poems stay tucked away in journals or at the bottom of trash cans, some brave souls are eager to share. Before social media, publication in a school newspaper was one of the most direct ways for a poet to reach their peers. We combed through our Brooklyn High School newspapers for a selection of the very best teen poetry Brooklyn had to offer:…

A Short History of the Saratoga Park Playground

Sarah

Saratoga Park is one of the many beautiful greenspaces Brooklyn has to offer. It’s the second largest park in Bedford-Stuyvesant, named for the nearby Saratoga Street, which takes its name from the Battles of Saratoga during the Revolutionary War. According to the New York City Parks Department, the word Saratoga might be Iroquois or Mohawk in origin, perhaps meaning either “springs from hillside” or “place of miraculous water in rock.”  Before it became a park, the land was owned by James C. Brower and his family. Brower owned a hardware business, helped organize the New York and…

The Brooklyn Dodgers

Sarah

In 2013 the Brooklyn Collection acquired several boxes of Brooklyn Dodgers memorabilia from Al Todres, a lifelong collector. Todres certainly wasn’t the only one actively collecting Brooklyn Dodgers material nearly 60 years after the team was transferred to Los Angeles. Why does a baseball team that left Brooklyn in the middle of the last century still inspire so much loyalty and curiosity? Every collector has a different answer, and it certainly goes beyond statistics and player performance. The team that would become the Dodgers played in Eastern Park when Brooklyn was still an independent…