Literary Brooklyn: Author Talk with Evan Hughes, Weds. December 14th, 6:30pm
Please join us this Wednesday, December 14th, for the latest installment of our monthly series of author talks. This month we are pleased to welcome Evan Hughes, author of Literary Brooklyn. Please note that the program is on the second Wednesday of the month, as opposed to the usual fourth Wednesday, due to the busy holiday season. Literary Brooklyn uncovers the borough's -- and a nation's -- history through the minds of its greatest writers. In it, Hughes not only traces the origins of Brooklyn's contemporary literary scene but illuminates a revealing slice of…
Walk the Walk
We have a number of prints here in the Collection, most of which come from old issues of Harper's or Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, covering all manner of Brooklyn life. Some of my favorite images come from the Sports folder, showing as they do the great diversity of early sporting activity in the borough. Here we can find young men playing handball in stripped-down handball togs, polo dandies in candy-striped jerseys wrangling their horses around the desired ball, and women in feather-caked hats drawing their bows in Prospect Park archery tournaments. But…
It's what's for dinner
"Amid wild scenes of face-slapping and hair-pulling, police today quelled a stampede among 3,000 women fighting for places in line... The line had formed as early as 1:30 a.m... some women brought their lunches, their knitting, and their babies." It may sound like the standard consumer zealotry we're accustomed to hearing about this time of the year, as usually sane citizens spend their Thanksgiving vacation camped out for hours, or days, in front of retail stores in hopes of snagging deals on big-screen TVs, videogame systems, and other toys... the kinds of products they'…
To Brooklyn and Back
Join us this evening as Aziz Rahman of the Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival presents the film, "To Brooklyn and Back - A Mohawk Story" In this hour-long documentary filmmaker Reaghan Tarbell traces her roots from the close-knit community of Kahnawake in Quebec to the bustling community of Mohawk steel workers in Boerum Hill Brooklyn. …
Calling all Teachers!
This winter, our Brooklyn Connections program is proud to present two professional development workshops for NYC teachers. These events are the first in a new series of teacher workshops to be held at the Brooklyn Colleciton during the academic year. Our workshops are open to all teachers in the five boroughs and offer the unqiue opportunity to explore the Brooklyn Colleciton in a small group with our dedicated staff and favorite guest historians. ****************************************************** Local History 101: Brooklyn's Past (and Present) in the Classroom…
A Day to Give Thanks
Ronald Klepner, 1950 Thanksgiving, a favorite holiday among the Collection staff, is this week. Thanksgiving dates back to colonial times as a day for religious observance and celebration of the season's harvest. In 1817, it became a legal New York holiday and in 1863, it was proclaimed "a day for national thanksgiving praise and prayer" by President Lincoln. While Thanksgiving was typically observed in November, there were some years in the 19th century where it was held in December. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 28, 1883 Since FDR's presidency, it has…
Welcome Home, Soldier.
As World War II came to an end, the Eagle pointed out that "war is not ended with the defeat of the enemy's arms." Life in Brooklyn would continue, but it had to adjust to the return of its brave soldiers. 326,000 men had served in the war, 12% of Brooklyn's total population and, more staggeringly, 58% of Brooklyn's males between the ages of 18 and 37. While Brooklynites were thrilled to have their boys back home, there was a question as to where all of these returning citizens were going to live. Demand for housing was high across…
The bullfighter from Brooklyn
Among the strange and impressive stories of self-invention that stream out of the streets of Brooklyn, that of Sidney Franklin, a student of Brooklyn's Commerical High School, must be one of the strangest. Franklin was born in 1903 just down the road from here, at 14 Jackson Place, one of those cozy little blocks that run parallel to the numbered avenues, between 16th St and Prospect Avenue. His father, Abram Frumkin, came from Minsk and put in 25 years as a patrolman in the area now known as the 78th precinct--a trajectory perhaps less unusual than his son's, but one that took…
Veteran's Day: Oral Histories from Brooklyn Soldiers
Last year at this time I posted a story on our blog about Private Justin Grishman. He was serving in the Korean War and stationed in Japan, where he worked as a radio operator. Sifting through Eagle clippings and photos from our collection, I tried to piece together the story of a most unique and sentimental request made by the young soldier: he wanted Borough President Cashmore to send him a street sign from the corner of Flatbush and Church Avenues, so that, though half-a-world-away, he could still feel at home. If you watched our new video introducing the Brooklyn Collection this will…
Down with washtubs!
Located on the corner of Fourth Avenue and President Street, Public Bathhouse no. 7 opened in 1910. The structure was designed by Brooklyn resident Raymond F. Almirall, whose works include the Emigrant Savings Bank and four branches of the Brooklyn Public Library; Bushwick, Eastern Parkway, Pacific, and Park Slope. The bath boasted the largest indoor pool in the City and showers for up to two hundred people. Before the days where in-home showers were common and deodorant was a hygienic necessity, bathhouses were used year round as public washing facilities and during the summer,…
Mr. Death
Now is the time when skeletons walk hand-in-hand with Super Marios and candy-hungry princesses trailed by zombie retinues are as regular a sight as dollar vans barreling down Flatbush. October is for lovers of the weird and morbid, and there is perhaps no better setting for our darker speculations than the bone tenanted grounds of a cemetery. In the course of doing research for a patron I came across the story of a lesser-known Brooklyn cemetery, the long-gone Union Cemetery in the Eastern District. It embodies a timely bit of ghoulish history which should serve…
Haunted Brooklyn
During this time of year, with darkness falling earlier and earlier every night, with cold winds whispering under collars and up shirtsleeves, with miniature ghouls and goblins trolling the streets and demanding candy sacrifices, a person's mind quite understandably entertains superstitions of ghosts and hauntings. In a city as aged as New York, it does not take a stretch of the imagination to start seeing ethereal appartitions in the dimmed windows of brownstones, to start hearing centuries-old horse hooves clapping against cobblestones, or to start smelling the decaying rot of…
Bushwick Avenue: A Preservation Plan. Weds Oct 26 at 6:30 P.M.
Students from the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture and Preservation Planning talk about their research uncovering the rich architectural history of Bushwick Avenue, and the preservation plan they produced as a result. Illustrated talk begins at 7 p.m. Wine and cheese reception precedes the talk at 6:30 p.m. in the Brooklyn Collection Reserve Room, 2nd floor, Central Library, Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn NY 11238. Seating is limited to 40 people. Tickets will be handed out at 6:30.
The Philanthropist, His Oil, His Institute, and a Library
On October 6, 1887, a humble little advertisement ran in the classifieds column of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle: "Applications for enrollment in classes in mechanical and freehand drawing, designing and modeling, will be received on and after October 10. Class work will begin October 17. Circulars giving general information furnished on request. Personal interviews at office of Institute 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. and 7:30 to 9 P.M." A little over a week later, on October 17, 1887, twelve intrigued students attended the aforementioned drawing class, and thus Pratt Institute was born…
From the 16mm Film Collection: the Library, a Family Affair
In the webpages of this blog, we have never missed an opportunity to praise the efforts of our mother institution, the Brooklyn Public Library. Be it by cheering the library's legacy of bookmobile visits to underserved communities, by drawing attention to the efforts of our staff in difficult economic times, or by noting our various initiatives and collaborations with the Multicultural Internship Program, Project CHART, and Brooklyn Connections, we are unfailingly willing to toot our own horn. Today's post is no exception. From the 16mm film collection, we present…
Blowing our horn
Today's New York Times article about Rabbi Levi Meisner, master of the shofar and teacher to aspiring shofar blowers of the world, inspired us to seek out shofar experts recorded in our Brooklyn Daily Eagle files. The shofar, a horn trumpet blown to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, has been seen and heard more than once on the library's plaza. And we have, it turns out, an embarras de richesse of shofar photographs; in fact if proof were ever needed that the art of blowing the shofar has deep roots in Brooklyn, it is right here in the Eagle files. Here…
Back in the Days: Author Talk with photographer Jamel Shabazz, Wednesday Sept. 28, 6:30pm
The Brooklyn Collection's lecture series is back from summer hiatus! Please join us for our first author talk of the season, with Jamel Shabazz. This legendary Brooklyn photographer talks about his life and career as he celebrates the 10th anniversary of his book Back in the Days, a photographic look at New York's hip-hop culture during the late seventies and eighties. Wednesday, September 28th, Brooklyn Collection, 2nd Floor, Central Library, 10 Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn NY 11238 Wine and cheese at 6:30. The talk starts promptly at 7:00. Seating is limited…
Gotta go to Mo's
With nine branches scattered throughout the borough, Modell's sporting goods stores are a familiar sight to most Brooklyn residents. Although the chain's first store opened on Cortlandt Street in Manhattan, Brooklyn played an important role in the company's development. Henry Modell, November 12, 1946 Morris A. Modell founded the company in 1889 as a discount clothing shop. Morris's son Henry inherited the business after his return from World War I, and renamed it Henry Modell & Company. He purchased spare World War I army clothing from the Federal Government at a huge…
Annals of a Brooklyn Cop
Those who read this blog regularly or follow our Twitter feed religiously are no doubt familiar with the diary of public transit enthusiast, Brooklyn Dodger fan, and assiduous scribe of the everday, Arthur Lonto. His daily observations, scrawled in minute cursive or blocky capital letters, range from the mundane to the monumental -- the news that Jackie Robinson debuted as the "FIRST NEGRO to PLAY ON A MAJOR LEAGUE TEAM" shares a page with the less historically important note that Lonto spent the day polishing his family's car. This is the value of diaries as…