Storybooks and Captain Hook
We've been working diligently on our photo inventory, and it's uncovered some new material to write about. Today, I found myself enchanted by a relatively unknown event in the Central Library's kitschier history: the Pet Show. On May 21, 1955, Brooklyn Public Library and Abraham & Straus department store hosted the Storybook Pet Show, a costumed pet competition for children in first through seventh grades. Entrants were asked to create a costume or display that was, in true library form, inspired by a good book. One young man went all out, creating both a…
A Home for "Ladies"
A search for luxury condos in Clinton Hill might bring you to 320 Washington Avenue, a lovely co-op surrounded by trees and situated on a comfortable street. And, if that weren't enough, it is an historic building, which seems to be a favorite factoid for realtors. While doing some research into the building's history, it came to my attention that our colleagues over at the Brooklyn Historical Society had just blogged about this very building. It was particularly helpful because I never think to use annual reports as they did. I love a good story, so I decided to…
The Eagle Excursion to the Columbian Exposition, Chicago 1893. Part II
In my last post on the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, I mentioned two books. First, I wrote extensively on the fair as described in The Hand Book to the World's Columbian Exposition. Now I would like to share a scrapbook that documents one Brooklynite's journey from Brooklyn to Chicago and back in October 1893. Entitled Brooklyn Eagle World Fair Excursion, the scrapbook begins with the list of men and women who lodged at the Vermont Hotel in Chicago. The excursion, sponsored by the Eagle, lasted one week and included 250 people who…
Teacups, Frog Hopper and Cyclone
Photographer Ron Meisel has donated one of his beautiful 40 x 15" prints to the Brooklyn Collection. Coney Island, Brooklyn--Astroland Park: Teacups, Frog Hopper and Cyclone (2007) now holds pride of place on the rear wall of the reading room to the right of the Reserve Room doors, with Bill Creevy's pastel drawing of the Central Library to the left. Ron Meisel is represented by Phyllis Stigliano at the Phyllis Stigliano Gallery, 62 Eighth Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217. This is a panoramic photograph taken with a Hasselblad Xpan camera, Fuji Color negative film and scanned on an…
Beauty and the Beer
Brooklyn and beer have a long history together, as do beautiful women and beer advertising. These early advertisements from our collection illustrate that point: But no beauty was quite like Miss Rheingold: From 1942 to 1965, Liebmann Breweries of Bushwick, Brooklyn used an annual beauty contest to sell beer. It was a clever marketing ploy that offered the general public the opportunity to choose Miss Rheingold. Ballot boxes were placed in taverns, grocery stores and other locations and citizens could vote as many…
Photograph inventory July 13-24, 2009
Brooklyn Collection staff will be carrying out an inventory of our photograph collections from July 13 to 24, 2009. The physical photograph collections will be closed to researchers during that time and no photograph orders will be processed, although images will still be available through our digital files.
Some Brooklyn Hats
As a "friend" once memorably put it, you can always count on me to find the cloud behind every silver lining. The rain has held off for a few days now, but can the miserably hot and humid days of summer be far behind? There was a time when head protection on sunny days was de rigueur, and a baseball cap was considered the appropriate headgear only for playing baseball. For the rest of life, other types of summer hat gave Brooklyn heads their special pizzazz. In the late 19th century you could still wear a straw boater without a hint of irony, in fact every member of this well-…
Sham Warfare in Prospect Park
On a frigid February afternoon in 1885, the Third Brigade of Brooklyn's Second Division of the National Guard marched onto the frozen, snow covered fields of Prospect Park. Dressed in full winter uniforms, carrying muskets and bayonettes and waving their American flags, they were prepared for an elaborate exercise in mock warfare - a sham battle. In the 19th century, sham battles were used for either commemorative or practical reasons. Although the National Guard had scheduled the event on a holiday, Washington's birthday, the sham battle was…
The Saw-Book Quarterly
It is my good fortune to purchase, when funds allow, new items for the Brooklyn Collection. Among our ever-growing sub-collections is a group of trade catalogues from Brooklyn businesses, and I was happy to find three of them in a recent offering from a well-known bookseller. The most striking was this booklet bearing the subtitle Saws--Their History, Manufacture and Use, Continued. The cover image of a phoenix rising from a flaming ruin clearly announces what must have befallen the company of Joshua Oldham and Sons. Sure enough, the booklet tells the whole story of the disaster…
New Exhibit: Students Reflect On a Year of Research
It's been another busy year for the students in our Brooklyn Connections program, and we are celebrating with an exhibit at the Central Library! This year we wanted to celebrate the diversity of topics and projects selected by our partner schools. Each panel highlights one school's project and the thoughts of students who worked to complete it. Students utilized photographs, newspapers and other documents to bring history alive in their classrooms. We were thrilled to see that even 8th graders were able to truly appreciate all that the Brooklyn…
Brooklyn in Film: Gems from our 16mm Collection
Aziz Rahman, director of the Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival, will present highlights of our 16mm film collection in the Dweck Auditorium on Wednesday June 24th at 7 p.m. Program: Trinidad in Brooklyn, 1985; Who Grows in Brooklyn, 1969; Incident on Wilson Street, 1964; I remember Barbara, 1981. Free.
The rain it raineth every day...
Since we've been deluged for the greater part of the month I thought it would be appropriate to find some rain-related entries from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. _______________________________________________ The rain isn't bothering this woman on Cortelyou and Coney Island Avenue in 1948 …
Build the Bridge: The Eagle Backs a Failing Venture
If the Eagle had gotten its way, the New York skyline would look quite different. A tunnel from South Brooklyn to the Battery had been on the drawing table for at least a decade in 1939. However, when federal funding started to dry up, it became unclear who would fund such an expensive venture. Enter Robert Moses, whose Triborough Bridge Authority had more than enough spare cash on hand. Moses "graciously" agreed to help and he soon unveiled his proposal - not for a tunnel, but for a bridge. A bridge, he argued, would be…
Photographs by Mike Stein of the Prospect Press
Imagine finding a lost trove of 25,000 negatives documenting life in Brooklyn a quarter century ago. They were produced for a newspaper, beloved in the community for its honest and detailed reporting - and reviled by some for the same reasons - that published for five years, and exists only in the memories of long-time Brooklynites. It was called the Prospect Press, and it lived a short but illustrious life from 1982 to 1987. Although it was only distributed in the communities of Park Slope, Windsor Terrace, Kensington and Sunset Park, its impact reached beyond, as it reported on…
Herb and Dorothy, and Brooklyn Public Library.
Herb and Dorothy Trailer from Herb and Dorothy on Vimeo. I stand a little bit prouder as a librarian of Brooklyn Public Library today, after seeing Megumi Sasaki's film about art collectors Dorothy and Herbert Vogel. Herb and Dorothy, a documentary about the lives of librarian Dorothy and postal clerk Herb and their shared passion for art, opened on Friday at Cinema Village on East 12th Street. For those who do not know their story, the Vogels, living in a one-bedroom rent-controlled apartment on the East side, used her salary to cover their expenses and his to buy art. They…
Babes named (in) Brooklyn
Whilst doing research, I discovered an article from March 7, 1938 titled “Everybody Wants Library to Name Baby.” It seems that the Brooklyn Public Library received a “flood of requests for baby names” when the public discovered that the library had a whopping 560,000 names at its disposal. Soon the librarians spent oodles of time looking for names for a “whimsical baby boy with long ears and a penchant for the esthetic” or a “girl, coquettish, second choice of father who wanted boy named Jack.” To manage the demand, the chief…
Hard Times by guest blogger Richard Reyes-Gavilan, Chief of the Central Library
Library Budget Cuts -- A Recurring Theme In the summer of 1995 New York City’s public libraries were hiring en masse. I’d just moved back to the city after having spent a few years in Texas earning my MLS. Mayor Giuliani, fixated on the quality-of-life issues that—until September 11, 2001—had defined his administration, held firm on the plan for six-day service across the city’s 200 branches. Finding work was easy. Everyone was happy. Just a few years earlier, in 1991, the city, in the depths of recession and long-mired in a crack-fueled…
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle and the Chicago World's Fair
I just finished reading the book The Devil in the White City. It's a really good read about an unimaginable task done well--the story of the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. What does this have to do with Brooklyn? Well, Brooklyn was mentioned many times in the book and there were many famous historical names that I have frequently looked up in the collection that had some association with Brooklyn, and then I remembered, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle sent an entire team of reporters and about 200 Brooklynites to Chicago to cover the fair. So, I…
Revisiting a Lost World: The Past, Present and Future of Brooklyn's Dutch Farms. A Talk by Dr Sean S
This illustrated talk will revisit the lost world of Brooklyn's Dutch farms--from their 17th century origins through their heyday in the mid-19th century when Long Island was the center of American agriculture, to their rapid extinction in the 20th century and the precious but precarious survival of their remnants on the streets of Brooklyn today. Dr Sean Sawyer has taught at Harvard, Columbia and Fordham universities and the New School. He was Director of the Wyckoff Farmhouse Museum from 2001-2007, and is currently an organizer of 5 Dutch Days 5 Boroughs" and the…
Miss Doggett's Masterpiece
If this post is about anything at all, it is about the places you can end up when you don't quite know where you are going. There is a book in our collection that no one ever asks for, even though it is an excellent example of its kind and a work of solid scholarship. The book I have in mind is Marguerite V. Doggett's, Long Island Printing 1791-1830. This bibliography of all the earliest printed works produced on Long Island inspired me some years ago to search the decks of the Library for neglected examples of early Brooklyn printing. [Some people are unaware of the fact…