July Program -- Mailer╙│ Brooklyn -- Wednesday, July 31, 2013 7:00pm
Brooklyn Public Library and the Norman Mailer Center present a discussion of American writer Norman Mailer and his impact on the literary culture of Brooklyn. Having spent 40 years of his career living and writing in his Brooklyn Heights home, Mailer’s rich history of iconic literature contributed over 30 pieces of fiction, non-fiction, and plays to the American canon, including his second novel, Barbary Shore, which was written during this time in Brooklyn. Brooklyn author, Evan Hughes, Literary Brooklyn: The Writers of Brooklyn and the Story of American City Life, will lead this…
Teacher Workshop with Green-Wood Cemetery
In early June, Brooklyn Connections had the pleasure of welcoming 24 educators from throughout the city for a teacher workshop on local history in partnership with Green-Wood Cemetery. Green-Wood Cemetery gates in an 1894 photograph taken by Edgar S. Thompson. The day started with an introduction to the Brooklyn Collection and the resources it can offer to teachers who are interested in creating lessons and units about Brooklyn. We developed a set of worksheets, lesson plans and examples of primary sources that teachers could use to help them devise a unit about any neighborhood they might…
Selections from the 16mm Film Collection -- Wednesday, June 26th, 7pm
You are by now most likely aware of the phenomenon that is Hot Bagels, a lovely little vintage film that pays copious homage to the king of all round baked goods (in my opinion). We've featured it on this blog before, and on the strength of its charm alone it has racked up more than 100,000 views on YouTube. So perhaps Hot Bagels is old news, but, much like a day-old bagel itself, it is no less delicious for being a bit stale: What you may not know is that Hot Bagels is just one of 42 vintage Brooklyn films we've had transferred from the original 16mm film format to…
Graduations Galore
The graduation ceremonies, at every step from kindergarten to elementary school, to middle school, to high school, to college and on--have come and gone. Enshrined here in our collection are many celebratory moments from graduations past--so here are a few of them. Probably never before have the public schools of Brooklyn made so fine a showing in their graduating classes as the records for the term just closed present~ Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 6, 1899 Kindergarten graduate of Public School 133 in 1953…
Let's Get Trivial! Part II
In April we hosted a trivia night at one of our favorite (not to mention most convenient, as it is just steps from the Central Library) watering holes, Bar Sepia. It was a memorable evening; along with the usual fine beers and smooth wines contestants tasted the salty brine of competition, the bitter tears of defeat, and, for the victors, the robust, thirst-slaking flavor of a free bar tab! A good time was had by all who sought to disprove the notion that only the dead know Brooklyn. No boxing allowed. No children, either, as this will be at a bar…
We Don't Need No Education
Summer is just around the corner, with its balmy breezes and skin-licking sunshine, prompting among Brooklyn youth the understandable urge to break free from the confines of a drab schoolday and spend the afternoon lolling in the park, strolling down the avenue, or staging a massive protest at City Hall. At least that was one way of reading the events of late April 1950, when thousands of students all over the city spilled out of their schools and into the streets, disrupting the school day, traffic, and life in the city in general. An estimated 1,000…
Ridgewhat?
Early last year we received a generous donation of some 650 postcards depicting all manner of the visually mundane so typical of that epistolary medium: a statue of U.S. Grant attended by a shadow and a cloud; the empty interior of Johnny Johnston's steakhouse on Church Avenue; and this one from 1908 -- a few kids, black dog in tow, palling around on the street. There's nothing much remarkable about this postcard, at least from the standpoint of this non-deltiologist, but what did catch my eye is the location of this particular street scene: That's: Woodward Avenue West from Gates.…
Shore Acres--inside a Shore Road Mansion
A recent article on the discovery of a Paris apartment left untouched since the beginning of World War II reminded me of how rare and precious are our images of nineteenth- and early twentieth century interiors. While our collection contains hundreds of photographs of exteriors of that period, The Peet Residence and the Pope Mansion are two among only a handful of houses whose interiors are preserved for us today through the magic of photography. So it was particularly delightful to come across an album containing exterior and interior shots of a grand house…
LICH: following the paper trail
The Long Island College Hospital is safe, for now. Last week SUNY Downstate withdrew its plan to close the historic beloved cash-strapped hospital. LICH will still need to find a suitable partner, but for now because of the alliance between the community and staff, LICH can continue serving the Red Hook, Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill and Brooklyn Heights neighborhoods as it has since 1858. Emerging from the Brooklyn German General Dispensary, LICH’s founders were the first to bring the concept of a teaching hospital to the U.S., training …
May Day vs. Loyalty Day
May 1st is a day that means different things to different people. For some, it is a day to celebrate the glory of spring with a dance around the maypole. For many, it is known variously as International Workers' Day, Labour Day, or simply May Day -- a commemoration of the Haymarket Riot of 1886 and an acknowledgement of the strides made by the labor rights movement since then. For a smaller subset, May 1st is Loyalty Day, a day to pledge allegiance to the flag and reassert one's "love and devotion to the nation." It is of course no coincidence that the latter…
The Merchant Marine, Sheepshead Bay, and Richard Avedon
Just a year after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Brooklyn saw the opening of the largest United States Maritime Service training station at Sheepshead Bay. Built for $8,500,000 on old beach, bath, and amusement grounds once owned by John P. Day, the station was equipped to pump out 30,000 trained merchant seamen a year. At the opening ceremonies on December 12, 1942 more than 10,000 men, officers, and guests assembled to hear Telfair Knight, director of the Division of Training of the War Shipping Administration, read a laudatory message on behalf…
The History of Brooklyn's Waterfront with John Manbeck, Wednesday April 24th 7pm, Central Library's
Please join us this coming Wednesday, April 24th, for our latest author talk with former borough historian John Manbeck. He'll discuss the Brooklyn waterfront's rich history and how its use influenced the development of Brooklyn's industries and communities, from ship-building to ferries, factories, and beaches. The city continues to look for new ways of utilizing the waterfront today with plans under way for new housing, parks, and business projects. Manbeck has written several books on various aspects of Brooklyn history, many of which are available in the…
Emily Warren Roebling in the Press
There is a tired cliche that "behind every great man is a great woman". This has always seemed to me to be a way to shoehorn women into the mostly-male narrative of history as we learn it. The wives of presidents and inventors are rarely given their own space in history, and are usually seen as appendages of the men they married. When researching prominent women in history, it is very likely that you will at first find more information about their husbands. The same is not true for Emily Warren Roebling. I was first drawn to her when researching news coverage of her husband's illness,…
Let's Get Trivial!
Two trivia contestants battling for the crown of Brooklyn's Smartest Nerd Very rarely here at the Brooklyn Collection are we able to combine three of our most indefatigable passions: showcasing our broad knowledge of Brooklyn's past; partnering with local businesses to bring fun and free events to the public; and enjoying a drink or two with friends. But now, thanks to a new partnership with Sepia, a local bar just steps from Central library's door, we can pursue all three passions simultaneously in the form of a... Trivia Night! So here's what you need to…
Secret and long suppressed records of the Froebel Society.
This blog post comes with an audio accompaniment. Please put in your ear-buds or ensure that your speakers are turned on, click here, skip the obnoxious ad, and press start before reading on. All will become clear as we go on. Slowly but surely the manuscripts and archives housed in the Brooklyn Collection are rising out years of obscurity complete with finding aids and arranged into sparkling new acid-free folders. The records of the Froebel Society are the latest to be dusted off and brought into the light of day. It was in 1957 that the ageing members of the…
Mapping Brooklyn's Baseball Heritage
For the past couple of days I've been laying the groundwork for a map of Brooklyn's baseball past. It's a daunting task, our borough being so rich in baseball lore, but with the help of many terrific books in our collection, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and our directories I've managed to come up with quite a few points of interest. Thanks to Google maps I've been able to overlay these historic baseball sites with the locations of our branch libraries, with the hope that the wandering baseball scholar will find herself -- if in need of reference materials or a restroom --…
Brooklyn Connections Teacher Workshop
On Monday, 3/11/13, Brooklyn Connections had the pleasure of welcoming 28 educators from throughout the City for a teacher workshop on the Civil Rights Movement in Brooklyn. The day started with a lecture from Dr. Brian Purnell, an Assistant Professor at Bowdoin College who has just published Fighting Jim Crow in the County of Kings, a book examining the impact of the Brooklyn Chapter of Congress Of Racial Equality (CORE). The Brooklyn Collection has been fortunate enough to have had Dr. Purnell come and speak at similar events several times before, and it is always a pleasure to hear him. As…
Brooklyn Visual Heritage
Brooklyn Visual Heritage is here! A collaborative digitization project that aims to make historic images of Brooklyn more accessible, Brooklyn Visual Heritage was created as part of Project CHART, which you can read more about here. Brooklyn Visual Heritage includes digital images from the archival collections of Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Historical Society and the Brooklyn Museum. While it does not include all of the digital images available at each insitution, it does bring together over 10,000 images of Brooklyn culture, landscape and history. With free text…
Faces on the Path with Photographer Jamel Shabazz, Wednesday, Feb. 27th, 7pm
We are pleased to welcome one of our most popular speakers back to the Brooklyn Collection this Wednesday, February 27th, for the latest installment of our monthly lecture series. Join photographer Jamel Shabazz as he talks about his experience coming of age in Brooklyn as a young photographer. Through his images he will share stories about his growth into manhood and his desire to document the lives of the people who impacted his life. Shabazz's photography is currently on display throughout the Central Library building and in the Brooklyn Collection. You can also see…
New Digital Exhibits at the Brooklyn Collection
I'm happy to announce a new addition to the Brooklyn Collection's roster of online exhibits -- the Generation Preservation Project. The project was created by Philip Bond in 2009 during his time at the Macon Library in Bedford-Stuyvesant, which is also home to the African-American Heritage Center. Using that historic Carnegie library as a backdrop, Bond invited the neighborhood in to have "family" portraits taken. Participants were given a copy of their portrait and, with permission, the portraits were also donated to the Brooklyn Collection to serve as a lasting documentation of the…