The Little Fugitives Part II
When we last left our little 1950's runaways, Eugene Hart was returned happily to his Bushwick home with his Mama, never to roam so far, at least by accident, again. But, there are more tales of childhood derring-do, escape, and adventure that have woven their way through the streets of the city. I'll Take Manhattan …
Welcome to MS 57
Now that the new school year has started, Brooklyn Connections is in full swing again. To prepare for the scores of middle and high school students we work with, over the summer I went through some of the most interesting lessons I taught last year--including one that was particularly exciting to a group of middle schoolers in Bedford-Stuyvesant. After a lesson using primary sources including a rendering of their school, students from Middle School 57 became engrossed in the history of the building. Thankfully, I had come prepared, and…
My Brooklyn, documentary screening and talk with Director Kelly Anderson, Wednesday, Sept. 19th, 7pm
Our monthly programming series is back! Please join us this coming Wednesday, September 19th for our first event of the fall, a screening of the new documentary film directed by Kelly Anderson and produced by Allison Lirish Dean, "My Brooklyn". MB trailer 2012 from Kelly Anderson on Vimeo. "My Brooklyn" is a documentary examining Director Kelly Anderson’s personal journey as a Brooklyn “gentrifier,” and her efforts to understand the forces reshaping her neighborhood along lines of race and class. At the heart of the film is the Fulton Mall and the…
All Wet
From the windows in the Howard Golden Reserve Room here in the Brooklyn Collection you can see a wall. The wall, running behind the library from Flatbush Avenue to Eastern Parkway, features, along its topmost portion, a pattern of waves done in shallow relief. As much as someone can wonder about a wall, I've wondered about this wall. Why a watery motif? Does it mean anything? Whether or not directly related to it, I had a hunch that this design had something to do with what once stood on the grounds now occupied by Mount Prospect Park: the Mount Prospect reservoir. Here you…
Brooklynites at the 1948 National Republican Convention
While reviewing some photographs for the new Project CHART website I came across this photograph of Brooklynites at the Republican National Convention in 1948. The most enduring image from this election shows Truman holding a newspaper that announces, erroneously, “Dewey Defeats Truman.” But I had never given much thought to events in the election prior to that misstep. One of the things that interested me specifically about the picture below was that these people were clearly campaigning for Governor Dewey--the convention did not begin with a presumptive…
Expanded Hours
Around here, we think there's nothing quite so discouraging as a pair of closed library doors. Especially when, as in our case, those closed doors are glass, allowing you to see, from afar, all the wonderful books, maps, prints, and photographs that you can't get to! We try to put as many of our materials as is possible online, so that you can look up your ancestors in city directories, search for old pictures of your neighborhood, or read through 19th century newspapers from the comfort of your home at all hours of the day. Still, nothing beats a visit to…
Edwin Roberts: Photographer, Tennis Enthusiast, Man of Mystery
By my latest reckoning, the Brooklyn Collection has so far uploaded more than 15,000 photograph records to our catalog. It's a sliver of the more than 200,000 images in our holdings, to be sure, but it is nonetheless no small feat, especially when you consider that the meticulous description of these images (in numerous MARC fields including title, author, date, physical description, summary, notes, subject headings, etc) is handled by just two catalogers, Ron and Stephen. Whenever I've prepared a new collection for the catalog, I hand it over to either of them and a few weeks later, like…
Make that a double...
Some pictures cry out to be shared, and this is one of them: TRIPLE PLAYERS--The Yerves triplets, Tommy, Denny and Gerry, age 2 1/2...Brooklyn Eagle, Mar 9, 1953 The Yerves triplets were born in the Bronx, but we do notice a Dodgers banner on young Denny's chest (or is that Gerry, or Tommy?) The fact that they are all wearing pinstripes might indicate a subtle preference for the Bronx Bombers. In any event, this photograph got me thinking about our Brooklyn multiples, of whom we see more and more--and more. Twins, triplets and the rare quadruplets have always drawn…
Philip's of Coney Island
Ask any long-time resident of Coney Island about Philip's Candy Store and you're bound to hear pleasant stories of the shop with red and white awnings, that welcomed visitors to the park's amusements. You'll also hear about the homemade salt water taffy, peanut brittle, cotton candy, and friendly staff welcoming customers year-round. Photo: Irving I. Herzberg, 1974 Philip's candy store started as a small stand on Coney Island's boardwalk in 1916, owned and operated by Philip Calamaris. It remained a stand until 1930 when it reached its new home under the Stillwell…
Brooklyn Hero : Burton Turkus and the Murder Inc. Trials by Guest Blogger Abby Rubin
If you didn't know better, you might think that names like "Dimples" Wolinsky, "Bugsey" Goldstein, "Trigger Mike" Cupola or "Kid Twist" Reles belonged to characters in a gangster movie with all of the usual trappings--a crime syndicate, a murder ring, hard-faced New York gangsters and the city's D.A. going after them with a mission to convict. But before the movies dramatized the fight against organized crime, the prosecution of Murder Inc., one of Brooklyn's most famed crime syndicates in the late 1930's-40's, provided a model for these epic legal battles.…
Brooklyn Olympians
The Olympic Games start this weekend and Brooklynites will no doubt be rooting for hometown star Lia Neal, the most recent Brooklynite to join the elite list of Olympians. 17-year-old Neal is only the second African-American female swimmer from the United States to make Team USA. Neal will swim the 4x100-meter freestyle competition on Saturday, July 28. With the announcement of Neal making the team, I wondered about other Brooklynites who were selected for the Olympic Games. Brooklyn has had its share of Olympians including basketball stars Michael Jordan and …
A Freeman is Hard to Find
Who is your favorite Brooklyn architect of the past? Raymond Almirall? W.B. Tubby? Montrose Morris? The Parfitt Brothers? Frank Freeman? Or do you have simpler, ancient tastes, eschewing the renowned builders of yesterday for some long-gone anonymous practitioner of the Walloon vernacular, perhaps? If you were Norval White (and I presume you are not) -- architect, architectural historian, and co-author of the oft-consulted, exhaustively comprehensive, brick-thick AIA Guide to New York City -- you'd probably say Frank Freeman. White, after all, thought him to be Brooklyn's greatest…
The Little Fugitives Part I
Running away from home at a young age is hardly ever a good thing, especially now, in a world in which evil waits on every corner to prey on the young and vulnerable. An illusion it may be, but from our perspective the fifties seem a simpler, more innocent time, when wandering children for the most part made it back home again, safe and sound. While looking through…
The Laura C. Holloway Letters
Laura Carter Holloway (also known as Laura Holloway Langford) has appeared before in the pages of Brooklynology, as a founder of the Seidl Society, provider of the Brighton Beach Concert series of the 1880s, and as a correspondent of Susan B. Anthony. Now at last the full finding aid to the Laura C. Holloway Letters is available online. As well as the Susan B. Anthony letters, the collection contains an extensive file of letters relating to Holloway's book, The Ladies of the White House, several letters from poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox, one from Harriet Beecher Stowe, and…
Sing (and dance) The Body Electric!
Walt Whitman is quite literally one of Brooklyn's most celebrated (former) residents. We continually name buildings to honor him, including a middle school, a library branch, and a housing project, along with commemorating him annually with marathon readings of his epic poem, Leaves of Grass. Some suggest we take the adoration even further and rechristen our new NBA basketball team in homage to this pioneer of free verse. That seems unlikely to happen, but just as unlikely, perhaps, was the tribute mounted by Brooklyn College…
There's No Place Like Home
Brooklyn has a long and storied relationship with the homing pigeon. Who can forget Marlon Brando's portrayal of Terry Malloy in "On the Waterfront"? At once strong and nurturing, Terry mirrored the care and passion of hundreds of pigeon racers throughout the borough. Homing pigeons are not to be confused with the gad-about slackers that have long held the top spot on the nuisance list of most New Yorkers. These are avian athletes, bred for speed and endurance, who with their remarkable…
Kings Castle
Ocean Parkway. Photograph by Irving I.Herzberg, c.1970s. Brooklyn Public Library--Brooklyn Collection As a child I looked forward to weekends at my grandparents' house, not only for grandma's homemade lasagna, but also for the chance to watch people playing chess along Ocean Parkway's promenade, across the street from their apartment. As I watched, I often became engrossed in the games, paying close attention to the carefully formulated moves. On the call of "Checkmate!" the players would usually smile and promptly start a new game. Brooklynites have…
Semipro
The Zambonis and skates have all been packed away, basketballs are only around to get dribbled and dunked for another week or so, and the summer Olympics have yet to begin. With this doldrums in the sports calendar, what's a fan to do? Oh yeah...I almost forgot...our national pastime, baseball! And on the train this morning baseball seemed to be all around me. I had my head buried in The Natural, which I was just reading for the first time, and as Roy Hobbs was stuffing his gut with lobster salad, milk, corned beef, anchovies and hamburgers, and Judge Banner was putting his shady…
Whotypes? Albertypes!
How many early photographic printing processes can you name? I'll bet Daguerreotypes would be on the list, maybe tintypes, and enthusiasts will name ambrotypes, collodion prints, albumen prints, cyanotypes. A small collection of ours consists of 21 Albertypes showing Brooklyn scenes from 1904. They seem to have been published in an album, from which the pages have now been detached, by A. Wittemann, Publisher of American Views, 250 Adams St, Brooklyn NY. What, you may ask, is an Albertype? According to Beaumont Newhall's History of Photography, it is a process that depends on bichromated…
Class of 2012
Every May, we celebrate the accomplishments of Brooklyn Connections students with a Recognition Ceremony and Celebration in the Dweck Auditorium located in the Central Library, and this year was no different. We also hold on to some outstanding work and put it on display inside the Brooklyn Collection during the summer. Although our beloved Program Coordinator, Leslie Shope has moved on, the exhibition is in place, ready for your viewing pleasure. This year's projects comprised the most eclectic topics and intricate displays to date. The projects ranged from exhibit…