Return of a Native
Before leaving us for Australia about a year and a half ago, one of our former Research Assistants, Tara Cuthbert, livened up the pages of this blog with charming posts about little-known Brooklynites: birthday dancers, parrot fanciers, a legendary cyclist, and a homemade submarine builder, to name just a few. Living in the morgue during her days here at the Brooklyn Collection, Tara was able to discover these and other stories from the Borough's past by combing through the extensive photo collection housed down there in row upon row of filing cabinets. And now, having put a copy online of…
New Online Home for Brooklyn Connections!
We are thrilled to announce the launch of our brand new Brooklyn Connections website: Our new site is a hub of information where students and educators can learn more about our program and access the wealth of materials we have developed over the past five years. On the Teacher Page, you will find information about our signature research project program; announcements for upcoming teacher workshops; and downloadable lesson plans, project outlines and more. And for those schools interested in becoming a partner, our new online…
The Longest List
Tommy Senko, 4, of 1622 New York Ave.,...in yesterday's summer heat and humidity, cooling off under a shower. June 26, 1949 It is well known among people who care about these things, that the Brooklyn Collection is Brooklyn's premier center for historic photographs of the borough, with over 20,000 of them digitized, catalogued and available for reproduction and use. Less well known are our photographs of everywhere else--and everyone else--deposited in the library's basement in 1957 after the auction of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle's assets. Al Schacht, "Clown…
Manhunt!
On the morning of January 3, 1947, groggy Brooklynites rolled out of bed, brewed their morning cup of coffee, and settled down at their kitchen tables to be greeted by the hard stares of nine men glaring out from above the masthead of the Brooklyn Eagle with this warning: "Keep your eyes peeled for these escaped felons. Call the police immediately if you spot them." The nine fugitives had broken out from Brooklyn's decrepit Raymond Street Jail the day before, January 2nd, and by the time the Eagle's morning edition came out the next day, news of their escape had…
Greenpoint Iwo Jima
Working six days a week for three years, seven men in Greenpoint constructed what was reportedly the world's largest bronze sculpture. And though it's difficult to determine what exactly qualifies a sculpture as being the largest of its kind -- is it how tall it is, how long, how wide, how heavy -- this sculpture was no doubt huge: 78 feet high and over 100 tons of huge. Or, in human terms, that's about as tall as 10 Shaquille O'Neals and about as heavy as 615 of those same Shaquille O'Neals. But this was not a work of art dedicated to that…
Most Beautiful Grandmother
Nowadays you can enter a contest for practically anything--funniest comedian, best essay, most original song, and the ever popular eating competitions. The Nathans Annual Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest, in which participants race to consume more hotdogs than their competitors in ten minutes, is nearing its centennial--though not without controversy. In 2010, former Nathan's champion Takeru Kobayashi was arrested on a number of charges including trespassing, for storming the stage and engaging in a tussle with police officers…
Beyond Weeksville: An Evening with Genealogist and Author Wilhelmina Kelly, Weds. February 29th, 6:
Please join us on Wednesday, February 29th, for an evening with genealogist and author Wilhelmina Kelly, who will explore the early history of Black Brooklyn through its burial grounds, organizations, and neighborhoods. Kelly will also show participants how to research their own New York roots using resources found at the library. The wine and cheese reception begins at 6:30. Seating is limited to 40 people, with tickets being given out at 6:30. The program will begin at 7:00 p.m.
Storytime
As you mount the granite steps to enter the Central Library, your gaze may be drawn to two imposing columns sculpted by C. Paul Jennewein on each side of the doorway. Look up, and you will see above this entrance an enormous grille that rises some fifty feet, adorned with fifteen panels in black and gold, created by another sculptor, Thomas Hudson, depicting some of the great characters of American literature. The columns and gilded bas-relief panels announce to the visitor that the library is a special…
Famous Brooklyn Alumni
I've been working steadily for the past few weeks to prepare a guide to our Brooklyn yearbook collection, which, as faithful readers will recall, has been mentioned before in the pages of this blog. Knowing that Brooklyn has been home to so many famous people throughout the years, I couldn't help but wonder if we were perhaps sitting on a goldmine of before-they-were-famous photographs of Brooklyn-bred geniuses. Could Woody Allen's (that is, Allen Konigsberg's) senior picture from Midwood High be tucked away in our stacks? How about candid shots of Neils Diamond and Sedaka…
Postscript: the Coney Island House Register
For those of you fascinated by the idea that Poe, Melville and friends might have met at Coney Island, and for those certain they could not possibly have done so, here is a scan of the full page of the hotel register for Wednesday September 5th, 1849.
Happy Groundhog Day!
Although it has been a bizarrely mild winter thus far, we would be remiss if we failed to seek the wisdom of nature's own weatherman, the groundhog. The news is already out that Staten Island Chuck didn't see his shadow, which ensures we will glide comfortably into spring. Unless you subscribe to the Punxsutawney Phil forecast, which claims we're in for six weeks of real winter weather, the likes of which we have yet to see this year. No need to worry, groundhogs have disagreed before. Dissension among the rodent ranks, 1931. It seems that the general logic behind the…
The Coney Island House Register: a literary mystery
The register of Coney Island's first hotel, Coney Island House, is a hefty volume. Its morocco leather trim, raised bands, gold-leaf detailing and marbled endpapers proclaim it as the record of an establishment that is unpretentious yet of solid worth. Coney Island House was built by the Gravesend and Coney Island Road and Bridge Company on land procured from Court Van Sicklen in the 1820s. Those who know the area today may find it hard to imagine the shore as it must have been then--a wild beach with a single road leading up to it, frequented…
It's still full of cats in there.
Details from a photograph of Red Hook's greased-up toughs battling cops with pop guns? Little Dodger fans unhappy to find a heap of Preacher Roe's stinky socks? A dare-devil pilot heading towards his experimental plane at Floyd Bennet Field? Or none of those things? Well, if you said none of those things you'd be right. All of these details come from the same photo, and one which, when I happened upon it, struck me as deeply mysterious. The last detail, below, which occasioned the convergence of all these Brooklynites doesn't help to clear up the riddle either,…
The New Brooklyn Cookbook: Author Talk with Melissa Vaughan and Michael Harlan Turkell, Wednesday, J
Please join us next Wednesday, January 25th, for this latest (and most certainly delicious) installment of our monthly lecture talk series. Author Melissa Vaughan and photographer Michael Harlan Turkell take you on an exciting culinary tour of some of Brooklyn’s most vibrant restaurants, by way of their celebrated collaboration, The New Brooklyn Cookbook. They’ll introduce you to the restaurants, recipes, and entrepreneurs that make Brooklyn dining fit for a King. As an additional treat for this food-centric event, we are happy to have the support of several local…
The Flying Dutchman
When I learned the Brooklyn Connections program had partnered with the Erasmus Campus, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to work in the historic Flatbush institution that boasts an impressive list of alumni, including Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, Joseph Barbera (of Hannah-Barbera), chess Grandmaster Bobby Fischer, actress Mae West--just to name a few. On a personal note, it is the school my father attended from 1971 to 1975. Erasmus Hall exterior. Photo by Irving Herzberg, 1957 From outside, the building on Flatbush Avenue resembles a medieval college building in…
Subway Art
There are transit buffs and then there are transit buffs...and then there is Philip Ashforth Coppola. Coppola's beautifully illustrated and obsessively compiled multi-volume masterpiece, Silver Connections: A Fresh Perspective on the New York Area Subway Systems, is probably my favorite set of books in our collection. And for anyone interested in the history and aesthetics of our city's transit system, they are essential reading, covering as they do the design and artwork of numerous city subway stations. There really are no other books like these. Cover of Volume 1 Cover of Volume 2…
New Year's Resolution: Take the Plunge
Every New Year's Day morning, when most people are nursing hangovers (or still imbibing the drink that will ensure a hangover, later) dozens upon dozens of hardy souls converge on Coney Island to observe a ritual more than one hundred years in the making -- the annual Coney Island Polar Bears' New Year's Day swim. As Polar Bear Club members will attest, there's nothing like a dip in frigid Atlantic waters on a cold winter's day to get the blood pumping, and as I can personally attest, there's no better way to kick off a new year than an invigorating brush with hypothermia. …
Three Brooklyn Memoirs
The sub-genre of the Brooklyn memoir--often inexpensively self-published in paperback, with little editing--can be a valuable source of information on folk ways, street games and customs, while at the same time fleshing out the bare bones of the borough's history with narrative life. Titles on our shelves that dip into memories of childhood and youth include Michael Gordon's Brooklyn Beginnings. A Geriatrician's Odyssey; Gerald Chatanow and Bernard Schwartz's Another Time Another Place; Mike Getz's Brooklyn Boy: A Memoir; and Estelle Breines Brooklyn Roots. A tale of pickles and egg…
You better watch out, you better not cry...
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. And apparently he's been to Brooklyn on many occasions. Early evidence of Santa's presence in Brooklyn can be seen in this 1878 issue of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. That year, Santa and his reindeer set up his HEADQUARTERS at Rogers, Peet & Co on Fulton Street. Although he was probably quite busy getting ready for his big night, the advertisement goes on to point out that all children were welcome to come visit him. Santa seems to have had similar relationships with several department stores over the years. In…
Susan B. Anthony to Laura C. Holloway
In its general look and feel the library's web site may not appear to have changed much in the past week, but under that smooth surface design, a small revolution has taken place: a new content management system will allow Brooklyn Collection staff to effect changes to our web page instead of having it done at one remove. So, here is our first photo of the week--just in case you missed our article on Brooklyn's one and only full matador. And even more exciting, here are the finding aids we have deemed good enough to share. And now that we have a simple way to share them, more…