Fascinating Brooklyn stories from our local history archivists.
POTW: Moonlight
Kevina, Center for Brooklyn History
Tonight's Photo of the Week is a cool evening on the water in 1887 by Walter H. Nelson from our Early Brooklyn and Long Island photograph collection. In this scan the silvery photographic substrate slightly obscures the image. In person, the photograph seems touched with moonlight. Nelson was an amateur photographer about whom little has been written. Aside from…
Kitchen Connections
One of the things I love about archival research is how many senses it activates. The obvious visual delights, tactile sensations, hints of grass and vanilla wafting from the boxes, and the reading room rustle of papers, chairs, and keyboards. Noticeably and rightfully absent is our fifth sense, taste. Archival research has no flavor*, but food is constantly on the minds of many researchers. What were their research subjects eating? What did it taste like? What did their homes smell like while it was cooking? How and where did they source ingredients? These questions are key to understanding…
Opening the Pocket Doors: Everybody Has Those Days
Katherine, Leon Levy Senior Processing Archivist
Brooklyn Historical Society Staff, circa 1990. Brooklyn Historical Society Institutional Records, ARC 288. Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.Have you ever felt like this at work? The real question is, what exactly is the person in the photograph feeling and expressing? Why was this photograph taken? To me, this photograph evokes extreme frustration, possibly having to do with their work or with their computer. But to different people, the picture could evoke different emotions, such as exhaustion or perhaps even pain from a headache. Unfortunately, we don’t have any more…
POTW: Coney Island Boardwalk
It's officially summer time so today's Photo of the Week is brought to you by the Edgar E Rutter collection. It is an 8 x 10 print that shows the exterior view of Coney Island beach and the boardwalk under construction. Image includes a portion of the amusement park in the distant background. Inscription reads: "General view looking east from Steeplechase Pier."Edgar E. Rutter served as the official photographer for the borough of Brooklyn in the early 20th century. The photographs in this collection are almost exclusively from his work in that capacity, although some photographs are from the…
PotW: Is Your Summer Booked?
Summer is here, bringing long lazy days with time for relaxed reading at the beach and parks. This photo shows a group of youngsters attending a library festival at the Bushwick Branch of Brooklyn Public Library in 1968. Every year the library hosts free programs and resources to enrich your summer with reading and cultural activities. See what we have on offer this year on our Summer at the Library page.Interested in seeing more photos from CBH’s…
Seeing Stars: Astronomical Observatories in Brooklyn
Close on the heels of the recent excitement around the 2024 solar eclipse, we received an email from one of our readers who was able to expand on what we know about one of our photographs from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle: an astronomical observatory in the back yard of a Flatbush home. (I emphasize astronomical because I found in my research in our Brooklyn Newsstand that the word observatory was often used for observation points on high…
PotW: New York's Floating Cars
Before trucks became common, trains carried most American freight over land. In the same era, New York Harbor became the busiest port in the United States — if not one of the busiest in the world. Brooklyn’s (and all of Long Island’s) factories, refineries, and warehouses were only connected via freight rail to…
PotW: A Mournful Ouroboros
This black beaded bracelet is shaped like a coiled snake swallowing its own tail, which is an image known as an ouroboros. The ouroboros symbol can have many meanings, but this one, created during the late 19th century, represents the eternal cycle of life and death. The bracelet’s color, materials, and symbolism identify it as an article of mourning jewelry. Victorian mourning culture was…
PotW from the Vault: Cat named “Lazybones”
This From the Vault post was originally written by Tess Colwell and published on January 9, 2019 by the Brooklyn Historical Society. To see the latest Photo of the Week entries, visit the Brooklynology blog home, or subscribe to our Center for Brooklyn History newsletter. The photo of the week depicts a cat named “Lazybones,”…
Opening the Pocket Doors: Here’s to Baseball!
To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Brooklyn Dodgers' victory over the Yankees in the 1955 World Series, the Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS) curated PLAY BALL! – an exhibit that told the story of the Brooklyn Dodgers and Jackie Robinson. Today’s Photo of the Week captures a moment from the exhibition's opening day festivities, where attendees were invited to participate…
Brooklyn poets remember
Kevina, Center for Brooklyn History
“She wrote poetry, she published, she was read, and then she died.” Former Brooklyn poet laureate D. Nurkse spoke those words as an introduction to the poet Enid Dame. Nurkse was one of seven poets who read in the Othmer library last month to a packed room. Each poet selected poems from the Center for Brooklyn History’s library and archives collections and read them in conversation with their own poetry and reflections. Nurkse, in his words on Dame…
The House on the Hill
Today's Photo of the Week showcases a beautiful home in Bay Ridge at 8311 Ridge Boulevard. This stunning mansion at the top of a hill is still standing today, though it is located at the corner of 84th Street and Ridge Boulevard, not 85th Street as this postcard states. The house…
From the Vault: An Ode to Brooklyn Poets
Kevina, Center for Brooklyn History
I am reviving, from the vaults, this photo of a major gathering of Brooklyn "literary talent", first featured in this blog about Brooklyn poetry. The original Brooklyn Daily Eagle captions read:"Array of noted literary talent of Brooklyn gathers around folk singer Oscar Brand at the National Library Week Luncheon in the Hotel St. George on Tuesday, April 5. Seated, left…
Green-Wood Cemetery
Entrance to Greenwood Cemetery, [190-?], Brooklyn Postcard collection, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History. The Center for Brooklyn History provides this guide for those researching Green-Wood Cemetery. The Center for Brooklyn History’s holdings include books, photographs, maps, deeds, illustrations, and oral histories. In addition to these materials, researchers are encouraged to browse the collections and other research guides for resources that may be relevant to their work. To make an appointment or ask a question, please contact cbhreference@bklynlibrary.org…
Hello, Doily!
Mass-produced items can still require the human touch. This Photo of the Week depicts an employee of the Royal Lace Paper Works at 846 Lorimer Street hand-engraving a metal die with intricate floral patterns. Though the dies themselves were manufacturing tools, the skill needed to create them was similar to that needed to engrave fine silver. Each die would…
Portals to the Past: A Peek Through the Archives
For the past few years, in pursuit of a new career as an information professional, I have been working towards a master’s degree in library and information science (MLIS) with a concentration in archival studies from the iSchool at the University of Missouri, where I will be graduating in May. My profound passion for libraries and archives stems from the belief that providing access to valuable resources is a fundamental service to the community, especially for those underrepresented individuals whose stories are often overlooked and difficult to discover. As a queer first-generation minority…
Opening the Pocket Doors: The Enthusiastic Catalogers Department
Katherine, Leon Levy Senior Processing Archivist
Brooklyn Historical Society Staff, circa 1994. Brooklyn Historical Society Institutional Records, ARC 288. Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.Did your favorite singer release an album recently and use an image of a card catalog to promote said album? Are you not entirely sure what a card catalog actually is? Not to worry, we are here to explain! Let’s first look at the word catalog: for the purpose of libraries at its most basic level, it is an organized list of books held by a specific library. Prior to cards, library catalogs were recorded in books. But as…
The Rocks Cry Out
On June 8, 2020, at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests in Brooklyn, I took a walk in Prospect Park on a shady path across the East Drive from the Vale of Cashmere, notable for a line of large rocks…
A Tree Grows on Garfield Place
Walking around Park Slope is especially lovely in the Spring as the trees bloom to create a canopy over the sidewalks. One of the neighborhood's most beautiful streets, Garfield Place, has Raymond V. Ingersoll to thank. Ingersoll served as Brooklyn Parks Commissioner from 1914 to 1917, making tree planting around the borough a top priority for his administration. Garfield Place…
Margaret Armstrong, Alice Morse, and the Decorated Cloth Book Cover
In the 1880s, two New Yorkers burst into the competitive scene of cloth book cover design: Margaret Nielson Armstrong (1867–1944), a Manhattanite, and Alice Cordelia Morse (1863–1961), a Brooklynite. They became two of the major forces behind the art's golden age, which lasted from about 1880 to 1910. Fourteen of their works are on display at the Center for Brooklyn History, now through June 2024.
A Peek Inside Brooklyn Eye and Ear Hospital
Beware letting a photographer document your medical procedures lest it end up in a future form of communication we have yet to imagine. This Photo of the Week, taken around 1890, is one of five scenes captured inside the Brooklyn Eye and Ear Hospital around 1890, possibly for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Here a doctor administers anesthesia to a…
Opening the Pocket Doors: Voices of Brooklyn
On January 1, 1898, the city of Brooklyn officially became a borough and joined Manhattan, Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx to form New York City. To mark the centennial of this event, the Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS) created an original theatrical production titled Voices of Brooklyn. Voices of Brooklyn is a 40-minute dramatic performance that tells the…
Cutting up carpenters
Who knew shopwork classes could be so fun! This week's Photo of the Week depicts (from left to right) 6-year-olds Richard Steiner, Augustus Jackson, and Nicholas Parese working on some carpentry projects in May 1952. This class was hosted by Willoughby House, a settlement house founded in 1901, which provided art, drama, and athletic workshops for Brooklyn kids and young people in…
Rain, rain, go away
I don't know about you but I'm pretty sick of rain - and we haven't even reached the storied April showers yet. Regardless, I take solace in the fact that rain-flooded streets are nothing new in Brooklyn, as this circa 1910 lantern slide by Ralph Irving Lloyd proves. Dr. Ralph Irving Lloyd (1875-1969) was a Brooklyn…
Ramadan
Kevina, Center for Brooklyn History
Young girl at evening prayers with her father during Ramadan, 2010, GERH_0001; Robert E. Gerhardt, Jr. photograph collection, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.This Sunday, March 10 marks the new moon and the start of Ramadan. In this photo from the Robert E. Gerhardt, Jr. photograph collection, a young girl stares intently into the camera. She and her father are praying at the Muslim American Society in Bath Beach, 1933 Bath Avenue, in 2010. Robert Gerhardt Began photographing Muslims in Brooklyn in 2010 during Ramadan, leading him to photograph mosques and Muslims all…
Dipping into the Collection: Thall and Lopez family papers and photographs
For this month's blog post we thought we might take a peek into the collection, looking at the Thall and Lopez family papers and photographs. The collection consists of documents, ephemera, and photographs related to several generations of the Thall and Lopez families of Canarsie, Brooklyn. Included in the collection are letters, photographs, account ledgers, blue prints, wills, deeds, stock certificates, Civil War infantry manual, Civil War currency, notes, newspaper clippings, electrification contracts, and assorted legal documents. It’s an interesting look at a family that has lived in…
Railfan Sandwich Man's Loco-Motive to Increase Business
Local businesses are acts of faith - an individual dream of creating a place that people will want to patronize, enriching the owners and community alike. This Photo of the Week shows one inventive owner’s novel idea to boost his business. In early 1951, Ben Lewanda took over the Parkway Sandwich Shop, 4223 Fort Hamilton Parkway. Finding his custom lacked pep, he got the idea of installing a model train to travel around the periphery…
Opening the Pocket Doors: Beauty and the Beer (An Exhibit That Never Was)
Katherine, Leon Levy Senior Processing Archivist
[Beauty and the Beer exhibit advertisement], ca. 2000. Brooklyn Historical Society Institutional Records, ARC 288. Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.She’s beauty and she’s grace, she’s Miss..Rheingold? That’s right. From 1941 until 1965, the beer company, Rheingold Brewery—best known as the official beer of the New York Mets—also ran a beauty contest called Miss Rheingold. The beer company was founded by German-Jewish immigrant Samuel Liebmann in the 1850s in Brooklyn. His sons took over their father’s brewery about a decade later and eventually changed the name to…
For Valentine’s Day, a Love Letter to Joan Maynard, Activist and Artist
February is both the month of Black history and the month of love, so what better time to discuss one of Brooklyn’s most beloved historical figures, Joan Maynard! Joan Maynard is probably best known for her work as the first Executive Director of the Society for the Preservation of Weeksville and Bedford-Stuyvesant History (now usually shortened to the Weeksville Society), a position she held from 1974-2011. Weeksville was an independent community of…
Biking with a Friend
What's better than riding a bike on the beach? Riding a bike on the beach with a friend. Today's Photo of the Week looks at the tandem bicycle, an intimate vehicle that requires teamwork. Operating a tandem bike might be easy, but finding a tandem partner is tricky. You need someone sporty, unafraid of leg cramps, with the desire to go in the same direction as…
Documenting a Brownstone's Rebirth
In 2018, the New York Times published a story about an unusual Carroll Gardens brownstone for sale. 12 Second Place had been painstakingly restored during the brownstone revival movement of the 1960s and 70s, and had been owned by the same couple, Jane and Thor Rinden, ever since. Moreover, the Rindens had documented their five-year renovation process (1968-1973) in a charming and intimate scrapbook filled with photographs and memories. Fascinated by this story, I left a comment on the article, and fortuitously enough, the Rindens' estate decided that the scrapbook should come to the…
Happy Black History Month
Happy Black History Month! Today's Photo of the Week is from the Anthony Geathers photograph collection, which consists of about 66 images taken in 2020 during the Black Lives Matter demonstrations throughout Brooklyn. This image depicts a young boy on a man's shoulder as they listen to people speaking at a demonstration at Brooklyn Borough Hall. Mr…
Midwinter Remembrance
As we enter midwinter, take in this snowy Photo of the Week of the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument in Fort Greene Park from 1926. This monument was created by Stanford White and Adolph Alexander Weinman in 1908. It memorializes the roughly 11,500 captives who died aboard British prison ships in Brooklyn’s Wallabout Bay during the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783). The conditions on the ships were horrific…
Great big beautiful dolls
In August of 1951, Park Slope kids competed in P.S. 77's "beautiful doll" contest. This week's Photo of the Week shows the winners standing proudly with their entries in the schoolyard (from left to right): Judith Flynn (third place), Barbara Joyce Wendel, Roberta Hope Wendel (the Wendel's got the grand prize), and Camille Stafanello (first place). Second place winner Arlene Kennedy did not…
Opening the Pocket Doors: Adopt-A-Block
In the 1990s, the librarians at the Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS) dedicated significant efforts to implementing measures aimed at preserving and enhancing access to the Society’s collections. Several of these initiatives took the form of cataloging projects, many of which spanned multiple years and were funded by state and government agencies. By the…
From the Vault: Majestic Theater
This From the Vault post was originally written by Tess Colwell and published on January 27, 2016 by the Brooklyn Historical Society. To see the latest Photo of the Week entries, visit the Brooklynology blog home, or subscribe to our Center for Brooklyn History newsletter. The photo of the week depicts a view of Fulton Street, including the Majestic Theater, in the Fort…
Love of Line, of Light and Shadow: The Brooklyn Bridge
Kevina, Center for Brooklyn History
Clarinetist F. Gerard Errante commissioned a clarinet score and video from Reynold Weidenaar as a "centennial tribute to the Brooklyn Bridge" in 1982. Musical America described Love of Line, of Light and Shadow: The Brooklyn Bridge as "a strangely moving, evocative work ... visually spectacular ... with an equally fascinating soundtrack of traffic resonances and…
Opening the Pocket Doors: A History of Education at the Brooklyn Historical Society
Education departments play a pivotal role in museum settings. Through teacher workshops, student and adult programs, guided tours, and more, museum educators are tasked with creating accessible educational opportunities, facilitating open conversations, reducing barriers to participation, and ultimately ensuring that the museum experience is meaningful for all patrons. One of the record groups that I was most…
Opening the Pocket Doors: Say Cheese!
Katherine, Leon Levy Senior Processing Archivist
Is it even a holiday if you didn't all get together for a big, awkward group photo? While we don’t have all the details behind this particular group photo of a staff party for the Brooklyn Historical Society, we know that director, David Kahn, is pictured on the far right with fellow staff members around 1990. And we can definitely relate to everyone being told to “squeeze together!” or the classic, “say…
From the Vault: Real Brooklyn, a day in our lives photographs now available at BHS
This From the Vault post was originally written by John Zarrillo and published on March 10, 2016 by the Brooklyn Historical Society. To see the latest Photo of the Week entries, visit the Brooklynology blog home, or subscribe to our Center for Brooklyn History newsletter. This post was authored by BHS Library and Archives processing intern…
World Wildlife Day & the Pigeon
December 4th marks World Wildlife Day, which the United Nations describes as “an opportunity to celebrate the many beautiful and varied forms of wild fauna and flora and to raise awareness of the multitude of benefits that their conservation provides to people.” When thinking of Brooklyn wildlife, the first that comes to mind might be the pigeon. This bird certainly does not require conservation efforts today, and…
Honor Among Thieves?
Today’s dramatic Photo of the Week documents a slick Flatbush burglary with an unusual conclusion. A tenacious robber, who tried several times to gain entry claiming to be a repairman, finally hoodwinked the wary housekeeper by waiting until she brought out the garbage. He brandished a gun and then, joined by a partner lurking nearby, they gained access. Once in, they stole furs, jewels and cash and locked Mrs. Arline Tompkins and the other person on the…
All this for the Dodgers!
Anyone else missing baseball season? This week's Photo of the Week takes us to Ebbets Field where we see a crowd of fans who were unable to get into the final game of the Yankees-Dodgers 1952 World Series. Over 33,000 people attended the game, so many people were turned away at the gates. The boy in the middle appears to be pleading with the photographer to let him in, others look like they would squeeze…
Pint-Sized Pilgrims
Residents of the Infants Home of Brooklyn, located at 1358 56th Street attended their 1951 Thanksgiving dinner dressed as pint-sized pilgrims, ready to hunt their own turkey! For children living at the Infants Home, a holiday to gather with family may have felt a little sad, but we love how their caregivers tried to make the holiday a little more fun. We hope these little ones had the best Thanksgiving ever. At…
Not forgotten: Activism in the AIDS/Brooklyn exhibition collection
Friday, December 1 is World AIDS Day, a day started by the World Health Organization in 1988 to "show strength and solidarity against HIV stigma and to remember lives lost." The first World AIDS Day was recognized by awareness events (such as condom distributions and fundraisers), discussions among medical experts and human rights advocates, and world leaders calling on the United Nations to increase their efforts to combat the…
Opening the Pocket Doors: What Could Have Been
KatherineLooking up at the looming and detailed façade of 128 Pierrepont, it’s difficult to imagine anything else in its place. The classic Queen Anne style seems to fit right in with the surrounding brownstones, completing the historic feel of the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood. But in 1868, when the former Long Island Historical Society (LIHS)…
From the Vault: Ruby's Bar
This From the Vault post was originally written by Julie May and published on May 13, 2013 by the Brooklyn Historical Society. To see the latest Photo of the Week entries, visit the Brooklynology blog home, or subscribe to our Center for Brooklyn History newsletter. This Photo of the Week was originally written and published by the Brooklyn Historical Society, so some terms and links may be out of date. To see the latest Photo of the Week entries, visit the Brooklynology blog home, or subscribe to the Center for Brooklyn History…
Opening the Pocket Doors: A Stained Glass Mystery
If you've visited the Othmer Library, you might have noticed the large stained glass lunettes (arched windows) on the gallery level. These are original to the space, but did you know there used to be more stained glass features throughout the building? Similar lunettes, faintly visible in the photo below, once adorned the Great Hall. More obscure is the stained glass screen at the rear…
May the Library Be With You
The year is 1977. You're obsessed with the best movie you've ever seen in your life, Star Wars. Of course you want to dress as the movie's hero, Luke Skywalker, for Halloween. Unfortunately, there is a shortage of Star Wars costumes everywhere, as retailers scrambled to catch up with the movie's unforeseen popularity. So you pull out your galoshes and utility belt to get that perfect…
Opening the Pocket Doors: A Room of (Our) Own
Katherine, Leon Levy Senior Processing Archivist
If you were to go up to the third floor of 128 Pierrepont and walk to the doors that read “Gina Ingoglia Weiner Gallery” and peer through the windows, you would see a room that currently holds a portion of the Center for Brooklyn History’s collections in neat rows of archival boxes. But this room was not always utilized for storage; prior to a storage room, it was used as an exhibit…
National Pasta Day
Did you know that October 17th is National Pasta Day? According to Italy Magazine, there are approximately 350 different types of pasta, including a personal favorite, macaroni. These curved, bouncy little tubes are the perfect vehicle for a variety of sauces and cheeses or eaten alone with butter and garlic. If you lived in Brooklyn…
Black Masons in Brooklyn: an Indomitable Brotherhood
I became interested in the subject of Freemasonry after happening upon several pictures of African American Masons in our Brooklyn Daily Eagle photographs. I have…
Halloween Inspiration
Tis the season to get your Halloween costumes ready! Need inspiration? Perhaps this haunting Photo of the Week can assist. Here we have six children dressed as what appear to be bears, bunnies, and…perhaps baby birds? Shrubbery? Stumps? Whatever they are, we hope they inspire you. This image is believed to have been taken during the 1910s at the Gregg Chapel at 190 4th Avenue. The…
The Blessing of Brooke the Office Cat
This week's Photo of the Week takes us to St. Cecilia Roman Catholic Church in Greenpoint where Brooke the cat is being blessed by a priest during a Blessing of the Animals event circa 2010. The Blessing of the Animals is observed in the Catholic Church in conjunction with the annual Feast of St. Francis of Assisi on October 4th. The man holding Brooke, Joseph R. Lentol…
From the Vault: Transformation and Discovery
Kevina, Center for Brooklyn History
This From the Vault post was originally written by Julie May (who loves the fall) and published on October 1, 2014 by the Brooklyn Historical Society. To see the latest Photo of the Week entries, visit the Brooklynology blog home, or subscribe to our Center for Brooklyn History newsletter. As we should expect of our…
Prospect Park Zoo
Today's Photo of the Week is from the Daniel Berry Austin collection. Austin was an amateur photographer whose subjects often included farms and landscapes. This photo, of one of the buffalo's at the Prospect Park Zoo, was taken in 1902. The Prospect Park Zoo opened in 1890. At the time it was known as The Menagrie. Of the original facilities in the park, the Deer Paddock, located near the present Carousel, was…
Opening the Pocket Doors: Get Out Your Camera!
Clams, anyone? In celebration of the 75th anniversary of its founding, the Long Island Historical Society (LIHS) sponsored a photo contest geared toward Long Island’s students. Dozens of private and public high schools from all four counties in Long Island (Kings, Queens, Nassau, and Suffolk) were invited to participate. LIHS specifically requested student involvement because the board…
I Married the Widow of the Man Who Shot Your Horse
Kevina, Center for Brooklyn History
A researcher wrote to me a few months back, seeking to fact check a piece of romantic Civil War hearsay. * He had heard of a promise made on the battlefield between two soldiers of Brooklyn’s 14th Regiment at the second battle of Bull Run in August, 1862. Quartermaster Sargeant Alexander Barnie Jr. was said to have vowed to the mortally wounded Lieutenant Josiah M. Grumman to marry…
Park Slope's Colorful Past
Today's Photo of the Week shows one block of Park Place looking noticeably different than it does today. Several of the classic nineteenth century brownstone rowhouses on this block are painted not-so-classic colors, with blue, yellow, and mint green all lining up next to the traditional reddish brown of the leftmost house. A bright red convertible in the foregorund brings another…
These Homes are for the Birds
In spring of 1916 the Brooklyn Daily Eagle posted a challenge to the children of Brooklyn, Queens, Nassau and Suffolk counties: make a birdhouse for the birds of Long Island. The invite appeared in the Junior Eagle - in a section dedicated to…
Opening the Pocket Doors: Save the Clock Tower!
Katherine, Leon Levy Senior Processing Archivist
What time is it? Unfortunately, if you were to take a look at the clock tower at the top of 128 Pierrepont, you would not get a reliable answer. Part of the original design by George B. Post, the clock tower has been a part of the building since its construction between the years of 1878 and 1881.…
The George Aptecker Collection
Today's Photo of the Week looks at an image from the George Aptecker collection. Aptecker was a photographer and diarist who photographed street scenes and portraits in and around New York City. He was a frequent contributor to U.S. Camera Magazine, Camera 35 Magazine, and Modern Photography Magazine. He also exhibited his work at the Village Camera Club, Underground Gallery, and the Metropolitan Museum of…
Telephone Booth: From the Vaults
This From the Vault post was originally written by Tess Colwell and published on October 4, 2017 by the Brooklyn Historical Society. To see the latest Photo of the Week entries, visit the Brooklynology blog home, or subscribe to our Center for Brooklyn History newsletter. In the not-so-distant past, telephone booths could be seen on…
New York City History Day
SonyaLast June, 30 students from New York City participated in National History Day, a contest for Middle and High School students held at the University of Maryland in College Park, MD. After months of hard work crafting original historical research projects and competing in multiple contests, they were selected from over 500,000 students who competed internationally. The projects, all connected to the theme – Frontiers in History: People, Places, Ideas – ranged in topic and presentation. From performances examining the visionary of David Sarnoff and his impact on television; to papers examining…
International Lifeguard Appreciation Day
Celebrate International Lifeguard Appreciation Day (July 31) with this Photo of the Week, which ran in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle on August 20th, 1951. The original caption reads “Maxie, the lifeguard at the Infants Home of Brooklyn, whistles while he works.” The accompanying blurb continues, saying, “When it comes to expert protection of life, leave it to four-year-old Maxie. He is the…
Cumberland Street Hospital's magnet
Is this modern art or Cumberland Street Hopital's 500-pound, $280 electric magnet? This Photo of the Week, originally published in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in April 1924, shows a demonstration of the magnet's considerable power: "when plugged into an ordinary electric socket it can lift a steel door key from a hand 12 inches below." While this is an impressive display, the magnet was actually meant…
Opening the Pocket Doors: A Peek Inside the Vault
This week’s photo of the week takes us on a journey into the depths of the Long Island Historical Society (LIHS) building. In the cellar, nestled opposite the crawl space and underneath the stairs, is where one would find the LIHS vault. The safe door, pictured here, was installed after the introduction of the elevator in 1937. The room was lit by a single lighting fixture in the center of…
Remembering Summer 2020
Three years ago this summer, the streets of Brooklyn, like the streets of cities all across the country, erupted in Black Lives Matter protests in response to the murder of George Floyd along with so many others at the hands of the police. As in years past, the area around Brooklyn's Central library became a gathering point for protesters. Then newly part of the…
Happy Fourth of July
Kevina, Center for Brooklyn History
Today's photo of fireworks double exposed over a sherbet sky comes from the photographer Otto Dreschmeyer. Dreschmeyer was a resident of Ridgewood (briefly Brooklyn, once and currently Queens) and the son of German immigrants, about whom very little is known. Dreschmeyer was an amateur photographer who captured the kinds of images many of us have on our photo rolls today: parades, cats, and fireworks. Have…
Bookplates: Explanation and Inspiration
A bookplate is a label attached to the inside cover of a book, usually with the owner's name or initials, sometimes following the Latin phrase “ex libris” which translates to “from the books of.” Each label is unique to its owner, a way of announcing to the world, "This is mine!" A label that we would recognize as a modern bookplate has origins in late 15th century Germany. One of the first examples is this small hand-colored woodcut print depicting an angel holding a shield, which appears in books from the library of scholar and priest Hilprand Brandenburg (1442-1514). By…
Brooklyn Fire Headquarters
This From the Vault post was originally written by Dan Brenner and published on June 5, 2019 by the Brooklyn Historical Society. To see the latest Photo of the Week entries, visit the Brooklynology blog home, or subscribe to our Center for Brooklyn History newsletter. In 1892, the Brooklyn Fire Department opened its headquarters at 365…
Opening the Pocket Doors: Humble Beginnings at the Hamilton
Katherine, Leon Levy Senior Processing Archivist
When the Long Island Historical Society was founded in 1863, its founding members had grand ideas to house a library and host lectures but did not yet have their own building. The society’s permanent residence did not begin construction until 1878, eventually being completed in 1881. So where was the Long…
My Parents’ Wedding Photo
We never had much artwork in our home. The visual centerpiece of our living room was a symmetrical arrangement of three framed photographs: my parents’ hand oiled color wedding portrait in the center, flanked by the black and white high school graduation photos of me and my younger brother Robert. My parents, Carmella and Anthony Racioppo, displayed this same wedding portrait in each of their three Brooklyn apartments. I grew up seeing it every day. As I learned about photography, I realized what a good photograph it was: a professionally lighted studio portrait taken with a Century view…
Brooklyn Army Terminal
Today’s Photo of the Week shows the interior of the Brooklyn Army Terminal (BAT), a sprawling complex spanning 95 acres on the Sunset Park waterfront. Designed by Cass Gilbert and completed in 1919, it was the largest military supply base in the United States. In this photo, we can see supply trains and balconies, which allowed cranes to access cargo from any floor. BAT also served as headquarters for the New York Port…
When Disco Was King
For this week's Photo of the Week we are rolling back the clock to 1980 and we're strapping on our skates for a cruise around the dance floor of the Empire Roller Disco on Empire Boulevard in Crown Heights. The indoor rink could accommodate 2,500 skaters and was reportedly so crowded that "if you fell, you didn't fall." In February of 1980 Patrick D. Pagnano, the street photographer, was hired by Forbes Magazine to capture that moment. “It…
A Horse-Drawn Toilet
This Photo of the Week* highlights what at first seems to be a perfectly ordinary horse-drawn carriage. However, upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that the team of six is not drawing a carriage, but rather a toilet. Ronalds…
Penny-farthing
This From the Vault post was originally written by Tess Colwell and published on June 14, 2017 by the Brooklyn Historical Society. To see the latest Photo of the Week entries, visit the Brooklynology blog home, or subscribe to our Center for Brooklyn History newsletter. The photo of the week depicts Eddie Tepper posing with a penny-farthing bicycle in 1886. This is…
Opening the Pocket Doors: The Trails and Trials of Miss Edna Huntington
I recently finished processing the library correspondence sub-series of the Brooklyn Historical Society’s (BHS) Institutional archive, which contains almost all the mail library staff received from 1863 to the mid-1990s. There are reference questions, membership acceptances and resignations, correspondence to and from other institutions, RSVPs, and much more. Looking at these records provides insight into the activities…
Olives on the Avenue
Today's Photo of the Week takes us to a Brooklyn institution, Sahadi's on Atlantic Avenue. This photograph of bins of olives and grains inside the store taken by Jim Kalett circa 1983 is similar to one published in Brooklyn...and How It Got That Way by David McCullough, for which Kalett was the photographer. The book notes that the western end of Atlantic Avenue became "…
Happy May Day from this Brighton Beach Fishmonger
Kevina, Center for Brooklyn History
George Cohen, a Bronx-born photographer, donated a selection of his photographs of 1980s Brighton Beach to the Brooklyn Public Library in 2013. On this May Day qua International Workers' Day, I found a worker cutting a fish for sale in Brighton Beach in 1987. This fishmonger reminded me of my father, who worked as a fish cutter in Ohio in the 1980s. He made frequent trips to New York where he…
Eugenie Fribourg: Nearly 99 Years in Brooklyn
May is Jewish American Heritage Month and to celebrate I thought we could take a closer look at the Eugenie Fribourg Family Photographs and Ephemera Collection. It is comprised of materials relating to and documenting the family and professional life of Eugenie Merzbach Fribourg, a Jewish-American Brooklynite whose life spanned nearly the entire 20th century. She was born in 1908 and died in 2007, just weeks before her 99th birthday and the vast majority of her life was spent in Brooklyn.
Opening the Pocket Doors: Underneath the Floorboards
Katherine, Leon Levy Senior Processing Archivist
It’s not every day you get the chance to see what lies underneath the floors of an old building. And while we don’t have any beating hearts underneath our floorboards, this photograph offers us a rare glimpse of the foundation of 128 Pierrepont Street. As was mentioned in our first Opening the Pocket Doors post written by my colleague, Nicole Font, our building at 128…
Want a Tattoo? Fuhgeddaboudit!
Did you know that from 1961-1997 tattooing was banned in New York City? The city blamed the ban on an outbreak of Hepatitis B, but the shops may have been casualties of Mayor Wagner’s crusade to “clean up” ahead of the 1964 World’s Fair. With the shops closed many artists left the city, but a few began working out of apartments, and any New Yorker could still get a tattoo if they knew where to look. This photograph shows a family peeking…
The Shot Heard Round the World
To celebrate the return of baseball season, today's Photo of the Week is of Ralph Branca, the man who became famous for what would be called The Shot Heard Round the World. Ralph Branca pitched for the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1944-1953 and then again in 1956. He also pitched for the Tigers (1953-1954) and the Yankees (1954). A three-time All-Star, he won 80 games for the Dodgers with a career high of 21 wins in 1947. In 1948 he…
Assessing an 1848 Clairvoyant's Predictions for Brooklyn's Future
On November 21, 1848, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle ran an article titled “An Evening with a Clairvoyant '' in which an unnamed woman mesmerically read from a book written 102 years into the future. The topic: “the history of…
Four Horses of Fort Greene
In this Photo of the Week, Brooklynites of two and four legs are lured to what appears to be a refreshing fountain on a warm day. The women wear light, summery patterns, and the workmen have bared their shirtsleeves and even forearms. Yet neither heat nor work could disrupt hat fashions. The women display their ornamented millinery while the men sport a variety…
Brooklyn Goes Daffy - It's Spring!
Spring has officially sprung, on March 20th to be exact, and with it come the bright faces of flowers. I am always on the lookout for blooms in the late days of winter, but for me the daffodils mark the true turn of the season. This photo of the week, taken in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in 1935, makes the flowers look like they are glowing. If you think the flowers are…
Opening the Pocket Doors: The Women’s Committee of the Long Island Historical Society
To celebrate Women's History Month, this week's photo takes us back to 1968 for a fashion show presented by the Women's Committee of the Long Island History Society (LIHS). The Women’s Committee formed in 1959 to further the objectives of LIHS through fundraising and planning social events. Its creation was spearheaded by Maud E. Dillard, who served as its president from 1959 to 1964. Following her term,…
One Pub's Layered History
This Friday is Saint Patrick's Day, so I searched our Digital Collections portal for something Irish to share for Photo of the Week. I was pleasantly surprised to find an image from my own neighborhood, Bay Ridge, which is home to many Irish-American families. This color photograph of the Ballybunion Irish bar at 9510 3rd Avenue was taken in 2012 and donated to the Our Streets, Our Stories…
Happy Women's History Month from three Queen Esthers
Kevina, Center for Brooklyn History
Today's photo of the week comes from the Irving I. Herzberg photograph collection. Five Hasidic children stand on the front step of a Williamsburg building on Purim in 1965. Three are dressed as Queen Esther, hero of the Book of Esther, who saved the Jewish people of ancient Persia from King Haman. To read more about the Herzberg collection, see this 2014 blog post. Although some of…
A Tale of Two Schools: a Brooklyn-France Connection in the Aftermath of World War II
On December 12, 1947, Madame Carrillon, La Directrice of Collège Jules-Ferry in Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, France wrote to Packer Collegiate…
A Decade in the Life of a Brooklyn Photographer: the Laura Fitzpatrick Collection
Today’s Photo of the Week comes from the collection of Laura Fitzpatrick, who began taking pictures at age 11 of her friends, family and neighbors in Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, during the years 1938-1948. Our photo depicts Laura and her mother Elizabeth standing on a Brooklyn street, elegantly dressed and coiffed. Behind them we see a line of storefronts and a man breezing by in a wide cap. In…
Opening the Pocket Doors: Celebrating Presidents' Day with President Susan Mullin
Katherine, Leon Levy Senior Processing Archivist
Happy Presidents’ Day! This week, we are sharing an image of former Brooklyn Historical Society President, Susan Mullin, who both enacted and embodied change within the Historical Society. Susan Mullin, originally from Virginia, moved to Brooklyn Heights with her husband soon after marrying. She immediately took to Brooklyn’s charm and diversity. While Mullin initially ran an antique shop on Pineapple Street, she…
Celebrating Don Newcombe
Happy Black History Month! Today we’re celebrating Dodgers pitcher Don “Big Newk” Newcombe. Born in New Jersey in 1926, he played for the Newark Eagles, Nashua Dodgers, and the Montreal Royals before pitching his first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers on May 20, 1949. Later that year he became the first Black pitcher to start a World Series game and was named Rookie of the Year. After completing two years of…
Soup Season: The Syrian-Jewish Edition
It's Soup Season! Today's Photo of the Week comes from our Brooklyn Jewish History Project. This is Fritzie Abadi (Hidary) on a Syrian cooking day, testing her recipe. Fritzi (Frieda) was chef Jennifer Abadi's grandmother. Her cookbook-memoir, “A Fistful of Lentils: Syrian-Jewish Recipes from Grandma Fritzie’s Kitchen” (now in its new and revised…
Opening the Pocket Doors: What Past Exhibitions Reveal
Throughout its 157-year history, the Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS) executed over 150 exhibitions. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working to process the Exhibits and Special Projects portion of BHS’s institutional archive. To wrap up this part of the project, this blog post highlights the exhibits that stand out as significant in BHS history, particularly those that demonstrate how the society's values…
Brooklyn's Mechanical Milkman
Today we’re celebrating not leaving the building for basic necessities! It’s too cold out there. In 1953, automats had been thriving throughout New York City for decades, but Rowe Corporation endeavored to explore territory beyond the cafeteria: the apartment lobby. The Clinton Hill Apartments became the testing site for the charmingly retro-futuristic “mechanical milkman,” which claimed to save women from “braving Winter…
Kane Street Synagogue
This photo of the week shows the sanctuary interior of Kane Street Synagogue in Cobble Hill in 1934. The building was constructed in 1855 as a Middle Reformed Protestant Dutch Church in the Norman style of Romanesque architecture and was subsequently owned by the Trinity German Lutheran Church. Congregation Baith Israel purchased the building in 1905 when they moved from their Boerum Hill Synagogue (Congregations…
Odessa in Brooklyn
This image of a restaurant in Brighton Beach is from our small collection of photographs by Marcia Bricker. Bricker, a documentary photographer, had worked for the federal jobs program CETA (Comprehensive Employment and Training Act) documenting the Soviet refugees that began settling in the Brighton Beach area in the 1970s when the Soviet Union relaxed immigration policies. In…
Opening the Pocket Doors: Ba Da Dao/Sunset Park Chinatown History Project
Today’s photo of the week shows a moment from the opening of New Neighbors: Sunset Park's Chinese Community in June 1996. The event featured lion dancers, shadow puppets, food, games, and calligraphy workshops. In this photo, taken in the Othmer library, lions stand beside a shadow puppet theater as an excited audience (not pictured) waits for the play to begin. In 1992, The Brooklyn Historical…
Sliding into the New Year
This From the Vault post was originally written by Tess Colwell and published on February 18, 2015 by the Brooklyn Historical Society. To see the latest Photo of the Week entries, visit the Brooklynology blog home, or subscribe to our Center for Brooklyn History newsletter. This POTW was originally posted late in a snowy winter. We have yet to see…
Stories a Photo Can Tell
I recently reprocessed the composite collection Early Brooklyn and Long Island photographs (ARC.201). This 1900 class photo from P.S. 15 is included in the collection. We have many class photographs like this one, such as in our Class Photographs collection (BCMS.0029) and our Brooklyn schools collection (CBHM.0006). But what caught my interest about this photo was an index card…
July 16, 1968 Was Hot
The holidays are over and we're sliding into the cold, quiet weeks of deep winter. Today's Photo of the Week hopes to bring some color and heat to these dark days! This photo shows Astroland's Over the Falls in front of the Cyclone on July 16, 1968. The photographer, Otto Dreschmeyer, noted on the back of the image that the day was hot. After the freezing holiday weekend, it might be difficult to…
Opening the Pocket Doors: A Look at Executive Director, David Kahn
Katherine, Leon Levy Senior Processing Archivist
Welcome to our second installment of Opening the Pocket Doors, our ongoing series looking into the processing of the Institutional Records of the Brooklyn Historical Society. In our previous post in this series, we delved into a brief history of our institution, formerly known as both the Long Island Historical Society and the Brooklyn Historical Society. Today, we…
Dining Under the Dome
The Dome Motor Inn was THE place to stay when traveling to Kamloops in mid-20th century Canada. A couple hundred miles northeast of Vancouver, British Columbia, Kamloops was home to the popular inn, which boasted a dome-covered restaurant that itself became a tourist destination. Red and lime-green vinyl seats surrounded wood tables that were arranged beneath an…
Brooklyn Theater Fire: The Musical!
On this day, December 5th, 1876, the Brooklyn Theater, on the corner of Washington and Johnson Streets caught fire. This was a terrible tragedy, and close to 300 people lost their lives. You can read more about that tragedy on our The Brooklyn Theater Fire of December 1876: a community's response post. Instead, today's post is inspired by J.W. Turner, singer/songwriter, who took that tragedy and turned it…
Cutting a Rug: Evidence(s) of Social Dance in Brooklyn
Roll up the rug – what you do at the start of a house party Cut a rug – what happens when you neglected to roll it up first I’ve been a social dancer most of my life, and the form closest to my heart is Lindy hop. I was interested to see what I could find in the archive that documented…
The Smallest Horse in the World
Before Cyber Monday became a multi day event, before stampedes of parents besieged displays of Elmo and Cabbage Patch kids with greater gusto than I will ever understand, there was the neighborhood department store. While Manhattan had Macy’s, Brooklyn had Abraham & Straus. On Valentine's Day, 1865, Abraham & Straus opened its doors at 285 Fulton Street as Wechsler & Abraham, a “…
Bundling Up
It finally feels like fall in New York and Brooklynites are starting to bundle up. This photo of the week takes us to the sidewalks of 1950s New York where little Cataldo Piccione poses for the camera in his one-piece winter suit. While the exact location of this scene is unknown, we can see the familiar sight of buildings rising in the background and a not quite legible…
Opening the Pocket Doors: Processing Brooklyn Historical Society’s Institutional Records
The week’s photo of the week shows an unidentified man standing in front of our landmark building located at 128 Pierrepont Street. Designed by architect George B. Post and built in 1878-81, the four-story Queen Anne-style building features ornamentation made from locally produced terra cotta. For over 150 years, staff in this building have worked to preserve, provide access to, and…
Hurricane Sandy
This From the Vault post was originally written by Tess Colwell and published on November 7, 2018 by the Brooklyn Historical Society. To see the latest Photo of the Week entries, visit the Brooklynology blog home, or subscribe to our Center for Brooklyn History newsletter. It’s been ten years since Hurricane Sandy, but it’s not soon…
Be Kind, Rewind
Today's Photo of the Week rewinds to 1986, where a boy is peering into a Brighton Beach video store. These entertainment temples started in the late 1970s and wound down in the 2000s, although there are still some to be found in New York City, serving those looking for a hit of nostalgia or simply unwilling to make the jump to streaming. We all remember having to settle for an older title because the new…
The Lady of Gravesend
The Lady so integral to the history and development of Brooklyn spent most of her life in England. She was born Deborah Dunch around 1586, in London’s Gray’s Inn or a country estate outside the city. Her father, Walter Dunch, was a barrister and her grandfather, William Dunch, was an Auditor of the Royal Mint. She was a child during the reign of Elizabeth I, and grew up in the shadow of the plague, which had killed one-quarter to one-third of London’s population only twenty years before her birth and made appearances again in 1581 and 1592.
No Bones About It – They Are Getting the Skinny on This Exam Subject
In honor of the scary season, today's photo of the week features our popular Halloween friend. Here in Brooklyn Heights within the last few weeks we’ve seen skeletons clambering up or down the sides of buildings, leaning chattily over a table in quiet conversation, or…
Five Children and a Puppy
Gina MurrellIn the bright sun, five Black children squat down on the ground, forming a semicircle. Four have their hair carefully sectioned off in plaits, the fifth has natural hair closely shaven, as if fresh from the barber. All five look on with affection, their arms outstretched. What is the object of their focus? A fluffy puppy on a…
The Elephantine Colossus
This From the Vault post was originally written by Dan Brenner and published on November 6, 2019 by the Brooklyn Historical Society. To see the latest Photo of the Week entries, visit the Brooklynology blog home, or subscribe to our Center for Brooklyn History newsletter. The Elephantine Colossus was an elephant-shaped hotel attraction located in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Coney Island from 1885 through…
LGBTQ+ History Resources at the Center for Brooklyn History
October is LGBTQ+History Month. In the weeks leading up to this month celebrating the history and achievements of LGBTQ+communities, a question that is asked by researchers is: What resources do the Center for Brooklyn History have on queer people? The answer? A lot! This Brooklynology blog post will highlight several CBH LGBTQ+history resources that can be referenced in October and all year-round…
Risky Business: October 1878
LizaSo begins another October, arguably Brooklyn’s best month (feel free to debate me in the comments). Let’s take a moment to travel back to another Brooklyn October, back to this photographed moment in October 1878. Brooklyn was independent from New York City, no Statue of Liberty was yet visible from Brooklyn’s shores, and the only way to reach Manhattan was by boat. But this last detail was…
Wasted Space, But Not for Long
Can you guess where this week's Photo of the Week was taken? "Referred to as 'the hole' by library personnel," this cavernous space was the sub-basement of our very own Central Library. In this photo we see a miniature Chief Librarian, Francis R. S. John, speaking with a Brooklyn Eagle reporter about plans for the space to be converted into stacks for 500,000 more books. This sub-basement was…
A Child's Bedroom in 1880
I recently updated the finding aid for our Early Brooklyn and Long Island photograph collection (ARC.201) and came across this haunting image of a child's bedroom in a home at 28 Pierrepont Street in Brooklyn Heights. Taken around 1880, the image shows a number of dolls standing and sitting in the room, looking disturbingly as if they had just been caught mid-action. Sunlight streams…
Eugene L. Armbruster photographs and scrapbooks, 1900-1939
This From the Vault post was originally written by Tess Colwell and published on September 13, 2017 by the Brooklyn Historical Society. To see the latest Photo of the Week entries, visit the Brooklynology blog home, or subscribe to our Center for Brooklyn History newsletter. In the dog days of summer, it seems fitting to call out a collection…
The World of Miklos Suba
When artist and trained architect Miklos Suba (1880-1944) immigrated to NYC in 1924, he was confronted with a starkly different cityscape compared to his native Hungary. Suba quickly became enthralled by the American urban landscape. He spent hours wandering the busy streets and industrial areas along Brooklyn’s waterfront in search of his next subject. During these excursions, Suba produced numerous…
Remembering 9/11 with Larry Racioppo and Amy Weinstein
Larry Racioppo and Amy Weinstein
This month's guest blog post comes from friend of the blog Larry Racioppo and Amy Weinstein. First is Larry's contribution followed by Amy's. On February 19, 2002, I met Jan Ramirez, the vice president and director of the New York Historical Society's museum, at St. Paul’s Chapel, the oldest church building in Manhattan. Soon after the 9/11 attacks she helped to launch History Responds. As part of this series, she commissioned me to photograph the Chapel’s wrought-iron fence which ran north along Broadway from Fulton Street to Vesey Street. Thousands of New Yorkers and…
Williamsburg Bridge
The Williamsburg Bridge was completed in 1903, making it the second of three bridges to connect Brooklyn to our neighbors in Manhattan. Make no mistake, this middle sister is no Jan Brady. At completion, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world and quickly became a vital artery for movement between the boroughs. The bridge was one of the last to be designed to accommodate horse and carriage traffic and…
Shirley Chisholm Visits Fulton Street Festival
In 1972, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm strolled the tables lining Fulton Street, stopping to chat with vendors at the bustling outdoor festival in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn. Just four years earlier, in 1968, Chisholm (November 30, 1924 – January 1, 2005) became the first Black woman elected to the US Congress,…
Jacob Mann Photographs
This From the Vault post was originally written by Tess Colwell and published on February 28, 2018 by the Brooklyn Historical Society. To see the latest Photo of the Week entries, visit the Brooklynology blog, or subscribe to the Center for Brooklyn History newsletter. Brooklyn Historical Society is fortunate to have several fine art photographers represented in the photography…
The Skate Emancipator: Abraham Lincoln’s Unexpected Legacy in Prospect Park
Abraham Lincoln never thought he would witness a kickflip. Never mind seeing one while cast in bronze and elevated nearly nineteen feet high over the southeast corner of Prospect Park lake. However if you stroll through the park’s ornate Concert Grove and make your way down to the waterfront esplanade, taking care to avoid the skateboarders flying around Abe’s feet, you will find yourself being scrutinized by more than the sunbathing red-eared slider turtles who have (against all odds) also made the lake their home. Skaters grind, slide, and slam under the watchful eye of the United…
Hot Dog Days
It's the dog days of summer here in Brooklyn, a perfect time to head down to Coney Island and enjoy a hot dog on the boardwalk. This coat of arms honoring the 50th anniversary of the hot dog in 1939 shows a royal figure knighting a kneeling hot dog in the center. On the sides are two dachshunds (wiener dogs, of course) standing on their hind legs with faces turned up towards a radiant pot of "sinapi" ("…
Remembering CETA artists in NYC
Walking through the Clark Street subway station in Brooklyn Heights, one can easily miss the two colorful tile murals installed near the entrances. Completed in 1981 by artists Jonah Sellenraad, Alan Samalin, and ceramicist Joe Stallone, the murals depict several nearby attractions, including Plymouth Church and the Brooklyn Heights Promenade.
Summer Vibes
Welcome to August! To bring us into the final weeks of summer vacation, this Photo of the Week is all about those summer vibes. A bevy of the titular "bathing beauties" is seen frolicking in the surf at Coney Island, each with a different stylish swimsuit and creative coif. The palpable joy on their faces is what drew me to this image. Of course during these…
One-Woman Coney Express
Today’s Photo of the Week features a photogenic protest against the curtailment of postal service. The previous year the Post Office ran a deficit of $550, 000. On April 18, 1950 the Postmaster General, Jesse M. Donaldson, acting on advice of the House Appropriations Committee, cut…
Anders Goldfarb Photographs of Coney Island
This From the Vault post was originally written by Tess Colwell and published on August 23, 2017 by the Brooklyn Historical Society. To see the latest Photo of the Week entries, visit the Brooklynology blog home, or subscribe to the Center for Brooklyn History newsletter. Anders Goldfarb is a Brooklyn-born documentary photographer. After receiving…
Mourning the Victorian Way
This simple, braided bracelet holds a special meaning. If you look closely, you’ll see that the braid is actually made of human hair. Although not widely practiced today, collecting a lock of hair from a deceased loved one to incorporate into a piece of jewelry was quite common in the Victorian era. According to author Allison Meier “There was also a hair jewelry industry that emerged with workshops and retailers to support this fashion…
Extortionists Targeting Abortion Doctors Arrested
In 1954, sixteen years before abortion was decriminalized in New York, four extortionists made it their business to blackmail doctors believed to be performing the then illegal procedure. Two of them posed as cops. They were Bruno Makan, 35, of 185 Marine Avenue in Brooklyn; Robert Murphy, 30, of 61 Pierrepont Street in Brooklyn; Doris Aviron, 24, of 311 W. 178th Street in Manhattan;…
UnBanning Books Since 1934
You might have heard of our recent initiative Books UnBanned, which allows individuals ages 13-21 nationwide to apply for a free BPL eCard, providing access to our full eBook collection as well as our learning databases, and which makes a selection of frequently challenged and banned eBook & audiobook titles always available for BPL cardholders. But obviously, banning books and restricting access to information is unfortunately not a new phenomenon. Did you know that in 1934, the Brooklyn Jewish Center founded the American Library of Nazi-Banned Books? Though it's…
To Save Three Lives
Tuesday, June 14th is World Blood Donor Day, so this Photo of the Week takes us to a scene at Kings County Hospital on October 22, 1948. According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle caption, eight firefighters donated four quarts of blood "To Save Three Lives." The firefighters knew the three girls for whom they were donating blood: "Dolores Johnson, 4, and her sister, Eleanor, 2, in the institution with critical…
Kindergarten Class at Fort Greene Park
This From the Vault post was originally written by Tess Colwell and published on September 20, 2017 by the Brooklyn Historical Society. To see the latest Photo of the Week entries, visit the Brooklynology blog home, or subscribe to the Center for Brooklyn History newsletter. No matter the decade or time period, it sure is challenging to keep kindergarteners…
From Factory to Community Hub
I recently reprocessed our small Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation publication and photograph collection (ARC.124), which includes this photograph. At first I was thrown off by a notation on the back reading "Sheffield," and thought this must show Sheffield Avenue in New Lots. But I quickly realized…
Introducing the Park Slope Civic Council Records
The Park Slope Civic Council (PSCC) was founded in 1896 as the South Brooklyn Board of Trade, a kind of chamber of commerce formed to lobby the city and state for improvements to infrastructure and services across the geographic area south of Downtown Brooklyn. In the late 1950s, the South Brooklyn Board of Trade changed its name to the Park Slope Civic Council in order to improve engagement in the neighborhood. As a result of this change, PSCC leaders planned to center civic projects and residents' needs, as opposed to focusing mostly on business owners. …
Fighting Metal: Keys to Victory
When I first saw today’s POTW, I thought - Best jewelry ever, but what is the story here? The photo’s caption covers the bare essentials, but left me opportunities to dig for more. Miss Charlotte Villanyi [standing in front of several book shelves] tries out…
Home Sweet Hut
Today's Photo of the Week takes us to one of the city's first housing developments for veterans and their families. These semi-cylindrical structures made of corrugated steel sheets, known as Quonset huts, were erected along the Belt Parkway in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Canarsie and Gravesend. The steel huts, leased from the Federal government and shipped from a naval base in Rhode Island, provided temporary…
Wonder Wheel
The world-famous Wonder Wheel is a Ferris wheel (also known as a pleasure wheel) designed by Romanian immigrant Charles Herman and operated by his business partner Herman Garms. Herman walked away after the Wheel’s completion, reportedly earning no money for his invention. Garms ran the Wheel for sixty years, spending his summers sleeping in a home beneath the ride. In 1983, the Wheel was sold to Denos…
Miss Chien at the Book Chute
On Monday, June 18, 1962, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle announced the opening of a "New Borough Library": the Brooklyn Heights Branch and Business Library. The newspaper sent photographer Ben Schiff to take photos of the new library and its staff, including Janet Chien, seen in the above Photo of the Week. In the photos that Schiff took for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Chien can be seen seated with library coworkers…
Community-driven Change in Prospect Lefferts Gardens and Greater Gowanus
Throughout the Center for Brooklyn History’s archival collections there exists evidence of grassroots community organizations mobilizing to improve the quality of life for Brooklyn residents. Two recently processed collections provide insight into the people, programs, and services of community-driven neighborhood associations in Prospect Lefferts Gardens and Greater Gowanus, meanwhile illuminating common and reoccurring issues faced by residents throughout the greater metropolitan area. This month we take a closer look at the history and impact of the Prospect Lefferts Gardens…
Jamel Shabazz's Portrait of Louis Reyes Rivera
For this Photo of the Week, we are highlighting the work of Jamel Shabazz, a Brooklyn photographer who picked up his first camera at the age of fifteen. Shabazz says his goal is to contribute to the preservation of world history and culture. While having incredible range, Shabazz is often most known for documenting the people of Red Hook, Brownsville, Flatbush, Fort Green, Harlem, the Lower East Side and Bronx's Grand Concourse.…
April Showers Bring May Flowers and Floods
This week’s Photo of the Week looks back just 15 years to April 2007. A person in jeans and a raincoat rides their bicycle through at least eight inches of water with their kid in tow. The caption on the back of the photograph reads “4.15.07 - Flooding. End of 1st street and Canal.” In April 2007, a devastating Nor'easter barreled up the East Coast of the United States,…
Bringing Swagger to the Court Since 1910
For this Photo of the Week we have a captivating portrait of the Adelphi College senior basketball team from their 1910 yearbook. These six women, with their puffy, ruffled dresses, elaborate updos, and, in one case, an enormous hair bow, hardly fit our modern conception of athletic. Nonetheless, they project a confidence, even a ruthlessness, that makes it clear they were formidable on the court. Look…
What’s Better Than a Bake Sale?
This gangly construction was the brainchild of Rev. Dr. James Donohoe of St. Thomas Aquinas Church at 9th Street and 4th Avenue who, desiring to fund the construction of a new school to serve his parish, struck on the idea of offering outdoor picture shows on the planned school site. The setup was carefully considered, with a solid projection building, metal screen, electric…
Sun and Sea Therapy for Children
The Seaside Home for Children, run by the Brooklyn Children's Aid Society, was a seasonal charitable facility for sick and lower-income children and their mothers. Located in Coney Island amongst the luxury shoreline resorts, the Home offered families a few days by the sea at no cost. On-site medical care from a dedicated team of doctors and nurses was also available.…
The Eberhard Faber Pencil Company
The Eberhard Faber Pencil Company traces back to 18th century Bavaria, where carpenter Casper (Kasper) Faber began crafting and selling lead pencils in the small town of Stein. Casper’s son Anton Wilhelm (A.W.), took over the business in 1784, renaming it the A.W. Faber Company. In 1790, French scientist Nicholas Jacques Conte developed a method for heating a mixture of graphite and clay to form a superior writing tool that could be…
Early Years of the Pratt Institute
Today’s Photo of the Week looks at a classroom in the early years of the Pratt Institute. The school was founded by businessman and philanthropist Charles Pratt, who envisioned a school for working-class people to get hands-on experience in industrial trades, arts, and engineering. The school opened in 1887, just a few blocks from Pratt’s home at 232 Clinton Avenue. Starting with only twelve…
The Cube as an Alternate Plan to Urban Renewal
In the mid-1980s, there was a rejuvenated plan to redevelop several blocks in Cooper Square in Lower Manhattan. Called the New Cooper Square Plan, it was a continuation of an earlier plan, called the Cooper Square Alternate Plan, that was formulated in reaction to a Robert Moses/New York City urban renewal plan that had threatened to…
The Evolution of Thought: Work by Lucille Fornasieri Gold
This week's Photo of the Week highlights the work of Lucille Fornasieri Gold, a Brooklyn photographer. She started photographing with a Leica camera in 1968, while her children were in school. She would develop and print in the kitchen darkroom of her home in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn. When she moved, she lost her darkroom and while her negatives were processed, they remained unprinted for…
Changing Tides: 1965 Journal of Brooklyn CORE
Founded in Chicago in 1942, the Congress of Racial Equality - better known as CORE - is an interracial organization focused on nonviolent, direct action to achieve equal rights for Black Americans in all areas of US society. While southern chapters of the organization often made national headlines, there were chapters outside the South, including in Brooklyn, New York. The Brooklyn chapter of CORE…
On a Boat Built for One
This week's Photo of the Week takes us to a scene on the Canarsie Creek in 1924 where 1-year-old, William Johnson, floats in a little toy boat next to a skiff holding an unidentified man and boy. It's possible this creek is a section of the Fresh Creek Nature Preserve, a body of water between Canarsie and Starrett City in the Jamaica Bay Watershed. In October 2021, the Governor's Office of…
Windows of Rare Beauty
We've lately had some surprisingly warm days in Brooklyn, and though they've been mixed with days appropriately cold for February, I nonetheless found my thoughts turning toward Spring. So for today's Photo of the Week, we have this Brooklyn Eagle photograph of a spring-themed stained glass window. The window was commissioned by Howard E. Raymond in memory of his…
Built for Brooklyn History: A Place With Many Names
This From the Vault post was originally written by Tess Colwell and published on July 26, 2017 by the Brooklyn Historical Society. To see the latest Photo of the Week entries, visit the Brooklynology blog home, or subscribe to the Center for Brooklyn History newsletter. Visitors to the Center for Brooklyn History on Pierrepont Street sometimes…
An Unsightly Approach
The Brooklyn Bridge is arguably one of the most--if not the most--iconic symbols of Brooklyn. It has been depicted in art, like Hungarian-born American artist Miklos Suba’s version above, and replicated the world over. So, it's hard to imagine a time when the bridge was ever considered ugly. In fact, in the early 1900s, the approach to the bridge from the Brooklyn side was referred to by some as "the ugliest spot in the…
Shark attacks in Brooklyn? Fuhgeddaboudit!
They probably won’t need a bigger boat to haul in this little shark, caught off the coast of Sheepshead Bay. Although sharks can be found in Brooklyn’s waterways, attacks are extremely uncommon. In fact, the last shark attack in Sheepshead Bay was in 1916, when swimmers Gertrude Hoffman and Thomas Richards escaped with non-fatal injuries. Brooklynites have little to fear from these finned…
Eubie Blake and the Legitimization of the Black Musical
His father called him Bully. His mother called him Wally. Neighbors called him Mouse. Relatives called him Eubie. And Eubie was the one that stuck for James Herbert Blake. Happy Black History Month, Brooklyn fans! Today we're going to spend time with the American pianist, lyricist, and composer of ragtime, jazz, and popular music, Eubie Blake. Not orginally from Brooklyn, but a resident, Eubie Blake was born February 7, 1887…
Civic Center Book Shop: "For Lovers of Old Books"
"He’s sort of a crazy guy," said Walter Goldwater about Irving Binkin, the proprietor of Civic Center Book Shop, in New York City Bookshops in the 1930s and 1940s: The Recollections of Walter Goldwater. "And has a great big bookshop with a lot of stuff in it." The "great big bookshop with a lot of stuff in it," Civic Center Book Shop was…
Atoms for Peace and Goodbye, Central Library
Today, former Brooklyn Collection materials, staff, and all the rest officially moved to our new home at the Brooklyn Historical Society building on Pierrepont Street in Brooklyn Heights. As our own exhibits at Central Library also become a thing of the past, let's appreciate this view of the Flatbush Avenue side of Central Library, where the Atoms for Peace exhibit trailer was parked in the 1950s. While we may not know exactly what was on…
Hell's Gate Explosion
AllysonOn October 10, 1885 the ground in Princeton, New Jersey shook. There was no great earthquake. It was, instead, the largest planned detonation prior to the atomic bomb. In order to clear obstacles from Hell Gate - a narrow tidal strait in the East River -- and free up ship traffic the US Army Corp of Engineers started blowing up several obstructions in the waters. This…
Macaroni-Making Machine
Ever wonder how the pasta gets made? This photograph from circa 1932 shows an "Automatic Short Paste Drying Unit," which promised pasta-making "From Press to Package without Handling." The machine itself was manufactured by the Consolidated Macaroni Machine Corporation at 156-166 Sixth Street in Gowanus. Ignazio De Francisci, an engineer from Sicily, founded Consolidated Macaroni…
Coordinating Dance Moves and Community in Brighton Beach
If your New Year's resolutions include getting more exercise, perhaps these gals in a Brighton Beach dance class can provide a little inspiration. Photographer George Cohen captured the scene in 1987 at the Shorefront YM-YWHA (Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association), a Jewish Community Center on Coney Island Avenue in Brighton Beach. The first YMHA…
"The Fastest and Most Thrilling Ride Ever Offered the Public": Flying Turns at Steeplechase Park
It's January in Brooklyn, but one can always take a journey into summer through the collections at the Center for Brooklyn History (CBH). CBH holds many archival collections and digitized photographs on our digital collections portal and online image gallery that document Coney Island and its fantastic amusement parks, such as Luna Park, Dreamland and Steeplechase Park.
A Million Possibilities
Brooklyn Public Library kicked off celebrations of its 125th anniversary on November 30th and will continue them into the new year. In honor of that, and in the spirit of celebration and possibility brought by the New Year this week, today's Photo of the Week is of fireworks at the Central Library for BPL's centennial in 1997. On November 30, 1896…
Encounter with Kismet on a Ride Through Bed-Stuy
DeborahCycling recently through Bed-Stuy I was startled to see two huge onion domes, one with a sag to its finial, rising above neighboring rooflines and I stopped to take some pictures of a remarkable building. A banner on the front indicated it is the Friendship…
Gil Hodges Gets His Due
We’re thrilled that Gil Hodges has finally been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Hodges was one of the famed “Boys of Summer,” but he started life as a son of the Midwest. Born in Princeton, Indiana in 1924 he excelled at high school baseball, basketball, track, and football. After attending…
The Brooklyn Theatre Fire of December 1876: a community's response
At the Center for Brooklyn History, a variety of collections document Brooklyn's vaudeville and theater scenes—from scrapbooks where individuals preserved programs and tickets, to periodicals like The Opera Glass, the Brooklyn Daily Programme and The Brooklyn Daily Stage. These serve as a testament to the popularity of these performances among a wide and diverse segment of Brooklynites.
One Photographer's Reflections on Protests and the Pandemic
As part of Brooklyn Resists, we have invited local photographers, both amateur and professional, to contribute their work to the community-driven digital archive hosted by Urban Archive. Interested in submitting your own photographs, ephemera, audio recordings, or artwork? Click here to find out more about our community collecting project. At the end of May 2020, the case of George Floyd unleashed an unprecedented series of protests all over the United States and beyond…
The Restoration of Endale Arch
AllysonThis photograph, aside from being an excellent candidate for the liminal spaces Twitter account, depicts the view that park-goers would have seen when exiting the Endale Arch and entering the Long Meadow. It is located under Park Drive, which at construction, would…
Brooklyn's Dog and Horse Parade
The Thanksgiving holiday often revolves around food, family, and friends, but awaiting those holiday mainstays brings its own traditions. For some, one of these might be tuning into the National Dog Show. With a nod to that event, this week’s Photo of the Week…
Happy Birthday Marianne Moore
Brooklyn poet Marianne Moore was born on this day in 1887. For a birthday tribute, today's Photo of the Week is this striking portrait of her from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle photo morgue. This image appeared in the Eagle on June 3, 1951 alongside an announcement of Moore winning an honorary degree at the University of Rochester. That same year, Moore's Collected Poems…
Eaglets on a Jolly Jamboree
In summer 1919, Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane invited the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper to conduct a tour of parks of the northwest for the purposes of "stimulating American travel to American resorts," which also "successfully inaugurated the new motor transport service between some of these parks." In 1920, he again invited the Eagle to arrange a tour, this time to assist in the dedication ceremonies for…
Bring Your Photo ID: Filling Gaps in the Archive
Everyone loves a mystery, and we have no lack of them here in the archive. Some are in the form of unidentified photographs waiting for eagle-eyed staff or other longtime Brooklynites to recognize their true identities and bring them out of the darkness. Today’s Photo of the Week flashed into view as I was browsing our collection, a picture identified only as…
Trommer's Near-Beer
Today's Photo of the Week takes us to Trommer’s Brewery at Bushwick Avenue and Conway Street. Brewery President George Trommer (right) is smashing a beer bottle to celebrate a new fleet of delivery trucks. George was the son of founder John F. Trommer, a German immigrant who worked as Brewmaster at Ulmer’s until 1897 when he purchased an existing brewery and changed the name to Trommer’s Evergreen Brewery. George took over the business…
A Tough Rowhouse to Hoe: On Agriculture and Urban Development
It's difficult to picture from where we're standing, but until the 1920s, significant portions of southern Brooklyn were still farmland. This week's Photo of the Week comes from Edgar E. Rutter (1883-1956), a commercial photographer who was employed by the New York State Public Service Commission and various other state and city agencies to photograph the sites of proposed construction projects in Brooklyn and…
The Kanawake Teieriwakwata hymnal: aiding Mohawk services in the city of churches
Today's Photo of the Week takes us to Boerum Hill, where residents of the Kahnewake Mohawk territory near Montreal, Canada, settled in the early and mid-20th century. The Mohawk are one of six nations that belong to the Haudenosaunee, also known as the Iroquois Nation. The large number of Kahnewake Mohawks who resided in this section of Brooklyn while pursuing economic opportunities in New York City earned the area the…
A (Maybe) Brooklyn Haunting for Spooky Season
AllysonEach day on my walk to work I pass the Litchfield Villa, admire it for its Italianate style architecture, glance at the dance class that is usually taking place on the front lawn and continue on my way. It was designed and built in 1854 by Alexander Jackson Davis, a prominent architect for Edwin Clark Litchfield, a railroad and real estate developer. He's the one who turned a small creek into Gowanus…
The Art of Healing: Works from the Veterans Creative Arts Program collection
New York City is host to art programs for diverse populations offered in a range of venues: museums, schools, libraries, cultural institutions and hospitals. It is rare to get a glimpse of artworks made by veterans of military service. From 2008-2017 the Veterans Creative Arts Program, hosted at the Veterans Affairs (VA) New York Harbor Hospital, Brooklyn Campus, offered…
Dressing for Tradition
I recently finished processing the Brooklyn Heights Garden Club collection, which chronicles the club's history through documents, ephemera, clippings, and scrapbooks. The club was founded in 1940 by Mrs. Thomas Sturgis to "bring added beauty to Brooklyn Heights by the creation and cultivation of gardens, plantings and window boxes." In 1949, the club started organizing an annual…
The Soap Fat Collector
Soap making during the 1800s was dirty business. It required two key ingredients: rendered animal fat and lye, a caustic substance traditionally made from wood ashes. Before industrialization, many Brooklynites made their own soap using accumulated cooking fat and grease from the home. The final product, known as soft soap, was stored in barrels and used…
Faces of a Family in 19th Century New York: the Ramus Collection
The first set of photographs originating from the former Brooklyn Historical Society to be featured in the Center for Brooklyn History digital portal is the Ramus family collection. It is a tantalizing set of images rich in examples of fashionable dress between 1848 and 1910 and a variety of photographic techniques including daguerreotypes, tintypes,…
A Legacy in Lead
As New York City students return to the classroom, we’re dreaming of fresh school supplies. Notebooks, rulers, folders, and of course: pencils. Were you the kid who always had two freshly sharpened pencils ready to go at a moment’s notice? Were you the monster who borrowed a pencil and never returned it? Either way, there’s a good chance you've used a Faber pencil. The Faber family started manufacturing pencils in Germany…
April 1, 1949: A Day in Brooklyn Labor History
On April 1, 1949, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle was full of news of workers on strike. The headline for the day announced that a taxi strike was on and "90% tied up," meaning that all but 701 of the city's 11,510 taxicabs had refused to start their engines. Meanwhile, CIO radio operators at Pan-American Airways had launched a strike over deadlocked contract negotiations, and in a slim article further down the page, readers…
The Poet From Syria
Anna SchwartzFamily history research is one of the Center for Brooklyn History's most popular research topics. Millions of people can trace their roots back to Brooklyn. Yet despite an abundance of resources available at CBH, piecing together the social history of one's ancestors--or anyone for that matter--can be difficult, exhausting, and full of dead ends. Several months ago, I ran across the name of a young dentist (and poet) in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle who emigrated to…
Inman's Vaudeville
AllysonThis week's photo is of Inman's Casino, which was located on the Bowery of Coney Island. The Bowery was south of Surf Avenue and ran from Jones Walk to West 16th Street on the east side of Steeplechase Park. Its main drag, known as Ocean Avenue until around 1905 and as Bowery Lane thereafter, ran parallel to Surf Ocean. The Vaudeville opened prior to 1900, and claimed to cater to women and children. But if this…
Water, Water Everywhere
This week's Photo of the Week takes us to the intersection of Sutter and Saratoga Avenues in Brownsville in July 1923, when severe storms turned the borough's streets into rivers, flooded subway stations and basements, and caused guysers to erupt from manhole covers. Lightning blasted apart wood paving blocks on Cortelyou Road in Flatbush, threw a construction worker from his ladder on Ocean…
An Unusual Ride to School
Today's photo of the week comes from the recently processed Kasper Family Collection. The Kasper family lived at the Manhattan Beach Veterans Housing Project in South Brooklyn in the late 1940s. The Manhattan Beach project was one of many veterans housing projects that the city created in the late 1940s to respond to a surge in demand as soldiers returned from overseas. As this 2011 Brooklynology blog…
Housing Starts: The Riverside Buildings and the Push for Affordable Housing in Brooklyn
In the late 19th century housing conditions for the poor in Brooklyn were crowded, unsafe, poorly ventilated, and lacked amenities. Today's Photo of the Week shows one of the first efforts in our borough to create affordable and pleasant housing for those who struggled to pay the rent. The cyanotype above…
An Icy Summer
For non-native New Yorkers like myself, surviving the hot, humid days of summer feels like an annual badge of pride. Grabbing a popsicle from the freezer or an ice cream cone from the neighborhood creamery has long been a favorite way to beat the heat. Today, most Brooklynites take access to cold and frozen food for…
Debate and Diplomacy in Brooklyn’s History
Jen HoyerEvery year, the National History Day contest provides students with an opportunity to dive into research related to an overall theme and present their findings in a variety of formats at their regional contest. We’re thrilled to host the regional contest for New York City at the Center for Brooklyn History in the 2021-22 school year, and we’ve been using the summer break to brainstorm some of our favorite topics related to this year’s contest theme. This year’s theme is Debate & Diplomacy in History: Successes, Failures, Consequences. You can read more about the theme at nhd.org/theme.…
Hat Works of Knox the Hatter
Today we're looking at the imposing apartment building at 369-413 St. Marks Avenue that began life as the world’s largest hat factory. Founded by Irish immigrant Charles Knox, the Knox Hat Company began operations in lower Manhattan, selling beaver hats in a small store he opened in 1838. Through promotion and word of mouth, the business built an impressive clientele, including Abraham…
Steve Brodie Jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge and Lived (Maybe?)
This is a rendering of Steve Brodie a resident of Manhattan and former newsboy who claimed to have jumped from the Brooklyn Bridge and lived. The bridge, then called the East River Bridge had just recently been completed in 1883 and on July 23, 1886, Brodie took the plunge. Or did he? The…
Contribute to our Brooklyn Resists Community Collecting Project
This week's Photo of the Week is a call to action. Did you know that one facet of Brooklyn Resists is a community collecting initiative? We invite you to share your thoughts, experiences, and digitized personal artifacts as part of the Brooklyn Resists community collecting project. Learn more about what this entails and read our statement of purpose and guidelines here. Our ultimate goal is to provide…
Celebrating Student Research: Brooklyn Connections 2020-21
Brooklyn Connections is a program run by the Center for Brooklyn History’s education department that cultivates 21st Century learning skills in students and supports teachers with the incorporation of archives materials into curricula. Click here to view a selection of this year's Brooklyn Connections final projects. Has gentrification affected the lives of immigrants in Brooklyn? How did Coney Island become the destination it is today? If you could…
Bulger's Hotel: Subway Construction Photographs Shed Light on a Lost Brooklyn Business
Cecily DyerOne of the most frequent challenges for staff and researchers in CBH's Othmer Library is finding photographs that provide evidence of Brooklyn's past built environment. The city's 1940 tax photos are our go-to resource, but these can miss houses, businesses, and community landmarks that were razed in earlier years. For some…
Brooklyn's Lost Saltwater Oasis
As a summer heat wave kicks off the last few days of Pride Month, our Photo of the Week takes us to an elegant indoor pool at the Hotel St. George in Brooklyn Heights. The Hotel St. George was once the city's largest hotel and a glamorous spot to see and be seen. It was also a known cruising and gathering space for gay men, some of whom resided at the hotel. As such, it has been featured in two of…
The Lost Murals of Borough Hall
This week's POTW takes us inside the office of the new incoming Brooklyn Borough President as New Yorkers get ready to vote in the June 22 primary election. Borough Hall, originally City Hall, is located in the heart of downtown Brooklyn and is one of the borough's oldest public buildings. It was also home to two highly contentious 900 square foot murals, whose final fate remains unknown today.…
Process of EL-imination: the last days of the Fulton Street elevated
In search of something wholly unrelated, I fell upon the mischievous photograph above from the Eagle commemorating the final run of the…
Lionel the Lion-Faced Man
Stephan Bibrowski (1890–1932), also known as "Lionel the Lion-Faced Man," was born outside Warsaw, Poland with a rare condition called hypertrichosis. Often called “werewolf syndrome” hypertrichosis causes excessive hair growth on the body and is now thought to be hereditary. While Stephan’s mother was pregnant with him she watched as his father was attacked by a lion, an event she believed caused Stephen’s condition. At four…
Taking a Bite Out of Spiritualism
When the Scientific American offered a $2500 prize to anyone who could produce a visible psychic manifestation, Chicago medium Elizabeth Allen Tomson answered the call. In the Fall of 1923 she arrived in New York with her husband and spokesman, Dr. Clarence Tomson and their daughter. Tomson performed several seances in homes across the city, using a technique that involved her entering a large cabinet where she fell into a trance and manifested spirits of the dead. One attendee not impressed with Tomson’s spiritual…
Wheeling in the Years: A Slice of Brooklyn Bicycle History
To close out National Bicycle Month, here's a little a celebration of bicycling in Brooklyn, from 1897 to the present. Even now, in the 21st century, I feel a powerful sense of freedom, exhilaration, and agency whenever I'm riding my bicycle around Brooklyn. It must have been truly extraordinary for women in the 19th century, who were newly admitted to the ranks of "wheel riders" in the 1890s. At the time, Brooklyn…
A Look Back at Brooklyn's Central Library
Recently the Central Library of the Brooklyn Public Library had a ribbon cutting ceremony for the completion of Phase One of a multi-phase renovation project. This phase returns space formerly used for administrative needs back to the public and creates five grand spaces: the Major Owens Welcome Center, New and…
A Story of Sands Street
Today's photo of the week takes us to the corner of Sands and Navy Streets in Vinegar Hill, a section of Downtown Brooklyn adjacent to the Navy Yard. While the neighborhood was named for the final battle of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, reflecting the large Irish population who settled here in the early to mid-1800s, people of all backgrounds resided in Vinegar Hill's densely-built streets. The…
A Mother's Immigration Story
This is a photo of Regina (Rivka, nee Kanner) Gottlieb and her daughter Madeline in a park on the Lower East Side in 1947. The joy on both of their faces is palpable, despite the difficult years that preceded this photo. Regina and her husband Alexander were both from Poland, Alexander from Borislaw and Regina from Lodz Ghetto. They had both survived …
The Librarian in Congress: The Life and Work of Major Owens
Representing Brooklyn From his roots as a librarian here at Brooklyn Public Library, to his ascent to the New York State Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, Major Owens' legacy is defined by his work as a tireless antipoverty reformer and as an advocate for education, civil rights, Americans with disabilities, workers' rights, and immigrants. As Brooklyn Public Library cautiously opens the doors to Central Library and a handful of other branches a little further this month, we are also unveiling renovations and improvements that have taken place during our…
Spring, Is That You?
Anna SchwartzSpring in Brooklyn is often fleeting, lasting a month or two at most. With it brings relief from winter’s harsh weather, blooming flowers, and tepid evening breezes. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, spring also marked the return of sheep to Prospect Park. Every April, a large flock of Southdown, a breed known for its adaptability and good lambing…
Mesopotamia in Brownsville
DeborahToday’s Photo of the Week features a busy corner in Brownsville, 1501 Pitkin Avenue, where the stately Loew’s Pitkin Theater took up the entirety of the block between Legion Street and Saratoga Avenue. I was drawn to the building by this snapshot showing the random composition and distinctive pinked edges of mid-century candid photography, with the huge structure looming over a…
Park Slope's Old Tower House
Today’s photo of the week takes us to Park Slope, where a residence locally known as "the old tower house” once stood on the south side of 8th street between 5th and 6th avenues. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle published the above photograph of the old tower house in 1910, two years after the death of the building’s longtime owner, Asa B. Richardson. The Eagle claimed at the time that the…
Brooklyn in Blue
Today's Photo of the Week is a cyanotype created by New York City photographer Julius Wilcox. Wilcox was born in Vermont in 1837, moving to New York at the age of 29 and settling in Brooklyn. He made his living as a writer for the New York Evening Gazette and as part owner of a bicycle business. He seems to have taken up photography as a hobby, photographing mostly in Manhattan, favoring architecture and the city’s working-class and poor. His album of original cyanotypes with…
National Library Outreach Day: On Bookmobiles and Fugitive Libraries
This week is American Library Association's National Library Week, a time to celebrate library workers and outreach efforts, and promote library use and support. Wednesday, April 7th is National Library Outreach Day or the Day Formerly Known as Bookmobile Day. The bookmobile pictured above dates back to BPL's outreach efforts in the 1950s, a beauty known as the "Library on Wheels." The borough's first, its maiden voyage was in October 1951…
When the Dodgers went to the Bronx: Game 1 of the 1947 World Series
AllysonIt's been a strange long year and something like the start of baseball seems even stranger in our current climate. Fields and stadiums are opening slowly with limited entry and required vaccination cards. But back in 1947 all you needed to see a game was a ticket and some excitement. This is a shot of fans from Game 1 of the World Series pitting the New York Yankees against Brooklyn's own beloved Dodgers. 73,365…
The Opening of a Vaudeville Theater in Williamsburg
Amy LauTo celebrate the announcement in the beginning of March that theaters will reopen in April, our photo of the week takes us to the corner of Graham Avenue and Debevoise Street in Williamsburg. This corner was the location of the Folly Theater which opened on the afternoon of October 14, 1901. The Folly was owned by Richard Hyde who -- according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle --…
One Bedford-Stuyvesant Block's Industrial Past
This week’s Photo of the Week takes us to Kosciusko Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant, on the block that forms the northern boundary of Herbert Von King Park (known in the 19th century as Tompkins Park).
Cleaning Up the Waterfront with N.A.G.
Dee BowersIn the early 1990s, residents of Greenpoint and Williamsburg were fed up with the city neglecting their neighborhoods. A number of grassroots community organizations sprang up in response to various issues, including development, community board planning processes, and excessive litter. One such organization was Neighbors Against Garbage (N.A.G.), founded in 1994 in a local…
The Brief Life of a Fanciful Building
DeborahOur photo of the week features the Fulton Ferry House that once stood where Old Fulton Street met the water’s edge in Brooklyn Heights, one in a series of ferry buildings on that site. One of the handsomest depictions of this building is paired in the Eagle photographs with an earlier Brooklyn ferry house, built sometime before 1746. The early view is adapted from an engraving in Stiles’ … history … of Brooklyn, N. Y. from 1683 to 1884. Stiles is…
Web Archiving at BPL: Saving Brooklyn's Web Content One URL at a Time
Dee BowersDid you know that Brooklyn Public Library has a web archive? In 2017, the Brooklyn Collection (now part of the new Center for Brooklyn History) joined the Internet Archive’s Community Webs program, in which public libraries around the country are given the funding and support to start and sustain web archives. We have been archiving Brooklyn web content through this program for over three years now. Web archiving is how we describe the process by which we save and preserve websites and web content in a stable and static archival format. This is…
Preserving Black History in Brooklyn
Anna SchwartzBlack historical sites are rapidly disappearing across Brooklyn despite efforts by local activists and preservationists. The destruction of these tangible sites of memory--largely as a result of redevelopment and gentrification--impacts the way we remember, understand, and tell history. The recent demolition of the Slave Theater in Bedford-…
Bedford-Stuyvesant's Dar-ul-Islam Movement
Maggie SchreinerThe Dar-ul-Islam, known as "the Dar," was one of the most significant grassroots movements established by African-American Sunni Muslims in the United States. The founding members of the Dar-ul-Islam came from the Islamic Mission of America, founded in 1939 by Daoud Ahmed Faisal and Sayedah Khadijah Faisal, at 143 State Street (the “State Street Mosque”). In 1962-1963…
Brooklyn's First Black Elected Official: Bertram L. Baker
Before Shirley Chisholm or David Dinkins made history, Bertram L. Baker paved the way. If you've found yourself on Jefferson Avenue between Tompkins and Throop Avenues, you may have noticed street signs announcing his name. The first Black elected official from Brooklyn, Bertram L. Baker made his debut in the New York State Assembly in November 1948, where he would serve for the next twenty-two years. It was a milestone in Brooklyn history, but do you know his story, or what politics in the borough looked like when he was elected?
Community and Activism in one Brooklyn Family's Roots
Cecily DyerA few years ago, I went in search of background information about a periodical in the Center for Brooklyn History collections called Afro-America. It was published in the late 1960s from Fred Richardson’s African American Bookstore in Crown Heights, which sold books by and about Black writers, poets, and political leaders, as well as picture books for children and art by Black artists. Fred opened the store when he was just 22.
The Life Saving Station of Manhattan Beach
This week's photo takes us to the lost eastern end of Manhattan Beach.Manhattan Beach, on the eastern end of Coney Island, was the brainchild of robber baron Austin Corbin. In the 1870s, he bought 500 acres here and erected two luxury resort hotels for vacationing New Yorkers (not all New Yorkers, however, as Corbin was a notorious anti-semite who barred Jews from the resort). He also built the New York and Manhattan Beach…
Generations of New Years
Photographer Larry Racioppo grew up in a large Italian-American family in Brooklyn, and his family has always been well-represented in his work. We hold a collection documenting his work and career, and many of the photographs from the collection are available on…
Brooklyn's Teen Poets
The teenage years are a difficult time, with emotions running high and relationships with the people in your life changing quickly. Poetry is a universal outlet for teens to explore feelings about themselves and their world. While most poems stay tucked away in journals or at the bottom of trash cans, some brave souls are eager to share. Before social media, publication in a school newspaper was one of the most direct ways for a poet to reach their peers. We combed through our Brooklyn High School newspapers for a selection of the very best teen poetry Brooklyn had to offer:…
When Coal Was King
A Few of Our Favorite Things: Holiday Photos from the Collections
NatibaThis year has proven to be a year like no other, full of ups and downs, and a longing from most for better and brighter days. Despite the challenges, we at the Center for Brooklyn History are grateful for what we've been able to achieve this year. A historic partnership between two long standing, and significant institutions, and with it, the opportunity to serve our community and our borough, by expanding access to a singular collection in a single space, free and open to all. For this edition of Photo of the Week, we'd like to share our personal picks from our combined collections, that…
Before the Roller Disco
The 1960 Plane Crash That Rocked Park Slope
Vanderveer Park: When Flatbush Was a Suburb
Vanderveer Park: When Flatbush Was a Suburb
The Curious Origins of Thanksgiving
Take Two Shots and Call Me in the Morning: The Business of Selling Beer and Liquor
Michelle MontalbanoA Brooklyn Block's Hidden History
A Short History of the Saratoga Park Playground
Saratoga Park is one of the many beautiful greenspaces Brooklyn has to offer. It’s the second largest park in Bedford-Stuyvesant, named for the nearby Saratoga Street, which takes its name from the Battles of Saratoga during the Revolutionary War. According to the New York City Parks Department, the word Saratoga might be Iroquois or Mohawk in origin, perhaps meaning either “springs from hillside” or “place of miraculous water in rock.” Before it became a park, the land was owned by James C. Brower and his family. Brower owned a hardware business, helped organize the New York and…
This Business of Voting…
Is It Un-American for Mothers to Work?
Designing the Library of the Future
Celebrating the Next Million Possibilities!
Reading Against the Grain in the Montauk Club Collection
The Brooklyn Collection is now part of the Center for Brooklyn History! Learn more about this historic partnership here. This post is a collaborative effort of historian Dylan Yeats, Vice President of the Montauk Club and co-chair of its History Committee, and archivist Diana Bowers-Smith, who processed the Montauk Club Collection at Brooklyn Public Library along with librarian and archives volunteer Kreya Jackson. Founded in 1889, when Brooklyn was still an independent city, the Montauk Club is a social club in the Park Slope neighborhood. Its landmarked Venetian Gothic clubhouse,…
Home Sweet Brooklyn
Fall(ing) into an Odd Brooklyn Autumn
Brooklyn Navy Yard oral history collection now available online!
The Migration of Mexican Cuisine
Summer Archives Internship Reflection from Sophia Terry
Summer Archives Internship Reflection from Fiona Wu
Sorting Mail at the Post Office
Supplementing Curriculum with Primary Sources
Brooklyn Connections is the education division of the Brooklyn Collection where we focus on cultivating 21st Century learning skills in students and supporting teachers on the incorporation of archives materials into curricula. This post's author, Rachel Chapman, is a former science teacher and current school librarian at the George Westinghouse Educational Campus in downtown Brooklyn serving grades 6 through 12 where she enjoys engaging students in reading and research. Rachel received her Masters of Science in Library and Information Science (MSLIS) from the…
Mapping New York City's Waterways
Building NYC's Water Infrastructure
A Bungalow by the Bay
No To-Go Cocktails Allowed: Brooklyn's Temperance Village
On the Rail: the Behr Monorail that Never Was
A Grave Tale: Roswell Graves, Jr. and the Cemetery of the Evergreens
A Litigious Legacy: the Story of a Gravesend Map
Lesson Learned? Considering the Draft Riots of 1863 for Today
The arrival of 4,000 Union troops in Manhattan on Thursday, July 16, 1863, marked the beginning of the end to four days of civic unrest and racial violence throughout New York City, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. That week, hundreds of buildings had been ransacked and burned. 119 people had been killed (although some estimates push that number closer to 500) including 19 African Americans, 11 of whom had been publicly lynched.At the height of the Civil War, the events that came to be known as the Draft Riots ignited simmering class and racial tensions in a city–and country–spiraling in the wake…
Start Exploring with the BHS Map Portal
Brooklyn Connections Student Projects, an Online Gallery
Brooklyn Connections is the education division of the Brooklyn Collection where we focus on cultivating 21st Century learning skills in students and supporting teachers on the incorporation of archives materials into curricula. Click here to view a selection of this year's Brooklyn Connections final projects.
Announcing the Launch of the BHS Map Portal!
A Summer Day at Dreamland
Quarantine Summer
A Teacher Grows in Brooklyn: Sarah J. Smith Tompkins Garnet
In March 2020, just before the closure of Brooklyn Public Library’s physical spaces, the Brooklyn Connections team had the pleasure of spending a day at the Brooklyn College Archives with their archivists and a group of New York City school teachers for a day-long professional development workshop on women in Brooklyn. We were excited to be in the Brooklyn College Archives because of their fantastic collection of material about the life and work of Shirley Chisholm; this inspired us to look at material from the Brooklyn Collection that highlights the lives of other women of color in Brooklyn…
A Reckoning for Brooklyn's Philip Livingston: Slaver, Trader, and Signer of the Declaration of Independence
Transforming Brooklyn's Legal Landscape
In Honor of Black Life
What does remembrance look like? As an archivist, special collections manager and lover of history, a large part of remembrance for me is representation. This and other similar threads are constantly a part of how I think about the work we do at the Brooklyn Collection. Who are we representing? Who has enough, and who does not? I ask this every time I think about a possible donation or addition to our collection. Our current climate and the awakening being experienced by others around Black life and its importance (it is), how history is repeating itself and the renewed calls to remove…
Grammar School Graduation, 1900
Processing Privilege and Moving to Action: Watch, Listen, Explore
Structural Racism in America: Watch, Listen, Explore
Confronting a History of Injustice: Watch, Listen, Explore
Black Lives Matter
Finding your Brooklyn Roots in Brooklyn Historical Society's Beginnings
With its "Finding Your Brooklyn Roots" initiative, BHS invites its followers to submit questions about their Brooklyn ancestors. In this post, we share one of our recent discoveries based on one of your inquiries. When a patron wrote to us hoping to learn more about her family roots in Brooklyn, she didn’t expect that we would be able to trace her ancestors back to Brooklyn Historical Society. We were just as surprised to find out that her second and third-great grandfathers, Julian and John Hooper, were not only early members of the Society, but made several contributions to our collections…
Brooklyn is not a Place, It is a People
My Mother's Sisters
After singer-songwriter John Prine died on April 7, 2020 from coronavirus complications, local radio stations and media outlets created playlists of his “essential songs”. Listening to WFUV-FM, I heard When I Get to Heaven for the first time. The song, from Tree of Forgiveness, his 18th and last studio album in 2018, begins humorously, but then turns serious. Some of Prine’s lyrics really struck home for me: “I wanna see all my mama’s sisters because that’s where all the love starts. I miss ‘em all like crazy, bless their little hearts.” My mother had three sisters and four brothers who…
Class Portraits from Clinton Hill
“Spanish Influenza” in Brooklyn and What We Can Learn from Our History
We turn to the history of the “Spanish” influenza pandemic, which swept through New York City in several waves between 1918 and 1920. Today, insights from this past may help us cautiously begin this next chapter in our present.
Cleaning Up in Brooklyn
Backgrounds of Brooklyn: Historical Flair for Your Video Calls!
Keeping New York in Motion
Moving Day: When All of Brooklyn Moved at Once
Changing with the Times, Always First to Respond
"Indian Villages": The Story Behind a Map
Taking Stock of Staying Stocked
HIV in Our Communities
The Evolution of a Brooklyn Block
Online Instruction and Office Hours with Brooklyn Connections
To all the teachers who are teaching online right now, the Brooklyn Connections team wants to say: thank you for everything you are doing! We recognize how exceptionally challenging, time consuming and emotionally and physically taxing this work is and we are here to offer support. Let us know if we can help in any of the following ways: Online Instruction: Let us take the mic for awhile! Brooklyn Connections educators are here to deliver live or asynchronous lessons of your choosing for grades 4 through 12. What kind of lessons? Online research! (i.…
A Flatbush Pharmacy
Poison for Profit
Everybody gets sick. For most of us, our health is a deeply personal and even private topic. But sickness and health are also public issues that have long shaped Brooklyn’s economy, its built environment, its laws and institutions, and its diverse communities. Taking Care of Brooklyn: Stories of Sickness and Health is one of Brooklyn Historical Society’s current exhibitions which explores how centuries of Brooklynites have understood sickness and health. Through the experiences of everyday Brooklynites giving, receiving, demanding, and being denied health care, Taking Care of Brooklyn shows…
Stay Connected! Online Research Tutorials for Brooklyn Newsstand and our Digital Collections
Looking for tips for digging into your Brooklyn history research online? Check out our new video tutorials for Brooklyn Newsstand and the Brooklyn Collection's Digital Collections. Brooklyn Newsstand is a collection of digitized Brooklyn newspapers made available through a partnership with Newspapers.com. Right now, the full content of Brooklyn Newsstand is available for free from any location. The Digital Collections offer a selection of more than 20,000 historical photographs and maps from the Brooklyn Collection, and audio and video recordings created by the Brooklyn…
Cooking for Brooklyn
Contraception, Control & Care
Everybody gets sick. For most of us, our health is a deeply personal and even private topic. But sickness and health are also public issues that have long shaped Brooklyn’s economy, its built environment, its laws and institutions, and its diverse communities. Taking Care of Brooklyn: Stories of Sickness and Health is one of Brooklyn Historical Society’s current exhibitions which explores how centuries of Brooklynites have understood sickness and health. Through the experiences of everyday Brooklynites giving, receiving, demanding, and being denied health care, Taking Care of Brooklyn…
Doing Your Part to Take Care of Brooklyn
The Recap: Toxic City
Photographs and Reflection in the Time of Quarantine
I’m restless. I’m 72 years old and have been “sheltering at home” since March 7th. I’m not sure which I miss more – seeing my grandchildren or exploring the outskirts of New York City. I’ve spent many quiet hours photographing its waterfront and abandoned interiors. Almost every day since the 7th, I’ve scanned panoramic and large format negatives or made pigmented inkjet prints, and I expect to continue this routine in the weeks and months ahead. I’m lucky to have the means and equipment to do so, but man do I miss being out photographing. I’m trying to internalize the advice of my friend…
A Mother's Rights
Pandemics in Brooklyn: a view from 1918
It’s hard to know which of these things is more unexpected: that, in a time of health crisis and desperate need for accurate information, my first instinct is to read the newspaper from 100 years ago; or that said news coverage has proved oddly comforting. If either of these instincts resonates with you as well, check out what the Brooklyn Daily Eagle shared about the 1918 influenza pandemic. First of all: folks felt unsure about things. On September 18th, writing about “Influenza and Sports” (some things never change…), the Eagle reported that “Whether the influenza will flourish is a…
Hidden Ephemera in the Clippings Files
Beyond the stanchions, in the center of the Brooklyn Collection, sit two rows of cabinets. Clocking in at 110 drawers, they contain a collection of newspaper clippings that are finally getting some much-needed attention. The clippings files include folders with obscure labels such as "Local Color" and "Brooklyn Spirit", and the subjects they cover—the aforementioned included—are cataloged in a 447-page Word document. It is also one of our best-kept secrets. Though we use the clippings files to answer many reference questions, they are so sprawling and voluminous that even a…
Brooklyn Women Rule the Road
Emily Roebling's Bridge
Hunterfly Road and Brooklyn's Weeksville
New recordings from the Packer Collegiate Institute now online!
This post was written by Aliki Caloyeras, Brooklyn Historical Society Digitization Intern. Brooklyn Historical Society is pleased to announce the availability of over 175 newly digitized audio recordings, films, and videos from the Packer Collegiate Institute records (2014.019). This project has been made possible by a generous digitization grant from the Metropolitan Library Council (METRO), and follows up on our previous work with METRO to preserve quickly-deteriorating magnetic media and provide the public with easy access to our audio, video, and film collections.
Williamsburg families
From Castle Keeps to Community Spaces: The Evolution of Brooklyn’s Armories
Deborah
Desegregating Brooklyn's Classrooms
The Recap: Gentrification 2.0
A Leather Pocketbook
A Souvenir Bell Cast from the Fire
Brooklyn Historical Society's Statement in Support of our Colleagues at the Museum of Chinese in America
A statement from BHS President and CEO Deborah Schwartz The staff and Board of Brooklyn Historical Society are devastated by the news of the fire at 70 Mulberry Street, where MOCA stored its invaluable collections. We share MOCA’s commitment to the importance of local history, and we are prepared to help in any way we can as our colleagues establish their path to recovery. From its founding, MOCA has been a bold and creative voice in the museum field, never shrinking from the next challenge in telling the resilient stories of community. MOCA will need resources and expertise to get…
Alfred Steers's commemorative medals
Revolutionary-era cannonball
A Ceremonial Firefighter's Helmet
Happy New Year!
I, Asimov in Brooklyn: How the Library Shaped a Writer’s Mind
I'll write as I please and let the critics do the analyzing.
— Asimov, 1973
Cozy up for the holidays!
It's Christmastime in Brooklyn!
Manhattan Bridge
A Child’s Christmas in South Brooklyn (with apologies to Dylan Thomas)
When I was a boy growing up in South Brooklyn, no one was concerned about keeping Christ in Christmas. That was a given. Even my uncles who never set foot in church went to the standing room only midnight mass on Christmas Eve.
Winter is coming...
Thanksgiving Day
Teaching with Primary Sources: History Mystery!
Brooklyn Connections is the education outreach program in the Brooklyn Collection. It focuses on cultivating 21st Century learning skills in students and supporting teachers on the incorporation of archives materials into curricula. This blog post is part of a series from the Brooklyn Connections team, sharing skills and ideas for using archives primary source material in the classroom. Using primary sources in the classroom shows us that we can access history through many different formats as long as we are grounded in historical thinking. A History Mystery is a fun way to create an…
G. Frank Edgar Pearsall
John Yapp Culyer
Caring for Brooklyn’s Digital History
Erica López, BHS Digital Preservation Fellow, writes about the joys and challenges of preserving legacy media. We experience, understand and interact with Brooklyn’s rich history in so many different shapes and forms. At Brooklyn Historical Society’s Othmer Library, this history is documented in manuscripts, photographs, moving images, oral histories and artifacts. In today’s increasingly digital world, our history can also be found on floppy disks, CDs, hard drives, and smart phones. Digital materials are at risk for a number of reasons, but the biggest risk is obsolescence. For…
On Native Land
On October 7th, I attended a convening of Brooklyn based cultural institutions, hosted by Brooklyn Museum in partnership with the Lenape Center. It was a 2-day workshop to discuss Living Land Acknowledgements and develop ongoing collaborative projects between Lenape-Delaware Nations and cultural institutions in Brooklyn. A Living Land Acknowledgment is a statement that recognizes the indigenous peoples who have been dispossessed from the homelands and territories upon which an institution was built and currently occupies and operates in. For Brooklyn, it was originally the “Lenapehoking…
The Elephantine Colossus
The Carroll Street Bridge
Lucille Fornasieri Gold Photographs
The Frank J. Trezza Seatrain Shipbuilding Collection
Teaching with Primary Sources: School History in Brooklyn
Brooklyn Connections is the education outreach program in the Brooklyn Collection, focused on cultivating 21st Century learning skills in students and supporting teachers on the incorporation of archives materials into curricula. This blog post is part of a series from the Brooklyn Connections team, sharing skills and ideas for using archives primary source material in the classroom. As part of our work, we create freely available Primary Source Packets to help students and teachers access primary source material from the Brooklyn Collection about local history topics. Now that school is…
A Voice from the Past
Preserved in Brooklyn Historical Society’s collections is a wax audio cylinder from 1927 with a big story to tell.Intent listeners will just make out the soft voice of a woman identified as “Mrs. Hunt.” She thanks the congregation of Plymouth Church for inviting her to Brooklyn Heights to celebrate “the memory of one whose name always seems to me to be the complement of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher.”Although a somewhat obscure figure today, Mrs. Hunt, (also known as Sally Maria Diggs, Rose Ward, and, troublingly, "Pinky," throughout her life), shared a unique…
For Every Reader, Their Book
Madeline Knight-DixonAs soon as I tell anyone I’m a librarian, inevitably one of the first questions people ask is, “Can you recommend a good book?!” The short answer is: Yes! S. R. Ranganathan created five principles of librarianship (and yes, this is the kind of thing you learn in library school). One of these principles is, “Every reader, their book” and “Every book, their reader.” Connecting patrons to books that match their interests and needs is one of my favorite parts of being a librarian. We in “the biz” refer to this as Readers’ Advisory. At Brooklyn Public Library, we’ve taken readers’ advisory to the…
The Sharon Hall Hotel
Zig Zag Records, Sheepshead Bay
Bliss Estate, Owl's Head Park
Altar to Liberty, Green-Wood Cemetery
An End of Summer Tribute: Coney Island and the Wonder Wheel
Imagine this: It’s a cool summer day and you are the first in line with your friends for the Ferris wheel on Coney Island. The operator opens the gate and you hop on a blue passenger car and sit facing the beach. Your pod slowly rises and starts to shake; the higher and higher you get, the more clearly you can see the boats floating on the horizon, and as you sit behind your friends you see a wonderful view of the Verrazano Bridge, then the pod…drops! The wind blows heavy as you swing in the air. You scream, but also laugh it off because you go on the Ferris wheel every time you’re here but…
Ocean Parkway Bike Path
A (Not So) Brief History of Red Hook
Shipyards, dry docks, and machine shops. The place with the IKEA and the Fairway. Home of the fabled wild dogs on Beard St. and the abandoned grain elevator. Former home of the Dell's Maraschino Factory and the Snapple Factory. A Brooklyn neighborhood with a "small town" feel, cobbled streets, and limited public transit. It's possible that no other section of the borough has been so readily defined by single facets of its complex character. A waterfront community with deep maritime and industrial roots, Red Hook—like many neighborhoods in Brooklyn—is in flux. This is vividly borne out…
Teaching with Primary Sources: Food in Brooklyn
Brooklyn Connections is the education outreach program in the Brooklyn Collection, focused on cultivating 21st Century learning skills in students and supporting teachers on the incorporation of archives materials into curricula. This blog post is part of a series from the Brooklyn Connections team, sharing skills and ideas for using archives primary source material in the classroom. As part of our work, we create freely available Primary Source Packets to help students and teachers access primary source material from the Brooklyn Collection about local history topics. Brooklynites love to…
The Ralph Irving Lloyd Lantern Slides
Clay Lancaster
Teaching with Primary Sources: Environmentalism in Brooklyn
Brooklyn Connections is the education outreach program in the Brooklyn Collection, focused on cultivating 21st Century learning skills in students and supporting teachers on the incorporation of archives materials into curricula. This blog post is part of a series from the Brooklyn Connections team, sharing skills and ideas for using archives primary source material in the classroom. As part of our work, we create freely available Primary Source Packets to help students and teachers access primary source material from the Brooklyn Collection about local history topics. As summer…
The Anthony Costanzo Brooklyn Navy Yard Collection
Map Digitization!
Thanks to our new initiative, Portal to the Past: Creating Brooklyn Historical Society’s Digital Map Collections, BHS has just finished digitizing 1,600 maps!In 2017, BHS received a generous grant from National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to support Portal to the Past: Creating Brooklyn Historical Society’s Digital Map Collections, a project that will increase public access to the institution’s extensive collection of flat and folded maps through conservation, digitization, and the creation of a web-based portal. Additional generous funding for this project has been provided by the…
Marianne Moore
Making Award-Winning Connections
A visitor to the Brooklyn Collection archive this summer will notice an eye-catching display in our exhibition case. Stepping closer, they’ll learn about the Dreamland fire in Coney Island, read political cartoons about the Verrazzano Bridge, and even see a replica of the Farragut Houses public housing project. The visitor will more than likely learn something new about Brooklyn’s history from this exhibition by local researches. They may be surprised to learn that all of these researchers are students.
The Williamsburg Bridge
Newly Digitized Historic Video Now Available!
We are excited to announce that Brooklyn Historical Society has arrived on the Internet Archive!We will be using this new account to provide access to historic films, movies, and audio recordings from our collections. You can currently explore over 40 newly digitized movies and 6 audio recordings from a variety of our collections, ranging from 1920s home movies to 1970s radio commercials. fig-17918] Our digitization project revealed some lovely surprises! We digitized videos of BHS exhibitions from the late 1980s and early 1990s, including “Not Forgotten: AIDS at the Brooklyn…
BHS's Young Scholars Program wins 2019 AASLH Award of Excellence for Leadership in History
The AASLH Leadership In History Awards is the Nation’s Most Prestigious Competition for Recognition of Achievement in State and Local History.
BHS's Young Scholars Program wins 2019 AASLH Award of Excellence for Leadership in History
The AASLH Leadership In History Awards is the Nation’s Most Prestigious Competition for Recognition of Achievement in State and Local History.
Fabulous Coney Island!
The Red Hook Grain Terminal
The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge
Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden
The Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial Arch
Outlining inequality: how student research put redlining on the map
Jen HoyerAt Brooklyn Connections we are all about student research, and so we’re always excited to find historic examples of this in the Brooklyn Collection. One item in particular gives a glimpse into the impact student research has had on our borough. NYPIRG, the New York Public Interest Research Group, was founded in the 1970s as an issues-focused student activist group. Within seven years of its inception it was based on thirteen campuses across the state and counted over 100,000 dues-paying members. Students were able to receive academic credit for engaging in research on NYPIRG projects;…
The Fulton Ferry Fireboat House
Schenck-Crooke House
A Personal History of the Mermaid Parade
According to Wikipedia, Coney Island’s first Mermaid Parade took place in 1983, and it is now the largest art parade in the United States, attracting over 3,000 participants and hundreds of thousands of spectators.
Hours before the Parade’s start, the audience begins lining up behind police barricades along Surf Avenue. Spectators and costumed participants ride the subway to the recently renovated Stillwell Avenue stop.
Kings Theatre
The mysterious affair of Stiles
Brooklyn Fire Headquarters
Huron Street Public Bath
Hicks-Platt House, Gravesend
Teaching with Primary Sources: the LGBTQ+ Movement in Brooklyn
Brooklyn Connections is the education outreach program in the Brooklyn Collection, focused on cultivating 21st Century learning skills in students and supporting teachers on the incorporation of archives materials into curricula. This blog post is part of a series from the Brooklyn Connections team, sharing skills and ideas for using archives primary source material in the classroom. As part of our work, we create freely available Primary Source Packets to help students and teachers access primary source material from the Brooklyn Collection about local history topics. Every year in June we…
Paerdegat Basin
Conservation: BHS’s Maps Get Some TLC!
In our second post about the Library & Archives project Portal to the Past: Creating Brooklyn Historical Society’s Digital Map Collections, we are happy to announce we recently completed a significant milestone: conservation!One large facet of this project was being able to conserve a few maps in order to reintroduce them into our collection for researchers, scholars, and map enthusiasts. The Portal to the Past project team chose ten maps to conserve out of 1,600 based on four parameters: historical significance, uniqueness, state of decay, and those most in scope with our collection.…
Mozart in Concert Grove, Prospect Park
Emma, the Catablog
By Julie May and Maggie Schreiner Today, we announce the retirement of Emma, an interactive catalog of the archives and special collections held in the Othmer Library at Brooklyn Historical Society. For the last ten years, the staff at BHS have held Emma in high regard for the function it offered and the stepping stone it represents. Emma included basic records that described individual archival and special collections, and linked out to fuller, more complete descriptions such as finding aids and inventories when they were available. It was built using WordPress blogging software, hence…
Hotel Margaret
If You Can Make It Here, They Won't Take It Anywhere
They say you can’t go home again. But for a garbage barge called Mobro 4000, after months of sailing through much of the Northern Hemisphere and capturing the attention of the world, home was the only place it could go.
Prospect Park Picnic Ground
Teaching with Primary Sources: Bridges in Brooklyn
Brooklyn Connections is the education outreach program in the Brooklyn Collection, focused on cultivating 21st Century learning skills in students and supporting teachers on the incorporation of archives materials into curricula. This blog post is part of a series from the Brooklyn Connections team, sharing skills and ideas for using archives primary source material in the classroom. As part of our work, we create freely available Primary Source Packets to help students and teachers access primary source material from the Brooklyn Collection about local history topics. Brooklyn is all…
Squibb Plant, Brooklyn
Last Suppers and Good Fridays
Our guest blogger Larry Racioppo is a lifelong Brooklynite and photographer who has documented Brooklyn and New York City for over 40 years. The Brooklyn Collection holds a collection of Racioppo's work and recently hosted a retrospective exhibition devoted to his career in conjunction with the release of his book Brooklyn Before. Racioppo was raised in a Catholic Italian-American family and has been documenting Good Friday ceremonies since 1974. Here, he shares some of that work and muses on Catholic iconography and community in general. We did not have art in our home. But we did have an…
Ronald Shiffman collection is open for research!
The Ronald Shiffman collection on the Pratt Center for Community Development (2013.023) is now open for research at Brooklyn Historical Society!
Brighton Beach Hotel, 1888
Stauch Baths in Coney Island
A Man Playing the Trumpet in Prospect Park
A Man and His Dog in Prospect Park
Teaching with Primary Sources: Women’s History Month
Brooklyn Connections is the education outreach program in the Brooklyn Collection, focused on cultivating 21st Century learning skills in students and supporting teachers on the incorporation of archives materials into curricula. This blog post is part of a series from the Brooklyn Connections team, sharing skills and ideas for using archives primary source material in the classroom. As part of our work, we create Primary Source Packets to help students and teachers access primary source material from the Brooklyn Collection about local history topics. Each Packet contains one secondary…
Coffey Park, 1934
I Know What You Did Last Century
Since Brooklyn's inception it's residents have been employed in an array of occupations tailored to the needs of their growing community. In addition to addresses the early City Directories listed each resident's occupation as well, providing a unique opportunity to examine the labor needs of Brooklyn in the 19th century. Coopers, rope-makers, doctors, teachers, laborers, sailors and many others played a crucial role in the daily life of early Brooklyn. Looking through a directory by hand for every wheelwright, or blacksmith is an ardous, and labor intensive job though…
Dedication of Bronze Plaque on Samuel F.B. Morse Monument, April 27th, 1968
Forgotten History: Remembering Dr. Mary M Crawford and her Contributions to Brooklyn's History
For this Women’s History Month, Brooklyn Collection is spreading awareness about Dr. Mary M. Crawford, a woman who radically altered how the world viewed female doctors during the early 1900s. Not only did Doctor Crawford serve abroad during World War I as the only female doctor in the American Hospital in Paris but she was also the first female ambulance surgeon in Brooklyn who later became chief surgeon of the Williamsburg hospital.
Bedford Avenue YMCA
Manhattan Furrier
Teaching with Primary Sources: Black History Month
Brooklyn Connections is the education outreach program in the Brooklyn Collection, focused on cultivating 21st Century learning skills in students and supporting teachers on the incorporation of archives materials into curricula. This blog post is part of a series from the Brooklyn Connections team, sharing skills and ideas for using archives primary source material in the classroom. As part of our work, we create Primary Source Packets to help students and teachers access primary source material from the Brooklyn Collection about local history topics. Each Packet contains one…
Juxtaposition
Flatbush Avenue
High Hopes for Snow!
The Fierce Women Skaters of Roller Derby's Heyday in Brooklyn
In honor of our current exhibit Empire Skate: The Birthplace of Roller Disco, I decided to look into some older roller skating history in Brooklyn. The sport of roller derby has seen a surge of women's teams and leagues emerge nationwide since its 21st-century revival in Austin, Texas in 2001. It was introduced to a wider audience with the release in 2009 of the feature film Whip It, which starred Elliot Page and was Drew Barrymore's directorial debut. What contemporary fans of the sport may not know is that its first heyday of mainstream popularity started in New York City in 1948, and…
Doing the Snow Dance!
Daisies
Teaching with Primary Sources: Community Organizing in Brooklyn
Brooklyn Connections is the education outreach program in the Brooklyn Collection, focused on cultivating 21st Century learning skills in students and supporting teachers on the incorporation of archives materials into curricula. This blog post is part of a series from the Brooklyn Connections team, sharing skills and ideas for using archives primary source material in the classroom. As part of our work, we create Primary Source Packets to help students and teachers access primary source material from the Brooklyn Collection about local history topics. Each Packet contains one…
Cat named “Lazybones”
Happy New Year!
The Brooklyn Dodgers
In 2013 the Brooklyn Collection acquired several boxes of Brooklyn Dodgers memorabilia from Al Todres, a lifelong collector. Todres certainly wasn’t the only one actively collecting Brooklyn Dodgers material nearly 60 years after the team was transferred to Los Angeles. Why does a baseball team that left Brooklyn in the middle of the last century still inspire so much loyalty and curiosity? Every collector has a different answer, and it certainly goes beyond statistics and player performance. The team that would become the Dodgers played in Eastern Park when Brooklyn was still an independent…