Office of Z. O. Nelson & SonA corner of our office, Walter H. Nelson, circa 1887, v1972.1.1222; Early Brooklyn and Long Island photograph collection, ARC.201; Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn HistoryIn 1917, the best Christmas gift one could receive was a lump of coal. A coal shortage was sweeping the borough and coal reserves were dangerously low. Massive barges, laden with coal mined in the Northeast, idled in waterways along the Brooklyn shoreline. An impenetrable mile-wide ice field prevented their delivery.
During the nineteenth to mid-twentieth century…
[Candy Dept., A. I. Namm & Son Department Store], 1898, V1972.1.749 ; Early Brooklyn and Long Island photograph collection, ARC.201; Brooklyn Historical Society. Halloween is still four weeks away, but store shelves are already stocked with candy for eager trick-or-treaters. While today most of the candy is manufactured outside of New York, a hundred years ago Brooklyn had a thriving candy industry.
In the mid nineteenth and early twentieth century, Brooklyn was one of the largest confectionery and chocolate manufacturing centers in the United States. By 1908, local…
Auction notice of valuable real estate at Sheeps Head BayAuction notice of valuable real estate at Sheeps Head Bay; [1879], Map Collection, B P-[1879].Fl; Brooklyn Historical Society.This 1879 auction notice advertising lots for sale in Sheepshead Bay sought to lure potential buyers to Brooklyn's southern limits with the promise of "bathing, boating, and fishing."
At the time, the Sheepshead Bay--named after a nightmarish fish with rows of human-like teeth--was less developed than its more popular beachfront cousins, Coney Island and Brighton Beach. Compared to these other…
Demolition of the Old Kings County Courthouse, Matthew Black, 1961, gelatin sliver print, V1973.5.609; Brooklyn photograph and illustration collection, ARC.202; Brooklyn Historical Society.The photograph featured in today's photo of the week shows the demolition of the old Kings County Courthouse in 1961. Only the portico of the once Palladian structure--now a carcass of stone and marble--remains.
The courthouse, erected in the 1860s and designed by architects Gamaliel King and Herman Teckritz, was once one of Brooklyn's finest civic structures. Located on 250 Joralemon…