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 buildings that offered panoramic views.) 

The Flatbush observatory no longer exists, but when it did it was one of the few places to view the heavens in our borough. Bart Fried, Executive Vice-President, Amateur Astronomers Association, Inc. informs us that this modest building was in fact “one of the earliest hemispherical domed observatories in Brooklyn.” This point was confirmed by astronomy and astronomical history writer and editor Trudy E. Bell, M.A. With information from Bell and Fried, and from our collections, I was able to expand on the story.  

Built in Brooklyn

The owner of the Flatbush observatory, John Mason Ferris, was a man of considerable energies. A graduate of NYU, where his father served as chancellor, he went on to become a clergyman and held posts as pastor in cities outside New York, including Chicago and Grand Rapids, before returning to settle in Brooklyn.  

His pastoral activities included editing the Christian Intelligencer, a publication of the Reformed Church, from 1883 until his death in 1911, and work with foreign missions, with a particular focus on Japan. He became Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Reformed Church from 1865 to 1883, and was “instrumental in bringing at least 200 Japanese students to study in the US.” (The boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, counties of Nassau and Suffolk, Long Island, New York, 1609-1924 By Henry Isham Hazelton  v.4, p. 66  https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89067605907&seq=101&q1=ferris)

Ferris also took an interest in education closer to home, serving for several decades on the board of trustees of Erasmus Hall Academy, which was only a few blocks from his house.

Among all these activities, he was an astronomer of note with the means to build a private observatory. We can find his name among the early members of the American Astronomical Society in an article in the Brooklyn Union newspaper.

It is certainly not to the discredit of Brooklyn that the only organization of this character in the country should be established within her limits.

Our original photographic record on this observatory had no indication of its location. However, the Eagle gives us clues to where it sat, and when it was built - 1880.

Rev. Dr. John M. Ferris, of Flatbush ... has a remarkably fine five-inch telescope, which was built by Alvan Clark & Sons in November, 1879. It was used on a tripod until the following spring, when the admirably adapted little observatory in which it now stands was constructed. This building is situated on the rear of the doctor’s beautiful grounds at Flatbush, and is easily seen from the trains of the Brighton Beach Railway.

The 1900 census gives his home (called in some reports the Ferris mansion) as 676 Flatbush Avenue, across from Hawthorne Street.

I was delighted to find the small structure in the Fire Insurance Map of 1905, where it is marked as 'astronomical observatory' at the rear of the property, just adjacent to the Brighton Line.

An astronomical era

Ferris’s Flatbush observatory was one of more than half a dozen private observatories built in Brooklyn in the nineteenth century. Here, Bell provides some essential context, as she describes the surge of interest in astronomy in the nineteenth century

... by the 1840s, the entire nation was in a full-fledged observatory-building movement that lasted well into the 1890s.

Gazing Starward in the City That Never Sleeps

Newspaper reports of celestial events seen in school, college, and private observatories captured the public’s imagination, but the general population was unable to see them first-hand.

Gathering support

In 1847, a group of prominent citizens in Brooklyn, still an independent city and bursting with boosterism, held meetings advocating for a public observatory. Among them were Reverend Samuel Hanson Cox and Alonzo Crittenden, first principal of the Brooklyn Female Academy (BFA). That college-preparatory school, newly opened on Joralemon Street in May of 1846, later became the Packer Collegiate Institute. 

BFA, as well as the Brooklyn Academy of Music, hosted many subsequent meetings and lectures for observatory proponents. 

 

 

In an effort to raise public interest, and funds, for the new project, proponents hired founding director of the Cincinnati observatory in Ohio and renowned popular lecturer on astronomy, Ormsby MacKnight Mitchel (often misspelled as Mitchell in the press) to give public lectures on astronomy throughout that year. Professor Mitchel had come to prominence when he succeeded, against considerable difficulties, in building an observatory in the early 1840s in Cincinnati, then a rough western pioneer boom town. To read more about Ormsby, seek out Bell’s article, “Orator of the Stars” in November 2019 Sky & Telescope. 

Had it not been for Professor Mitchell (sic), Cincinnati might not have had an observatory for centuries to come; and many years might have rolled round before the people of Brooklyn would have ‘thought of it.’ too. 

The mention of “centuries” is hyperbolic perhaps, but Mitchel was clearly a galvanizing force in this early attempt to bring a public observatory to Brooklyn. 

Fort Greene Park site 

In 1847, Fort Greene Park, newly established to repurpose the grounds after the fort fell into disuse, was proposed as a site for the structure. Walt Whitman was a vocal champion for the park and observatory. 

Due in no small measure to Walt Whitman’s efforts, the creation of Fort Greene Park was authorized by the Legislature in 1847. 

The gathering of forces, 1846-1847, eds., Rogers and Black, p. 52.

An editorial in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, during Walt Whitman’s tenure as editor, makes a strong plea for both the park and observatory – and describes the funding mechanisms and constraints. 

 

We believe there is but one opinion as to the propriety of that site for the observatory. Indeed, we never visit the natural crests of the old fort, and walk across its apex, without realizing how such a use would indeed be fitting and proper ... There one would be lifted out from the turmoil of the grosser life below ... Forty thousand dollars is the amount to be raised ... no subscription to become binding until eight hundred shares are subscribed for. 

Campaign fails 

Despite energetic efforts at fundraising, the requisite funds did not materialize, and the campaign was paused. In 1850, hopes for a public observatory were briefly revived, but in 1851 the Eagle reports the end of the plan. 

City steps up – the Prospect Park site 

In 1907 hopes again revived; we see a resurrected plan to build an observatory in Prospect Park, including the hoped for botanic garden and arboretum, with money secured from the city. 

After numerous attempts and what [has been a] really long fight, the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences has finally secured the recommendation of [our] city officials to the establishment of an astronomical observatory and a botanic garden and arboretum in Prospect Park.  On the far left of this ambitious design for the museum can be seen the observatory annex. 

 

The broken line on the map below traces the ambitious scale of the original design for the Brooklyn Museum - a much larger complex that was only partially realized.

The above 1907 Standard Union article ends thus: 

... the Mayor ... hereby is authorized to execute said agreements in the name of the City of New York, the understanding being that no issue of corporate stock for said museums shall be authorized until the financial condition of the city justifies it. 

It was an inauspicious time to start a large city project. October saw a significant recession, the Panic of 1907, that created enough disruption in the economy to lead to the establishment of the centralized Federal Reserve System, and surely prevented the city from ‘justifying’ many expenditures. Sadly, the project was scaled back due to lack of funds. The Brooklyn Botanic Garden was built, but the observatory annex was abandoned.

Despite the lack of a dedicated observatory building in Brooklyn, public interest can be seen to continue in the form of Observatory Nights with lectures at the Brooklyn Academy of Music accompanied by observation sessions on the roof. I was able to find numerous notices during the 1930s, until an awkwardly timed closing in 1937. 

Brooklyn’s amateur astronomers will have to rely on their naked eyes and binoculars to view the Finsler comet, which became visible yesterday ... because the borough’s only observatory, on the roof of the Academy of Music, is closed for the summer. 

The goal in sight 

Although no public observatory was erected in Brooklyn in the 19th or 20^th century, there were numerous school, college, and private observatories constructed in the borough during that era, including Ferris’s.  

There has not been another campaign to bring a public observatory to Brookyln - until this year. Pioneer Works, an interdisciplinary art space and social hub in Red Hook, has engaged Andrea Steele Architecture (ASA), the firm that renovated their sweeping entryway, to build an observatory on that site, with a planned completion date of December 31, 2024.  

Technical details about its construction, and a rich historical account of the observatory movement in the late 19^th and early 20^th century can be found in Bell’s article on the Pioneer Works website. 

If on schedule, it should be a stellar place to ring in the new year.