Welcome to the Center for Brooklyn History (CBH). CBH is a research library and community hub dedicated to public history.
Formerly known as the Brooklyn Historical Society, CBH became part of Brooklyn Public Library in 2020 and is now free and accessible to all for research, education, culture and more. Our freshly renovated landmark building—home to the Othmer Library's magnificent reading room—is a trove of special collections, archives, ephemera, art exhibits and programs that bring our borough's rich history to Brooklynites of all ages.
Brooklyn Is ...
The Center for Brooklyn History reopened on September 14th with an exhibition that celebrates the people and neighborhoods of our diverse, richly textured borough. What captures Brooklyn for you?
Search our collections
The Center for Brooklyn History makes its collections available to all researchers. Browse our books, photographs, oral histories, maps collections and more.
Upcoming Public Programs
CBH hosts a wide range of free weekly programs to delight and engage our many audiences. See what's happening next, both virtual and in person.
Visit the Othmer Library
Located on CBH’s second floor, the Othmer Library and its reading room are home to special collections and archives for public use. Researchers are encouraged to make appointments in advance.
CBH Education Programs
The Center for Brooklyn History education department connects students, educators, and archivists in New York City and beyond to unique collections, programs, and events that bring the history of Brooklyn to life.
Brooklynology
Fascinating Brooklyn stories from our local history archivists, featuring our popular Photo of the Week posts.
Private Event Rentals
The Center for Brooklyn History is a perfect blend of a national historic landmark featuring timeless architectural details and state-of-the-art modern facilities to meet all your event needs.
Our History
The story of the Center for Brooklyn History began in 1863 with the founding of the Long Island Historical Society (LIHS) during a time of tumultuous change. In only a few decades, Brooklyn had grown from a tiny agricultural backwater to the third largest city in the country. Civic pride was at an all-time high. Many of Brooklyn’s citizens believed they needed to commemorate their city’s rural past before it quickly faded from memory. Founders also envisioned the LIHS as a center for dialogue about history. In the nineteenth century, the society’s roster of speakers included newspaper editor and reformer Horace Greeley, writer Arthur Conan Doyle and abolitionist and women’s rights activist Julia Ward Howe.
Over the next century, the fortune of LIHS mirrored that of Brooklyn: it navigated the consolidation into the City of Greater New York, played a part in historic conflicts such as its use as a Red Cross headquarters during World War I, and faced its own struggles as the city grappled with deindustrialization, economic decline and social change.
Upcoming Events
New York City History Day Virtual Drop-in Office Hour
Virtual drop-in to talk to the New York City History Day Coordinator about your History Day project. Get one-on-one help with registration, brainstorming, research, and more! Open to all students and teachers. Zoom link will be sent on the day of the office hour to those who've registered.
Brooklyn Is... Exhibition Tour
Come for a free curator-guided tour of the exhibition Brooklyn Is...!
Visitors will get an interactive look at the photographs, maps, and community reflections that make up the heart of this exhibition, as well as a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the process of putting together…
Brooklyn Is... Exhibition Tour
Come for a free curator-guided tour of the exhibition Brooklyn Is...!
Visitors will get an interactive look at the photographs, maps, and community reflections that make up the heart of this exhibition, as well as a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the process of putting together…
CBH Talk | Glenn Adamson Discusses “A Century of Tomorrows: How Imagining the Future Shapes the Present”
What’s next? For millennia, predicting the future was the province of priests, prophets, astrologers, and seers. Then in the twentieth century futurologists emerged claiming that data and design could make planning a rational certainty. Cultural historian Glenn Adamson writes about…
CBH Talk | The Battle for School Integration in the North
In 1974, two decades after Brown v. Board of Education, another Supreme Court decision – Milliken v. Bradley - effectively brought a halt to school desegregation across the North, shattering 20 years of progress towards equal education for all. The lawsuit, filed by the National…
CBH Talk | David Campbell and Jarrod Shanahan Discuss “City Time: On Being Sentenced to Rikers Island”
David Campbell and Jarrod Shanahan both served sentences at Rikers. In their book City Time they offer an unvarnished account of the banality and brutality of incarceration at New York City’s notorious jail.
Campbell and Shanahan reconstruct the daily realities…
CBH Talk | Progress and Preservation: Atlantic Avenue End-to-End
This program is offered in partnership with the Municipal Art Society (MAS), as part of its Enduring Culture Initiative
Atlantic Avenue is one of the most critical corridors in our city. The sole east-west truck route through Brooklyn, it also bifurcates…
A Symposium: The Value of Debate
In these troubling times of people shouting down one another and turning a closed mind to one another's beliefs, it is important to discover the value of debate in a democracy.
Join us…
CBH’s Brooklyn Trivia Showdown
Think you know Brooklyn history? Well, it’s time to put that to the test at CBH’s Brooklyn Trivia Showdown! From the rise of the Brooklyn Bridge to the rise of Brooklyn pizza, we’ve got the iconic moments, quirky facts, and bizarre tidbits that make this borough the cultural…
New York City History Day Virtual Drop-in Office Hour
Virtual drop-in to talk to the New York City History Day Coordinator about your History Day project. Get one-on-one help with registration, brainstorming, research, and more! Open to all students and teachers. Zoom link will be sent on the day of the office hour to those who've registered.
Get Social with CBH
Subscribe to Our Emails
Sign up to start getting our weekly programming updates, plus our popular Photo of the Week series.
Become a CBH Supporter
Whether through membership or a one-time gift, your support helps connect the past to the present and makes Brooklyn's vibrant history tangible, relevant, and meaningful for today's diverse communities—and generations to come.
Contact Us
For general inquiries regarding the Center for Brooklyn History, you can call or email us, or submit a research request.
About CBH
Staff Picks
- Family Genealogy
- Brooklyn Literary Walking Tour
