POTW: BHS Dumbo

Tess Colwell

[Dockworkers, DUMBO, Brooklyn], 1924, v1973.5.917; Brooklyn photograph and illustration collection, ARC.202; Brooklyn Historical Society. [Dockworkers, Brooklyn], 1924, v1973.5.917; Brooklyn photograph and illustration collection, ARC.202; Brooklyn Historical Society.
The photo of the week depicts dockworkers on Furman Street in Brooklyn, hoisting and moving goods into a waterfront warehouse—once a ubiquitous sight in the early twentieth-century, when Brooklyn boasted one of the largest commercial waterfronts in the world. Today, only a few of those waterfront warehouses remain. Empire Stores, located on Water Street in DUMBO, is one of them. It’s also the home of BHS’s new satellite museum.

On Friday, May 19, 2017, Brooklyn Historical Society opens Brooklyn Historical Society DUMBO, a new museum and gift shop, located in the historic Empire Stores. The inaugural exhibition, Shifting Perspectives: Photographs of Brooklyn’s Waterfront, will feature photographs of Brooklyn’s coastline and waterfront through the lens of two dozen photographers. We hope you will visit us at both of our Brooklyn locations!

This photograph comes from the Brooklyn photograph and illustration collection comprised of roughly 7000 items dating from 1900 to 1950. The collection provides a comprehensive documentation of the borough of Brooklyn with images of neighborhoods, homes, buildings, and infrastructure. To see more photographs from this collection, check out this gallery.

Interested in seeing more photos from BHS’s collection? Visit our online image gallery, which includes a selection of our images. Interested in seeing even more historic Brooklyn images? Visit our Brooklyn Visual Heritage website here. To search BHS’s entire collection of images, archives, maps, and special collections visit BHS’s Othmer Library Wed-Sat, 1:00-5:00 p.m. library@brooklynhistory.org

 

 

This blog post reflects the opinions of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of Brooklyn Public Library.

 

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