Brooklyn in Love

Welcome to the wonderful month of September, which means it is official fall, which I love. So for today’s blog post I thought we would take a look back at Brooklyn in Love. We have a number of collections that feature engagements, weddings, and anniversaries of Brooklynites from all different walks of life. Also, one of my favorite things, as a first generation American myself, is how it tells an immigrant story.

This photo comes from our Ramus Family papers and photograph collection. According to the verso, it is a photo of Joseph and Regina Schwartz, the parents of Adele Schwartz, soon to be Mrs. Julian Ramus. As with all the collections that focus on a particular family, you can learn a lot about who these people were. The majority of the documents in this collection pertain to Louis Ramus and Hannah Levy’s children – Ira and Julien, Adele Schwartz and her parents. This photo is dated 1885.

This photo is from the Yousef Beyda family collection and was part of our Jewish History Project. Yousef Beyda was born in 1860 in Aleppo, Syria. He travelled with his brother Jacob from Aleppo in 1900 to settle in America. In 1902 his wife Nizha Blanco (1872-) and four children: Rahamim (Raymond, b. 1889), Rose (b. 1893), Abraham (b. 1894) and Rena (b. 1899) joined him. The youngest child, David, was born in New York City in 1903. After living a few years on the Lower East Side, Yousef's family settled in Bensonhurst, then moved to Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn. Ted Beyda is the great-grandson of Yousef. Pictured here is Joseph Beyda and his wife.

This is Tillie Engel, pictured at age 17 in her wedding dress at Congregation Anshe Ozaritz at 885 Hopkinson Avenue in Brooklyn, 1931. This collection comes to us from the Engel family. In 1923 Milton (Menashe) Hirsch Engel traveled from Austro-Hungry to the US with his father. Milton never made it through Ellis Island and was returned to Poland, his son, Milton never saw him again. Later is mother, Rose Engel arrived with her other children (Sayfra (born 1915), Frieda (born 1914), Sam (born 1918) and Abe (born 1922).) Milton settled in Brooklyn and started a home painting business. He married Tillie, pictured above, and they had three sons: Arnold, Burton and David. They lived in Brownsville and then in East New York. Inspired by their Uncle Philip Friedman who owned a farm upstate, they tried their hand at farming settling in Liberty, New York. But the farm life wasn’t for them and after a year they sold the property and returned to Brooklyn.

This lovely bride and groom are our first entry into celebrity weddings. This is Josephine Tedesco heading down the church aisle with her new husband Steve Lembo, of Brooklyn Dodgers fame. Steve, a Brooklyn native, was a catcher for the Dodgers from 1950 – 1952. He was also a bullpen catcher warming up Carl Erskine and Ralph Branca in the infamous play off game against the New York Giants that was ended by Bobby Thompson’s famous “Shot Heard Round the World.”

And now it’s time for a few anniversary and bachelor party photos:

This first photo is from Larry Racioppo's Collection. Larry Racioppo was born and raised in South Brooklyn, and has been photographing throughout New York City since 1971. This photo is of Joe & Mary's 50th wedding anniversary in 1998.

In addition Larry has a number of photos from Ray K's Bachelor Party in 1971

The year is 1941 and we are wishing a happy 19th anniversary to Major and Mrs. Benjamin Namm! The Namm’s were given a surprise wedding anniversary party last night at Hotel Bossert. Mr. Namm is the president of A.I. Namm & Sons department store located on Fulton Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn. A.I. Namm, the store’s namesake and founder was a Polish immigrant who opened a trimmings store in Manhattan which he relocated to Fulton Street in Brooklyn in 1885. The Center for Brooklyn History has a whole collection of photographs documenting the growth of A. I. Namm & Sons Department Store.

This first image is of the 50th wedding anniversary of Sach and Mary Toscano, celebrated at the Santa Lucia Restaurant in Brooklyn New York in 1945. And the second is a wedding portrait from 1926 of Louise and Michael Toscano who raised their family at 189 Ainslie Street. We have a number of images of the Toscano family thank you to Vera Toscano’s donation to Our Streets Our Stories project. 

Hope you enjoyed this walk down memory lane, back through Brooklyn history and its love stories.