Blog posts by Gina Murrell

POTW: Dining Under the Dome

Gina Murrell

[Diners at Dome Motor Inn restaurant], circa 1978, HERZ_0004_044, color slide.  Irving I. Herzberg photograph collection, BCMS.0056. Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
The Dome Motor Inn was THE place to stay when traveling to Kamloops in mid-20th century Canada. A couple hundred miles northeast of Vancouver, British Columbia, Kamloops was home to the popular inn, which boasted a dome-covered restaurant that itself became a tourist destination. Red and lime-green vinyl seats surrounded wood tables that were arranged beneath an…

POTW: Five Children and a Puppy

Gina Murrell

[Five African-American children with puppy], circa 1968, HERZ_0667, black and white silver gelatin print.  Irving I. Herzberg photograph collection, BCMS.0056. Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
In the bright sun, five Black children squat down on the ground, forming a semicircle. Four have their hair carefully sectioned off in plaits, the fifth has natural hair closely shaven, as if fresh from the barber. All five look on with affection, their arms outstretched. What is the object of their focus? A fluffy puppy on a…

LGBTQ+ History Resources at the Center for Brooklyn History

Gina Murrell

Group portrait taken at Brooklyn Pride Street Fair, 2007. Ann Rosen photograph collection, ROSE_0013. Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
October is LGBTQ+History Month. In the weeks leading up to this month celebrating the history and achievements of LGBTQ+communities, a question that is asked by researchers is: What resources do the Center for Brooklyn History have on queer people? The answer? A lot! This Brooklynology blog post will highlight several CBH LGBTQ+history resources that can be referenced in October and all year-round…

POTW: Shirley Chisholm Visits Fulton Street Festival

Gina Murrell

Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm visits the Fulton St. festival, 1972 ca. 2020.002.018. Khalil Abdulkhabir photographs of the Dar-ul-Islam movement, 2020.002. Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
In 1972, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm strolled the tables lining Fulton Street, stopping to chat with vendors at the bustling outdoor festival in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn. Just four years earlier, in 1968, Chisholm (November 30, 1924 – January 1, 2005) became the first Black woman elected to the US Congress,…

POTW: Extortionists Targeting Abortion Doctors Arrested

Gina Murrell

Accused shakedown artists face law, Sep 28, 1954. Gelatin silver print, CRIM_0066; Brooklyn Daily Eagle photographs, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
In 1954, sixteen years before abortion was decriminalized in New York, four extortionists made it their business to blackmail doctors believed to be performing the then illegal procedure. Two of them posed as cops. They were Bruno Makan, 35, of 185 Marine Avenue in Brooklyn; Robert Murphy, 30, of 61 Pierrepont Street in Brooklyn; Doris Aviron, 24, of 311 W. 178th Street in Manhattan;…

POTW: Miss Chien at the Book Chute

Gina Murrell

Miss Chien at bottom of book chute, 1962. BPL_0298; Brooklyn Daily Eagle photographs; Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
On Monday, June 18, 1962, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle announced the opening of a "New Borough Library": the Brooklyn Heights Branch and Business Library. The newspaper sent photographer Ben Schiff to take photos of the new library and its staff, including Janet Chien, seen in the above Photo of the Week. In the photos that Schiff took for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Chien can be seen seated with library coworkers…

POTW: The Cube as an Alternate Plan to Urban Renewal

Gina Murrell

"The Cube Building, a future cooperative for homeless families," The Cooper Square Plan: Report for Discussion, October 15, 1986,  Ronald Shiffman Collection, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
In the mid-1980s, there was a rejuvenated plan to redevelop several blocks in Cooper Square in Lower Manhattan. Called the New Cooper Square Plan, it was a continuation of an earlier plan, called the Cooper Square Alternate Plan, that was formulated in reaction to a Robert Moses/New York City urban renewal plan that had threatened to…

Changing Tides: 1965 Journal of Brooklyn CORE

Gina Murrell

Changing Tides: 1965 Journal of Brooklyn CORE. Arnie Goldwag Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) Collection, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
Founded in Chicago in 1942, the Congress of Racial Equality - better known as CORE - is an interracial organization focused on nonviolent, direct action to achieve equal rights for Black Americans in all areas of US society. While southern chapters of the organization often made national headlines, there were chapters outside the South, including in Brooklyn, New York. The Brooklyn chapter of CORE…

POTW: Civic Center Book Shop: "For Lovers of Old Books"

Gina Murrell

[Civic Center Book Shop, Pierrepont Street near Fulton Street], December 15, 1958, gelatin silver print,  V1974.4.886; John D. Morrell photographs, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History. 
"He’s sort of a crazy guy," said Walter Goldwater about Irving Binkin, the proprietor of Civic Center Book Shop, in New York City Bookshops in the 1930s and 1940s: The Recollections of Walter Goldwater. "And has a great big bookshop with a lot of stuff in it." The "great big bookshop with a lot of stuff in it," Civic Center Book Shop was…