Blog posts by Michelle Montalbano

POTW: Atoms for Peace and Goodbye, Central Library

Michelle Montalbano

[Atoms for Peace], CBPL_0313, 1950s, Center for Brooklyn History, Brooklyn Public Library
Today, former Brooklyn Collection materials, staff, and all the rest officially moved to our new home at the Brooklyn Historical Society building on Pierrepont Street in Brooklyn Heights. As our own exhibits at Central Library also become a thing of the past, let's appreciate this view of the Flatbush Avenue side of Central Library, where the Atoms for Peace exhibit trailer was parked in the 1950s. While we may not know exactly what was on…

POTW: A Tough Rowhouse to Hoe: On Agriculture and Urban Development

Michelle Montalbano

RUTT_0085, Flatbush Ave. Extension, 1924, Edgar E. Rutter Photograph Collection, Center for Brooklyn History, Brooklyn Public Library
It's difficult to picture from where we're standing, but until the 1920s, significant portions of southern Brooklyn were still farmland. This week's Photo of the Week comes from Edgar E. Rutter (1883-1956), a commercial photographer who was employed by the New York State Public Service Commission and various other state and city agencies to photograph the sites of proposed construction projects in Brooklyn and…

POTW: April 1, 1949: A Day in Brooklyn Labor History

Michelle Montalbano

F. & M. Schaefer Brewing Company, June 21, 1949, Brooklyn Daily Eagle Photos, Center for Brooklyn History, Brooklyn Public Library
On April 1, 1949, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle was full of news of workers on strike. The headline for the day announced that a taxi strike was on and "90% tied up," meaning that all but 701 of the city's 11,510 taxicabs had refused to start their engines. Meanwhile, CIO radio operators at Pan-American Airways had launched a strike over deadlocked contract negotiations, and in a slim article further down the page, readers…

Contribute to our Brooklyn Resists Community Collecting Project

Michelle Montalbano

GEAT_0002, Anthony Geathers Photograph Collection, Center for Brooklyn History, Brooklyn Public Library
This week's Photo of the Week is a call to action. Did you know that one facet of Brooklyn Resists is a community collecting initiative? We invite you to share your thoughts, experiences, and digitized personal artifacts as part of the Brooklyn Resists community collecting project. Learn more about what this entails and read our statement of purpose and guidelines here.  Our ultimate goal is to provide…

POTW: Wheeling in the Years: A Slice of Brooklyn Bicycle History

Michelle Montalbano

To close out National Bicycle Month, here's a little a celebration of bicycling in Brooklyn, from 1897 to the present. 

POST_0143, Music Island, Prospect Park, Brooklyn, N.Y., summer circa 1897, Brooklyn Postcard Collection, Center for Brooklyn History
Even now, in the 21st century, I feel a powerful sense of freedom, exhilaration, and agency whenever I'm riding my bicycle around Brooklyn. It must have been truly extraordinary for women in the 19th century, who were newly admitted to the ranks of "wheel riders" in the 1890s. At the time, Brooklyn…

The Librarian in Congress: The Life and Work of Major Owens

Michelle Montalbano

Representing Brooklyn From his roots as a librarian here at Brooklyn Public Library, to his ascent to the New York State Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, Major Owens' legacy is defined by his work as a tireless antipoverty reformer and as an advocate for education, civil rights, Americans with disabilities, workers' rights, and immigrants. As Brooklyn Public Library cautiously opens the doors to Central Library and a handful of other branches a little further this month, we are also unveiling renovations and improvements that have taken place during our…

POTW: National Library Outreach Day: On Bookmobiles and Fugitive Libraries

Michelle Montalbano

BPL_0002, 1951, Brooklyn Daily Eagle Photograph Collection, Center for Brooklyn History, Brooklyn Public Library
This week is American Library Association's National Library Week, a time to celebrate library workers and outreach efforts, and promote library use and support. Wednesday, April 7th is National Library Outreach Day or the Day Formerly Known as Bookmobile Day.  The bookmobile pictured above dates back to BPL's outreach efforts in the 1950s, a beauty known as the "Library on Wheels." The borough's first, its maiden voyage was in October 1951…

POTW: Brooklyn's First Black Elected Official: Bertram L. Baker

Michelle Montalbano

Before Shirley Chisholm or David Dinkins made history, Bertram L. Baker paved the way. If you've found yourself on Jefferson Avenue between Tompkins and Throop Avenues, you may have noticed street signs announcing his name. The first Black elected official from Brooklyn, Bertram L. Baker made his debut in the New York State Assembly in November 1948, where he would serve for the next twenty-two years. It was a milestone in Brooklyn history, but do you know his story, or what politics in the borough looked like when he was elected?  

PORT_0043,…

POTW: Take Two Shots and Call Me in the Morning: The Business of Selling Beer and Liquor

Michelle Montalbano

East Flatbush, 1980s, Jamel Shabazz Photograph Collection, SHBZ_0039, Center for Brooklyn History
There's a long history of medicinal uses of alcohol. Cooking too, for that matter. Recipe is the Latin imperative, and its original use was not for instructions on how to prepare dinner, but in prescriptions, where it was used as a command preceding a list of medicines to combine into a...cocktail. This also speaks to a more holistic understanding of food and drink as healing medicine, and chef as apothecary. But more on that in another POTW post!
"Grip, Colds…

Hidden Ephemera in the Clippings Files

Michelle Montalbano

Beyond the stanchions, in the center of the Brooklyn Collection, sit two rows of cabinets. Clocking in at 110 drawers, they contain a collection of newspaper clippings that are finally getting some much-needed attention. The clippings files include folders with obscure labels such as "Local Color" and "Brooklyn Spirit", and the subjects they cover—the aforementioned included—are cataloged in a 447-page Word document. It is also one of our best-kept secrets. Though we use the clippings files to answer many reference questions, they are so sprawling and voluminous that even a…

A (Not So) Brief History of Red Hook

Michelle Montalbano

Shipyards, dry docks, and machine shops. The place with the IKEA and the Fairway. Home of the fabled wild dogs on Beard St. and the abandoned grain elevator. Former home of the Dell's Maraschino Factory and the Snapple Factory. A Brooklyn neighborhood with a "small town" feel, cobbled streets, and limited public transit. It's possible that no other section of the borough has been so readily defined by single facets of its complex character. A waterfront community with deep maritime and industrial roots, Red Hook—like many neighborhoods in Brooklyn—is in flux. This is vividly borne out…

Sister Sister

Michelle Montalbano

I love talking to the women in my life--truly a collection of the smartest and coolest people in the world--about everything, really, but a favorite topic is what unique qualities the bonds between women possess, and how much of it is forged in the fires of a patriarchal society. Relationships between women are complex, crucial, formative things. They leave indelible impressions, make us who we are, inform how we see ourselves, how we understand the world, and who we are in it. Though I hardly need a special occasion to marvel over how amazing women are, August 4th nonetheless delivers unto…

Book Club Spotlight: Red Hook Library

Michelle Montalbano

Record Shop is home to records and books—as well as the Red Hook Library monthly book club. 
Off The Shelf highlights book discussion groups happening at our libraries across Brooklyn. All of our book discussion groups are free and everyone is welcome to participate. Red Hook Book Club partners with local business, Record Shop, to host meetings in their space.  Picture a small-town record shop. Crates upon crates of vinyl, organized into categories like "Protest Music" and "High Rollers." There's a handmade sign, almost…