Fascinating Brooklyn stories from our local history archivists.
TODAY: Reflections on Community Development
IMAGINE CONEY
The Municipal Art Society will be presenting exciting new ideas for the planned redevelopment of Coney Island at BAM this coming Monday, November 17, 2008 at 6:30 - 8:30pm.
My fantasy for the future of Coney Island is that they reconstruct the Elephant Hotel which burnt down in 1896. There have been other elephant buildings but none of them compare to this pleasantly debaucherous Victorian beast standing over the boardwalk:
Same Old Purpose, Young New Faces
During a Brooklyn Connections class visit, students from Teachers Prep asked to look at historic images from their neighborhood, Brownsville. Pulling out this 1953 photograph from the Brooklyn Eagle, I hoped that a picture of young people would help students draw connections to their own lives. I had no idea how close those connections would be: "Hey! I know this place." "Look! It's the Rec Center!" "Isn't that the BRC??" "We hang out there all the time!" The Brownsville Boys Club was founded by a group of…
Ephemeral Brooklyn
Leaves underfoot and the closing of Astroland make one think of fleeting things. There are people who try to fix impermanent experience--among them, the the people who save everything. Ephemera collectors can be seen all around you if you know how to spot them. They subtly stuff a ticket stub into a pocket for safekeeping. They keep a free postcard from a place they want to remember. They keep a “Good for one day only!” pass from the park and look at it again with a smile. Maybe it will end up in a scrapbook, or perhaps it will…
Coney Island Maybe
Coney Island Maybe is a new show opening at The Puffin Room this Sunday, November 9th, and one of our Interpreting Brooklyn artists, Michael Schwartz, will be reading some of his work at 4pm - looks good! From Michael: I'll be presenting my new story "Hey Jerry!", and my new poem "The Freak", and if time permits, I'll also present my new poem "The Fat Laughing Lady", and if time gets REALLY permissive, I'll also do my new poem "The Shooting Gallery". Lots of Coney Island paintings and photos will be hanging on the walls, and on the same day I'm doing this reading, Charles Denson and the…
Lioness
Last night, on Channel Thirteen, I saw a documentary called Lioness about women Iraq war veterans. I was totally turned off by the title until I learned that "Lioness" is actually the Army term they use in Iraq and Afghanistan when they need units of women for particular tasks like body searching Muslim women, for example. The main point of the film is that in the current wars, military women are serving in combat situations even though Congressional law prohibits women from combat - which means that women are serving in combat but not being trained for combat duty, nor are they being…
Brooklyn Veterans History Project Panel Discussion
Brooklyn Public Library staff have been collecting oral histories from our borough's veterans. Join us in the Brooklyn Collection for a panel discussion with some of the participants as they recount stories and events that span different generations and conflicts, but are connected by a shared Brooklyn identity. The Veterans History Project is a collaboration between the Library of Congress, Channel 13 and numerous other institutions. Date and Time: Wednesday November 12, 2008 at 7:00pm. Location: Brooklyn Collection, Central Library, Grand Army Plaza
BHS Gossip here, your one and only source into the non-historical activities at the Brooklyn Historical Society.
Rumor is there was a filming for the holiday episode of Gossip Girl in our humdrum facilities the other day. No, the staff was not lingering in the tile lobby just because Lily, Rufus, and Bart were hanging out in between shoots. Nor were their faces and cameras mashed up against the library's second and third floor windows to catch a glimpse. However, sometime around 10am, an audible scream emanating from 20 St. Ann's students across the street revealed this borough's true feelings for the show that glorifies DUMBO while calling it Williamsburg and secretly shoots in Brooklyn…
Studs Terkel Dies at 96
Oral historian, radio charmer, and Pulitzer prize-winning author Studs Terkel passed away on Halloween at the age of 96. I got a chance to talk to Studs Terkel in 2005 when he was a guest on a radio show I was helping to produce. He was so patient, optimistic, funny, and sweet it's no wonder people found him easy to talk to.
New York Times Obituary
Chicago Tribune Obituary
So what do you have here?
"Here" being the Brooklyn Collection, this frequently asked question could take hours to answer. The Brooklyn Collection has an extensive and varied collection of books, photographs, maps, manuscripts, ephemera, objects, and much more about Brooklyn history from its earliest days to the present. Providing access to these collections is one of our main goals, along with preserving the materials for future researchers. Our finding aids, lists, and card catalog are the key to discovering the secrets within the Brooklyn Collection. While a few of our finding…
1835 in an envelope
Nine straight-edged pieces of colored paper lay stuffed into an envelope in the bottom drawer of a map case until, one day, a curious Brooklyn Collection librarian took them out and pieced them together. In colors as bright as they day they were painted, Daniel Haskel’s Map of the City of Brooklyn from 1835 took back the shape it had lost after tearing along all of its folds at some unknown time in the past. At just 11 by 14 inches it was once a handy pocket map that showed downtown Manhattan as well as Williamsburgh and the newly chartered City of Brooklyn. The…
In Praise of Blue
For those of us used to seeing photographs in black and white, sepia or color, the cyanotype, or blueprint, comes as a surprise. The result of a printing process discovered by Sir John Herschel in 1842, cyanotypes provide a simple developing process using two chemicals in a photosensitive solution that can be applied to paper or other material. A positive image can be produced by exposing the material to sunlight. When the paper is flushed with water after exposure, the Prussian blue salts remain in the paper giving the print its intense blue color. Although by far the bulk…
Where Do I Go to Vote?
My grandmother worked the polls for every election in her small town until she was physically unable to. I remember her going "off to the polls" when I was little and not really understanding what that meant but gathering that it was an exciting thing to be doing. Election Day still feels like a holiday to me (more people would turn out to vote if it were!) so, I'm gearing up. Where I grew up in Massachusetts, everyone always went to the elementary school cafeteria to vote and if you forgot where to go you could ask anyone in town and they'd tell you - it's harder here in Brooklyn, fourth…
Fiesta Time!
I don’t know about you all, but it’s been a crazy couple of weeks (election antics, economic meltdowns…). I’m looking forward to great music by OP! and all the other fun to be had this Thursday night at BHS’ Fall Fiesta. This year ticket proceeds will go to support Education programs at BHS. Rumor has it that the guests to the Fiesta will get spaldeens in their gift bags (spaldeens are those red bouncy balls that you use to play handball or streetball with), which I'm thinking can also double as a fantastic stress-reliever when the fiesta-ing is over.
Back on the Block
Check out this video on the New York Times website where a reporter returns to her Brooklyn neighborhood after 20 years: Back on the Block
Cinema of the Vietnam War
Tomorrow at 6:30pm we'll be screening Thanh's War, the fourth in the series Cinema of the Vietnam War we've been co-hosting with Brooklyn For Peace. Moss Roberts, Professor of East Asian Studies at NYU will be leading the discussion following the film. These film discussions have been really great. At the last one, Brooklynite and former Congressmember Elizabeth Holtzman talked about Constitutional war-making powers and how things haven't been the same since Nixon's secret bombing of Cambodia.
Pollution Testimonies
I've lived in Greenpoint for three years now, I get most of my food from an organic farm and I'm generally health conscious all around - yet somehow I manage to conspicuously Not Worry about living above the largest oil spill on the planet which still oozes on the underground water table at Newtown Creek. A plume of oil - 17 million gallons, bigger than the famous Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska - was discovered in 1978 and while cleanup began in 1990, it's been slow and underfunded and not much has improved. "Are you worried about health problems caused by the pollution in your neighborhood?" A…
BHS on NY1
Check out the clip here.
It's a piece about the upcoming tours of the Brooklyn Navy Yard that BHS is organizing with BNY and the Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment.
Barry Lewis describes BHS
Open House New York podcasts: "Architectural Historian Barry Lewis describes the Brooklyn Historical Society and its context within the architecture of Brooklyn Heights. Learn how the Queen Anne elements of the Historical Society set it apart from the neighborhood’s brownstones." Listen here: Barry Lewis on BHS Check out the other podcasts - there's so much good stuff happening for Open House New York Weekend!
Pete Hamill's Brooklyn Revisited
New York magazine's 40th Anniversary issue has an article by Pete Hamill, who grew up in Park Slope. And here's an article he wrote about Brooklyn for the same magazine in 1969. Coincidently, our Park Slope Neighborhood and Architectural History Guide launches this Thursday. The guide includes two Walking Tours of Park Slope and accompanying audio tracks which can be downloaded from our website or through the Brooklyn Historical Society's podcast on iTunes. Here's one track from the audio tour where Pete Hamill's brothers John and Denis Hamill talk about the street gangs in Park Slope in the…
Red Hook Film Festival
A film from our exhibit Counter/Culture, curated by James and Karla Murray, is included in this festival!
Sir, No Sir
Last Thursday, we screened Sir, No Sir, the second film in the Cinema of the Vietnam War series we are co-presenting with Brooklyn For Peace. It's an award-winning documentary about anti-war activism within the military, including underground GI newspapers, the coffeehouse movement, and some high-profile cases of resistance such as Dr. Howard Levy's. We were lucky to have Dr. Levy himself leading a discussion following the film. A dermotologist, Dr. Levy was drafted in 1965 and assigned to instruct Green Berets in some simple medicine that they could use in Vietnam to "win hearts and minds…
90 Years of the Brooklyn Chamber
Congratulations to the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce for 90 years of supporting Brooklyn businesses and local economic development! BHS currently has an installation of images and archives in our Tile Lobby commemorating the Chamber's years of service to the Borough.
Our Library
From The New York Sun today: "The cast-iron columns in the first-floor auditorium support the library floor, while iron trusses in the attic support the library ceiling, the attic floor, and the roof. The loftiness of the space and its exquisite woodwork take your breath away. The gorgeous carved-wood fluted columns, with Corinthian capitals, encase iron columns that support the galleries that encircle the room. It is everything a library should be." Read more here
Flatbush Neighborhood History Guide
Check out this review in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
Recent Photographic Finds
As told to me by our Library Assistant Extraordinaire, Sarah Steele: This week I began an inventory of four or five strangely organized boxes of Long Island photographs and images. Despite the outdated accession numbers and unknown provenance, a lot of really excellent things have been turning up. My favorite so far is the collection of approximately 40 original photographs from the late 19th century of maritime life on Long Island. Here is the first item from what I hope will become our Long Island Whaling Collection: Amagansett, L.I. Whale taken off Amagansett, Feb. 23, 1907 [now in…
Floyd DeSilva
Floyd DeSilva, owner of DeSilva South Brooklyn Liquors on 5th Avenue in Park Slope, passed away on August 7, 2008. Corie Trancho-Robie interviewed Mr. DeSilva in July for the Park Slope neighborhood guide we are working on, and clips from this interview will be made part of the audio tour (due out in October). I learned of Mr. DeSilva's passing when I called the store to get his approval for the clip we'd like to use. I'm so glad we were able to record Mr. DeSilva's memories of the neighborhood. Born in Trinidad, Mr. DeSilva came to New York as a teenager. He saved up the money to buy his…
Our Podcast
Updated April 2016: You can find out about Brooklyn Historical Society's podcast Flatbush + Main on the web at www.brooklynhistory.org/flatbush-main and via iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud, and most major podcast applications.
Eleven Dreams in Red Hook
Wow, this is really neat.
Betsey Biggs, an artist and composer, has created audio tours of Red Hook and she's hosting them every Saturday in September. Check out Eleven Dreams in Red Hook.
Save Coney Island
Charlie Denson from the Coney Island History Project gave a talk at the Municipal Arts Society last night. Spirits were low three days after the closing of Astroland but some folks are organizing a letter-writing campaign, among other things, to Save Coney Island and insure that redevelopment plans are kept to a human scale and include an amusement district. The conversation at the Municipal Arts Center will continue next Wednesday, September 17 at 6:30pm when Lynn Kelly, president of the Coney Island Development Corporation and Carol Hall Albert, owner of Astroland and others will discuss…
John Wayne
Last night, BHS screened John Wayne's The Green Berets (1968), the first film in the series Cinema of the Vietnam War that we are co-hosting with Brooklyn For Peace. What a cultural artifact! One of the Vietnam veterans in the audience said it was like a 2.5 hour long recruitment movie, and that's a good description. Marilyn Young, author of The Vietnam Wars who lead a discussion with the audience, noted that John Wayne actually got permission from President Johnson to make the film on a military base in Georgia. They were given access to all kinds of military equipment - and that was…
Recent Photographic Find
I have a mystery box. This mystery box is filled with things that come out of drawers, unlabeled boxes, nooks and crannies, seemingly nowhere. Occasionally, I pluck something out of this mystery box and decide what it is, what to do with it, where it came from, and to whom I should show it. This plucking tends to occur on Saturday mornings when the library is scheduled to open in the afternoon. On one such Saturday, I came upon this inconspicuous scrapbook. From the outside, it looks like something haphazardly put together, probably never completed, of ordinary family snapshots. Even…
Park Slope Food Coop
Seventeen seconds of sound from the Park Slope Food Coop, recorded today around 11:30am. Click here to listen: Park Slope Food Coop Today
Lesbian Herstory Archives
Today took me to the Lesbian Herstory Archives in Park Slope to interview one of their volunteer staff for our forthcoming Park Slope Neighborhood Guide's audio component. They have over 2,000 tapes of oral history in their collection that they are slowly digitizing. It's a warm, welcoming, and inspiring place.
We're making Connections
When the Brooklyn Collection is closed to the public, we staff members go about our daily business enjoying a solitude that isn’t found in many areas of Central Library. That is until a class of 8th graders pours into our Reserve Room. Thanks to a generous grant from the New York Life Foundation, the Brooklyn Collection is moving into the second year of the successful education program Brooklyn Connections. Brooklyn Connections helps 8th grade students complete the required Social Studies Exit Project by…
Speaking of Coney Island...
Here's an a little clip from an oral history interview from our collection (circa 1987) with Lillian Santangello, former owner of the Coney Island Wax Museum. The interviewer, Benjamin Filene, asks Lillian about a bunch of things from the Wax Museum that became part of the BHS' collection, including a wax Nat King Cole head! Click on the link below to listen: Six Wax Mystery Heads
Coney Island Hall of Fame
Found in Stacks: Rare Art Deco Brooklyn Magazine
While inventorying serial publications to be catalogued into our online catalog, I came across a magazine from the 1920's with art deco covers called The Brooklynite. While the art deco covers were typical for magazine art during that time period, what makes this find interesting is the rarity - I went to NYPL's Humanities and Social Sciences library, and with a reference librarian there, searched every known periodical index in existence but was not able to find reference to the Brooklynite we have. I say "The Brooklynite we have" because there seems to be a couple of other magazines with…
Exhibit Opening Sept 10 - Counter/Culture: The Disappearing Face of Brooklyn's Storefronts
I want to let everyone know about a new community-curated exhibit in our Public Perspectives series that will open at BHS on Wednesday, September 10, 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. Counter/Culture: The Disappearing Face of Brooklyn's Storefronts features color photographs by James and Karla Murray of mom and pop shops all over Brooklyn. Keeping it old school, the photos were taken with film. There are photos of single storefronts, and then they took the film and created digitally-edited panoramas of stretches of an entire block of storefronts. In addition to the photographs, there is audio and video of…
Cataloguing Our Oral History Collection
This summer, with the help of two wonderful interns Naomi (Brooklyn College) and Amna (Stuyvesant High School), we have been cataloguing our oral history collection so soon visitors can search through and listen to our oral history interviews right in the library.
Welcome!
The Brooklyn Historical Society began our Oral History Program in 2006 to collect important audio documents: primary sources about people, ideas, and events that make up the history of 21st century Brooklyn. In December 2007, we opened our Oral History Gallery with the exhibit In Our Own Words: Portraits of Brooklyn's Vietnam Veterans. Come visit! We're located in Brooklyn Heights, an historic landmarked district, in a building designed by architect George B. Post and completed in 1881. We're down the street from Borough Hall (and the Borough Hall Farmers' Market on Tuesdays and Thursdays)…