Blog Posts tagged as: BHS PotW

Penny-farthing

Alice

[Boy with bicycle], 1886, V1974.7.49; Adrian Vanderveer Martense collection, ARC.191; Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
This From the Vault post was originally written by Tess Colwell and published on June 14, 2017 by the Brooklyn Historical Society. To see the latest Photo of the Week entries, visit the Brooklynology blog home, or subscribe to our Center for Brooklyn History newsletter. The photo of the week depicts Eddie Tepper posing with a penny-farthing bicycle in 1886. This is…

The Life Saving Station of Manhattan Beach

Thomas, Web Applications, Web Applications

J. S. Johnston, Life Saving Station, Manhattan Beach, Coney Island, N.Y., c. 1894, v1972.1.557; Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
This week's photo takes us to the lost eastern end of Manhattan Beach.Manhattan Beach, on the eastern end of Coney Island, was the brainchild of robber baron Austin Corbin. In the 1870s, he bought 500 acres here and erected two luxury resort hotels for vacationing New Yorkers (not all New Yorkers, however, as Corbin was a notorious anti-semite who barred Jews from the resort). He also built the New York and Manhattan Beach…

Generations of New Years

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Larry Racioppo, New Year's Day dinner toast, 6th Avenue, 1977, RCPO_0005; Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
Family history, memory, and tradition abound in the work of Larry Racioppo, including this evocative and joyful image of a family New Year's Day toast.
Photographer Larry Racioppo grew up in a large Italian-American family in Brooklyn, and his family has always been well-represented in his work. We hold a collection documenting his work and career, and many of the photographs from the collection are available on…

When Coal Was King

Thomas, Web Applications, Web Applications

Office of Z. O. Nelson & SonA corner of our office, Walter H. Nelson, circa 1887, v1972.1.1222; Early Brooklyn and Long Island photograph collection, ARC.201; Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History
In 1917, the best Christmas gift one could receive was a lump of coal. A coal shortage was sweeping the borough and coal reserves were dangerously low. Massive barges, laden with coal mined in the Northeast, idled in waterways along the Brooklyn shoreline. An impenetrable mile-wide ice field prevented their delivery. During the nineteenth to mid-twentieth century…

A Few of Our Favorite Things: Holiday Photos from the Collections

Natiba

This year has proven to be a year like no other, full of ups and downs, and a longing from most for better and brighter days. Despite the challenges, we at the Center for Brooklyn History are grateful for what we've been able to achieve this year. A historic partnership between two long standing, and significant institutions, and with it, the opportunity to serve our community and our borough, by expanding access to a singular collection in a single space, free and open to all. For this edition of Photo of the Week, we'd like to share our personal picks from our combined collections, that…

Before the Roller Disco

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Ralph Irving Lloyd, Meserole House, 1000 Lorimer St., c. 1905, lantern slide, V1981.15.124; Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
This week’s photograph of Adrian and Mary Meserole’s house on Lorimer Street takes us to the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn.  Adrian Meserole’s family had once owned much of present-day Greenpoint. His ancestor Jean Meserole and his wife were Huguenots—Protestants in Catholic-controlled France—who fled with their young son first to Amsterdam and then to New Amsterdam, present-day New York City, in 1663, becoming one of…

The 1960 Plane Crash That Rocked Park Slope

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Close-up of portion of United Airlines airplane after crash at Seventh Avenue and Sterling Place, 1960.Irving I. Herzberg photograph collection.
On December 16, 1960 a United Airlines DC-8 and a TWA Super Constellation collided in midair above New York City. The TWA plane crashed on the coast of Staten Island, killing all 44 passengers and crew. The United airliner veered to the East, crashing into the densely populated neighborhood of Park Slope, right at the intersection of 7th Avenue and Sterling Place. The plane left a large trench running down Sterling Place and set fire…

Vanderveer Park: When Flatbush Was a Suburb

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Rustic Vanderveer Park sign at Flatbush Avenue and Avenue F, with a few houses in the background and a one-horse shay, 1894. NEIG_0905, Brooklyn Daily Eagle photographs, Center for Brooklyn History.
  The last quarter of the nineteenth century brought rapid changes to many parts of Brooklyn, not least to the town of Flatbush and its environs. Flatbush (from the Dutch vlacke bos, flat forest or wooded plain) was one of the original 6 towns making up the city of Brooklyn, and became part of that city in 1894. Four years later Brooklyn would become part of the…

The Curious Origins of Thanksgiving

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Providing for others, 1952, SCHL1347; Brooklyn Daily Eagle Photo Collection, Center for Brooklyn History
Thanksgiving is typically thought of as a day where we watch a parade of large floating creatures, eat ourselves silly and then gather around the television again to enjoy grown men chasing each other in pursuit of a ball. But not too many people know its strange history. Prior to Thanksgiving becoming a national holiday, different versions of it were celebrated at different times throughout the year. One aspect of what we think of today as Thanksgiving has always been…

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…

A Brooklyn Block's Hidden History

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Classon Avenue showing entrance to Union PlacePhotograph album; Bommer family collection, 1992.033, Box A0142; Center for Brooklyn History.
  This week we explore photographs of a Clinton Hill block from the Bommer family collection. The easternmost end of Pratt Institute’s Clinton Hill campus gives little indication that it was once a densely-built city block, but it was. Bounded by Classon, Dekalb, and Willoughby Avenues, and formerly by Emerson Place to the west, the block was unusually wide. In the 1870s, a wealthy, Spanish-born merchant-developer named…

This Business of Voting…

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Voting machine instructionWoman giving voters instruction in the use of a voting machine in lobby of A.I. Namm's department store. Photographs from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, CLUB_0078; Center for Brooklyn History, Brooklyn Public Library.
Brooklynites have seen many changes in voting patterns, locations and technology through the years.In the past, the voting process was more decentralized than it is today and took place in a dizzying array of locations. Many of these are still familiar to us as polling places. A list in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1920 indicates a very large…

Is It Un-American for Mothers to Work?

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SWEL_0298"We want our nursery centers." Brooklyn Eagle, March 9 1947. Photographs from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, SWEL_0298; Center for Brooklyn History, Brooklyn Public Library.
In the wake of WWII, Brooklyn's working mothers fought to continue government-funded childcare.Women in Brooklyn have been leaders of social change on every conceivable political front, from the fight for racial justice and the right to vote, to equality around labor and reproductive rights. Women have also been at the forefront of protest efforts against the Vietnam War and for environmental justice.…

Designing the Library of the Future

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2015.008.1Long Island Historical Society, Library Floor Plan, circa 1878; 128 Pierrepont Street building architectural drawings, ARC.302; Center for Brooklyn History, Brooklyn Public Library.
This week we look back at a building design contest that literally shaped our library space.The Long Island Historical Society (the former name of Brooklyn Historical Society which recently became the Center for Brooklyn History) held a building design contest from December 1877 to February 1878 after raising approximately 93,000 dollars to construct a new building at the corner of…

Celebrating the Next Million Possibilities!

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Button, 1997; M1999.17.1, Center for Brooklyn History
In 1997, Brooklyn Public Library celebrated its 100-year anniversary serving local readers, the first free public library in Brooklyn having opened in 1897 inside Public School 3, in the neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant. This button is one example of our extensive button collection. In the 1980s and 1990s there was a substantive push to collect more community ephemera, and pin-back buttons such as this one are excellent examples of the importance of ephemeral social and cultural history. Last week we announced that…

Home Sweet Brooklyn

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[Candy Dept., A. I. Namm & Son Department Store], 1898, V1972.1.749 ; Early Brooklyn and Long Island photograph collection, ARC.201; Brooklyn Historical Society.
Halloween is still four weeks away, but store shelves are already stocked with candy for eager trick-or-treaters. While today most of the candy is manufactured outside of New York, a hundred years ago Brooklyn had a thriving candy industry. In the mid nineteenth and early twentieth century, Brooklyn was one of the largest confectionery and chocolate manufacturing centers in the United States. By 1908, local…

Fall(ing) into an Odd Brooklyn Autumn

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The "Camperdown elm," circa 1950; Brooklyn photograph and illustration collection (V1974.5.3405), Brooklyn Historical Society
With temperatures falling, the beloved (or controversial) smell of pumpkin spice in the air, and the autumnal equinox passed on Tuesday, fall has officially arrived! While the “vehicular-ly” blessed may head upstate or into New England for their annual “leaf peeping” pilgrimages, Brooklynites looking for a taste of fall foliage need only head to Prospect Park. Home to tens of thousands of trees, the one that, perhaps, best embodies our mood in 2020…

The Migration of Mexican Cuisine

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Old Mexico Restaurant[Old Mexico Restaurant, 115 Montague Street, Brooklyn Heights.], 1959, V1974.4.295; John D. Morrell photographs, Brooklyn Historical Society.
Happy Hispanic Heritage Month! This month-long observance encourages Americans to recognize and celebrate the histories, cultures, and contributions of communities who trace their heritage to Spanish-speaking populations from Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America, as well as Spain itself.Hispanic Heritage Month begins every year on September 15 and extends through October 15. Its unique timeframe…

Sorting Mail at the Post Office

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Men sorting mail at Vanderveer Post Office, circa 1925, V1973.5.630; Brooklyn photograph and illustration collection (ARC.202); Brooklyn Historical Society.
Happy (recent) Labor Day! This photograph of workers sorting mail was taken at the Vanderveer Post Office, located on Nostrand Ave near Avenue I.The photo depicts the process of manual mail sorting, from the workers standing at the large wooden tables, to those putting mail onto shelves and into slots. Over time, the process of sorting mail has become increasing mechanized, and as a result, the workforce of the post office…

Mapping New York City's Waterways

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A draught of New York from the Hook to New York Town: by Mark Tiddeman [1773-1780]; NYC-[177-?].Fl.RA; Brooklyn Historical Society.
This week’s map is a colorful nautical chart, where the numbers in the water indicate soundings (measurements of the depth of the water) in fathoms (one fathom equals six feet). The map is oriented with north to the right and shows the western end of Long Island, including four of Brooklyn’s original six towns. Can you spot them? A draught of New York from the Hook to New York Town was originally created around 1730 by British navigator and…