Firefighters battle a blaze at a partially completed apartment building on 91st Street between Third and Fourth Avenues, June 1929. The New York Times reported that "a great crowd watched the apartment house fire" on 91st Street. The apartment building was unoccupied when fire was first spotted by a police officer, late in the afternoon of June 2. However, high winds caused the blaze to spread: "Sparks swept on a stiff wind ignited a garage across the street and started roof fires, all trifling, in three frame dwellings in the vicinity. Embers were carried a quarter of a mile to the Army reservation at Fort Hamilton. A one-story warehouse of the Quartermaster Corps took fire and was burned." While firefighters fought the spread of flames, a 91st Street resident prevailed in gaining access to her imperiled home in order to recover certain valuables: "The police ordered the Seatti family to stay out of the house. Mrs. Robert Brandon, however, a tenant, insisted that valuable securities must be rescued. Firemen finally accompanied Mrs. Brandon to her quarters and she came out with the securities. They consisted of $10 and two strawberry shortcakes she had made for her son's birthday party."

St. John's Episcopal Church ca. 1939 9818 Fort Hamilton Parkway Church: 1890 Rectory: 1910 St. John’s Episcopal Church, originally Church of the Generals, was founded in 1834 and built by soldiers from Fort Hamilton. Numerous military leaders worshipped here, including Robert E. Lee, a vestryman from 1842 to 1844, and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, a parishioner from 1848 to 1850 after he fought in the Mexican War. This small country church has a frame structure with details painted red, white and gold, and features a rustic stone base and a slate roof.

Narrows Coffee Shop (right), June 23, 1963. In 2017, the coffee shop is still operating at the same location.

Bennet/Farrell/Feldmann House, ca. 1939. Built for Joseph S. Bennet, this house was one of three constructed in the 1840s for the Bennet family, who lived in the area since the mid 18th century. From 1890 to 1912, the house was occupied by James F. Farrell, a Tammany Hall politician and wool merchant. The structure was originally located on Shore Road but was moved to its present location when it was purchased by Francis C. Feldmann in 1913. The frame structure features a Tuscan-columned porch and green shutters. It is the oldest house in Bay Ridge and one of the oldest free-standing Greek Revival houses in Brooklyn.

Roman Catholic Church of St. Patrick and the associated parish school, Bay Ridge, Brooklyn; June 16, 1963.

Johnson House/Shell Mansion/Fontbonne Hall ca. 1914 Designed by the Road McNally Brothers, ca. 1890. Originally the home of Tom L. Johnson, a three term mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, the property is rumored to have belonged to actress Lillian Russell and “Diamond Jim” Brady in the 1920s. During Prohibition, the house was also rumored to have been used as a casino and speakeasy. Purchased by the Sisters of St. Joseph in 1937, it became Fontbonne Hall Academy, a private girls’ Catholic school.

Robert E. Lee plaque, July 13, 1958. Brooklyn does not seem the likeliest place for a Confederate plaque, but yet they did exist. According to a neighborhood legend, Robert E. Lee, while stationed at Fort Hamilton in the 1840s, planted a Norway maple in the churchyard at St. John's Episcopal Church. The parish (established in 1834) was given the nickname of "Church of the Generals" because its proximity to the fort meant many military men worshiped there. (Stonewall Jackson was supposedly baptized there.) The current church building dates to 1890s. In 1912 the rotting condition of the tree was mentioned by the rector to a group that he was speaking in front of; that group was the Daughters of the Confederacy. The group, made aware of the connection to Lee, petitioned the Parks Department to save the tree. Once it was stabilized the Daughter's installed a plague honoring Lee. In 1935 the original tree, by then dead or fallen, was replaced with a new tree and new plaque. In 2017 following the protests and violence surrounding the removal of Confederate statues in Virginia, the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island (which had closed the church in in 2015) removed the plaques.

Fort Hamilton Branch, BPL ca. 1939 9424 4th Avenue Designed by Lord & Hewlett, 1906 The Fort Hamilton Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library began as a small book collection donated by Mrs. Gelston of Shore Road in the 1890s. Thanks to a gift from steel magnate Andrew Carnegie in 1901, the library was expanded and this modest the building was constructed. Recently restored, the building is clad in red brick with horizontal black brick courses and features a dentilled cornice and limestone window sills and doorway surrounds.

Once lined with grand homes complete with stunning waterfront vistas, today Shore Road is dense with apartment buildings constructed to support a booming Bay Ridge population in the 1940s. These are a few of those lost houses (and a couple that remain)!