Union Church of Bay Ridge, June 23, 1963. The Union Church of Bay Ridge was established in 1918, following the merger of two Ridge Boulevard Churches, the Bay Ridge Reformed Church (which occupied the Union Church’s current site) and Bay Ridge United Presbyterian. The current church was completed in 1931.

The Gingerbread House, ca. 1939 The house that would become widely became known as "The Gingerbread House" was built in the early 1900s and designed by architect J. Sarsfield Kennedy. The home's distinctive Arts and Crafts style set it apart from many of the surrounding estates. Kennedy had designed the nearby boathouse of the prestigious Crescent Club. Perhaps it was the architect's design of that building that convinced Howard E. Jones, the wealthy president of the shipping firm James Ewell and Co, to commission him for a private home. Work on the Gingerbread House began in 1917. The house that sprung forth on the ample grounds purchased by Jones was made of natural material, its uncut stone and thatched roof evoking a fairy tale home in a European forest rather than a Bay Ridge estate. However, this rambling style wasn't the silly whim of the architect; the organic design is nuanced, adding order and subtle charm throughout the building. The Gingerbread House remains the most architecturally distinctive building in Bay Ridge.

"Shore Road, west side, opposite 83rd Street, showing the Crescent Athletic Club's boat-house, which was destroyed by fire in April 1933. This organization has its origin in a football club, organized in 1884 by William H. Ford, and was on leased grounds located at the corner of 9th Ave and 9th Street, Brooklyn. The club which was incorporated in Feb. 1888, took over in the spring of 1889 the land and boat-house of the Nereid Boat Club. In the same year they purchased from the Van Brunt and Bergen estates of Bay Ridge a tract of land extending from 83rd to 85th Streets, and from Shore Road to Colonial Road. On Decoration Day 1892, the club house which cost $80,000 was opened to the members, 1922."

View of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge from 77th Street and Ridge Boulevard, Bay Ridge, June 23, 1963.

Over the years, as I’ve photographed the city, I’ve amassed a collection of loose typologies—those omnipresent features like storefront churches, split houses, and dead ends that create a throughline across the different neighborhoods and boroughs of New York. One of the first subjects I began to document somewhat systematically was handball walls. These large concrete monoliths, pockmarked, peeling, and painted-over slabs, preside over playgrounds like oversized Rorschach tests. A standard wall is 16’ by 20’, mirroring the proportions of the 8x10 camera I was working with. They are everywhere.