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John Vanderveer Farm image

John Vanderveer Farm
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The Vanderveer Windmill, east of Flatbush Avenue, ca. 1875. Fittingly, Kings County's foremost windmill was located on the farm of a prominent Dutch family in the Dutch-settled town of Flatbush. Likely built in the first decade of the 19th century (sources vary on the exact yet; some suggest decades earlier), farmer John C. Vanderveer's windmill was originally equipped with 26-foot "sails." Around the early 1830s, the sails were removed and the mill was converted for simple grain storage. Vanderveer's windmill played an unlikely role in the Draft Riots of 1863. Concerned that violence directed at African-Americans would spread from riots in Manhattan to Brooklyn and beyond, black residents of Flatbush took shelter in the windmill as a precautionary measure. Sixteen years later, on March 4, 1879, the windmill caught fire in the early morning hours in a blaze visible from Brooklyn City Hall (now known as Borough Hall).

Photos(107)

Rialto Theatre image

Rialto Theatre

Rialto Theater Caption: "The Fred Irwin Big Show ... in 1907 ... shows the company as it was when burlesque was clean entertainment. Among those in the photo are the famous Watson Sisters who are still in the ring and going strong. The Bennet Sisters -- Murray Livingston -- Uncle Jim Harkins (for many years with Fred Allen), Smiling Gertie DeMilt (A Brooklyn girl), Florence Bennett (Original Gibson Girl), Walsh Lynch and Co. (Huckin's Run), Nettie Mc Glocklin (McGlocklin and Evans), two more Brooklynites. And last but not least -- Brady and Mahoney, a couple of Brooklyn boys who tried to make good -- Mahoney is the guy on the left of photo looking like an undertaker (with high hat) and Brady is the schmo sitting down front opposite the late Harry Campbell (with the Dutch chin-piece and inflated stomach). Those were the happy daze." Signed, "Joe Brady, Century's Rialto Theater." The theater was located at 1085 Flatbush Avenue. It opened, presumably, around the turn of the century and it closed circa 1977.