Betsy Head Play Center ARCHITECT: John Matthews Hatton DATE: 1934-39 STYLE: Art Moderne The Betsy Head Play Center is one of a group of eleven immense outdoor swimming pools opened in the summer of 1936 in a series of grand ceremonies presided over by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and Park Commissioner Robert Moses. All of the pools were constructed largely with funding provided by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The complexes generally employed low-cost building materials, principally brick and cast concrete, and often utilized the streamlined and curvilinear forms of the popular 1930s Art Moderne style. Each had separate swimming, diving and wading pools, and a large bath house with locker room sections which doubled as gymnasiums in non-swimming months. Established in 1914, Betsy Head Park in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn was the city’s first recreation facility designed to include a public outdoor swimming pool and bath house. The pool was replaced in 1936 by the much larger existing swimming and diving pools. The 1914 bath house, a substantial twin-gabled building, was originally retained, but, following a fire in 1937, was replaced by the present bath house exceptionally designed by John Matthews Hatton and completed in 1939. The Betsy Head bath house’s sleek geometric forms stripped of most ornament has been recognized as “perhaps the most inventive and most overtly Modernist structure of this type.” The bath house is distinguished by the extensive use of recessed glass-block walls for the locker room portions of the bath house, making the structure translucent in these sections to a surprising degree. Equally striking is the rooftop observation gallery with its parabolic arches which support a broad, flat roof.

Van Dyke Houses, ca. 1950s First known as the Brownsville Houses Extension, the Van Dyke Houses were built in 1955 as an expansion of the neighborhood's first NYCHA Public Housing project. The Houses cost 18.5 million dollars to construct and consist of 22 high-rise towers that encompass over 1,600 units. Before the end of World War II, Brownsville was a largely Jewish neighborhood. According to Wendell E. Pritchett, author of "Brownsville, Brooklyn: Blacks, Jews, and the Changing Face of the Ghetto," the New York City Housing Authority was the only city agency to give the neighborhood any attention. Public housing developments went up in predominantly Black or "changing" neighborhoods, like Fort Greene, South Bronx, and Brownsville in the late 1940s. According to Pritchett: "these areas were chosen to relieve the pressure from other neighborhoods fighting black incursion." Brownsville Houses and their extension, the Van Dyke Houses, were a poster-child for what meaningful racial integration might look like in the early 1950s. The Brownsville Houses were the first and only public housing project that was not segregated. As principal, the demographics of the Houses reflected those of the area, and tenants were about 40% Jewish and 60% Black newcomers. Pritchett described this era as a moment of a "comity of interest between Jewish and Black advocacy groups." However, the optimism about what the project meant in terms of race-relations was short-lived. By 1963, "white flight," had reached Brownsville. Working-class whites of the Van Dyke Houses enjoyed upward mobility in the post-war years and left the area after reaching economic prosperity, meanwhile newer Black residents of Brownsville were not afforded the opportunities. Just seven years after the Van Dyke Houses were completed, nearly all of the Jewish population had left and 72% of its residents were Black and15% were Puerto Rican. The Houses experienced an increase in crime and violence in the 1960s. One such event ended in a "riot call," that brought dozens of officers on the scene and led to 23 arrests. Some tenants chalked up increased disorder to roaming youths who lived in Van Dyke and targeted elderly Jewish residents, though security argued the trouble came from residents who lived nearby but not in the projects. To quell problems, NYCHA assembled a team of social workers, tenant associations, and various other community groups to work on long-term solutions and "teach understanding for others." Today, the Van Dyke Houses are part of Brooklyn's Community District 16. Of this district, 20% of its population is housed in NYCHA buildings, and Van Dyke houses over 4,000 residents.

Stone Avenue Branch (former Brownsville Children’s Library), ca. 1915. Opened in 1914 as the Brownsville Children's Library, this Carnegie Library was established to relieve the overcrowding of the original Brownsville Carnegie at 61 Glenmore Street. Designed by William B. Tubby, the original plans for the library mirrored many of the other suburban style libraries: single-story, three-bay library with a center doorway. Instead the design was substantially changed, with the branch's first librarian, Clara H. Hunt, working with the planners to create a children's specific facility. It is believed to have been the first library in the world devoted exclusively to serving children.The branch was so popular among the largely Jewish immigrant population that nearby businesses were annoyed at the long lines of children waiting to go into the library who blocked their storefronts. The facade was rendered like a fairy tale castle, in a unique Jacobethan style with a heavy stone base and projecting tower with doorways (seen pictured here). The interior still includes wood paneling and a bench with carved bunny heads on the arm rests. A 2014 centennial renovation added new lighting and furniture, a "word wall" mural, and a life size chess set to the library which now serves all age groups.

Betsy Head Memorial Playground Pool, ca. 1920. The original Betsy Head swimming pool (seen here) was constructed as part of the new Betsy Head Memorial Park in 1915. Betsy Head was wealthy British immigrant who bequeathed money upon her death to the City of New York for the “purchase and improvement of grounds for the purposes of health and recreation.” The Betsy Head Memorial Park included a rest pavilion, wading pool, playground, school farm garden, bath building, swimming pool, field house, running track, and tennis courts. The variety of recreational activities made the park one of the most comprehensive and popular facilities in the city at the time, particularly for the large Jewish immigrant population of the neighborhood. In 1936 the pool was expanded into an Olympic sized facility by the WPA. The original bath house from 1915, a twin-gabled building, survived the WPA construction of the pool but would suffer a fire in 1937 and be replaced by an Art Moderne bath house in 1939. Designed by the same architect who created the Astoria Pool house, John Matthews Hatton, this structure, having been designed a few years later, is described as by architect and architectural historian Robert A.M. Stern as being,"perhaps the most inventive and most overtly Modernist structure of this type." The pool and adjacent park structures had a tumultuous few decades at the end of the 20th century. Suffering through the financial crisis of the 1970s, the pool (along with others) became run down. An early 1980s renovation rehabilitated the pool and park, but the 1980s saw vandalism and serious issues of littering, while the 1990s were marked by a series of assault complaints. In the last 20 years the pools have improved their reputations as a safe and fun summer activity.

Betsy Head Park was one of a number of smaller parks around the city developed to provide recreational areas to New Yorkers.

The first decade of the 20th century the population of Brooklyn exploded, particularly in the neighborhood of Brownsville which saw a significant influx of Jewish immigrants from the overcrowded Lower East Side. The Williamsburg Bridge opened at the end of 1903, and between 1905 and 1912 the city established four new schools in Brownsville to attempt to meet the demand of the new school-aged population. Public School 125 predated the opening of the bridge by two years but was heavily renovated in 1917 to add educational and "activity" spaces. The overcrowding never truly abated even as the demographics of the neighborhood changed by the mid-century. By the 1950s the school was predominantly African American (the nearby Brownsville Houses opened in 1948) and was over capacity by 30%. Strangely, the closing date for the school is unknown. The building long stood but was left to ruins, creating a somewhat creepy scene on Rockaway Boulevard. Scaffolding has been erected since late 2017 and work underway. As of late 2018, the work seems completed, but it is unknown what the building's use will be.