This photo shows the Hunterfly Road Houses in 1925, the last remaining structures of the Weeksville community, part of the present-day Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. Weeksville was founded in 1838, and named after James Weeks, a former slave from Virginia, who was an early investor and resident of the community. It quickly became a thriving community of black landowners, reaching 521 residents in 1855. Land ownership was particularly important to black New Yorkers because at the time, New York State’s constitution required men of color to own $250 worth of property to be able to vote. No property requirements existed for white New Yorkers

149 Buffalo Avenue, 1936 The building at left is the only structure still standing on this block. The rest of the buildings have been demolished but, as of yet, not replaced.

Church of God in Christ, 1941. The Church of God in Christ on the Hill is a Holiness-Pentecostal congregation that purchased a church building at 137 Buffalo Avenue in 1936. A small group in the 1920s, by the early 1930s the congregation was forced to move from storefront to storefront as they grew, before finally settling in a proper church building. (It is unclear as to when the church was constructed and if any other communities occupied it previously.) Pentecostal churches boomed and multiplied in Brooklyn in the 1950s, particularly in the newer African American communities in Bedford Stuyvesant. This church had a robust program that included a gospel choir, a young person's society, and a home and foreign mission. Today the same congregation that occupied the church in 1936 remains.

St. Mary’s Hospital, original buildings, ca. 1905. The Catholic hospital was completed in 1892 in the Weeksville section of Crown Heights, Brooklyn. The above photo comes from a 1905 volume entitled "Views of Brooklyn." The caption notes: "the orthopedic department in particular has won fame for its extraordinary success in the application of mechanical remedies." The original buildings were replaced in 1979. When St. Mary's closed in 2005, it was the last remaining Catholic hospital in Brooklyn.

The Great Depression changed the everyday fabric of New Yorkers' lives and the composition of the city. These images, from the collections of our partners, bring the depression and its trials to life.

St. John's Park, 1953. The name of the park references the asylum that used to sit nearby, St. John's Asylum for Boys. The refuge was opened almost a century earlier by the Catholic church to provide aid for disadvantaged children, all of Irish descent. The asylum was relocated to Long Island in 1948. The city gained possession of the land the buildings occupied to construct the Albany Houses, a NYCHA project. As part of Robert Moses' plan as Parks' commissioner, the housing development was not complete without a park and recreational center. The rec center was completed in 1956 with a swimming pool, exercise rooms, gymnasium, and boxing facilities. The park boasted three softball fields, a comfort station, basketball and handball courts. At the opening ceremony, Moses claimed: "The opening of this building will enable the Department of Parks to establish a well-rounded recreation program in the heavily populated Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn where such a program is urgently needed.” The Recreation Center was renovated in 1987 and is still open today.

Public School, 1929. P.S. 167 was built circa 1900. It was called the Parkside School for much of its history. Following the Crown Heights Riots of 1991, P.S. 167 was the location of an important meeting between the Mayor, police, and the African American and Jewish communities affected by the violence.

"View of buildings on Hunterfly Road - now 1698 - 1708 Bergen Street, 1922." The Hunterfly Road Houses date from 1840-1880, and were originally part of the African American community of Weeksville. Founded in 1838 by James Weeks, a formerly enslaved person from Virginia and NYC longshoreman, Weeksville was a thriving Black community by the 1850s. It functioned as any community would, with churches, schools, businesses, a newspaper, and a cemetery. By the 1880s the continued and rapid development of Brooklyn signaled the beginning of the end for Weeksville. The extension of the street grid, the construction of municipal infrastructure, and the demolition and replacement of wood-frame buildings for masonry structures greatly diminished the size and vibrancy of the community. By the middle of the 20th century, the small area of Weeksville that remained was nearly entirely obscured by the streetscape of the surrounding neighborhood. In the late 1960s a historian working on a project at Pratt came across references to the community. With a pilot friend he took to the sky to see what remained. They found, within the street grid, a surviving section of Hunterfly Road and the wood-frame homes. Threatened with imminent redevelopment, the community rallied to save this historic location. Since then a series of community organizations have tirelessly worked for the preservation, restoration, and interpretation of Weeksville.

Park Place east from Utica Avenue, 1944.

"Eastern Parkway, at the N. W. corner of Utica Avenue, showing the East New York Savings Bank, 1940."

Public School 210, 1931.

Four wooden houses remain along the old Hunterfly Road, within the boundaries of what was once Weeksville, a nineteenth-century free black community that is now known as Bedford-Stuyvesant. The road, documented as early as 1622, was an avenue of communication under British rule; it fell into disuse with the installation of the grid system in 1838. Each building was designated as an Individual Landmark on August 18, 1970. The Weeksville Heritage Center is a historic site and cultural center that uses education, arts and a social justice lens to preserve, document and inspire engagement with the history of Weeksville.

In October 1929, the prosperous Roaring Twenties crashed to an end. In the 1920s the Stock Market boomed. Shares in companies soared and millions of ordinary Americans invested their life savings, in the hopes of turning a profit. Some people even began taking out loans in order to invest in the Stock Market. While things looked good on the surface, the 1920s were plagued by deeper economic issues. Industrial production declined, unemployment crept upwards, and the agricultural sector struggled. The Stock Market bubble popped on what became known as "Black Tuesday." The sudden drop in value of stocks led to billions of dollars in lost revenue. Many banks shuttered as a result. This fueled panic among Americans who rushed to the banks to withdraw their lifesavings. Before the Great Depression, people's money in the bank was not insured. If the bank closed, people lost all of their savings! So many people went to the banks looking for their money and many banks simply did not have enough cash on hand to meet the demand. In a chain reaction of events, people lost their jobs, life's savings, and homes. From 1929 throughout the 1930s, the Great Depression wrecked havoc on the lives of Americans, and New Yorkers in particular. It would take the immense industrial demand of WWII and a dramatic increase in government regulation and spending to really get the United States out of this economic rut. During this decade of depression, Americans' lives transformed dramatically. New York Social Studies Scope and Sequence Standards 8.5b,c, & 11.7c. For Teachers: Great Depression Lesson Plan

"Eastern Parkway at the N.W. corner of Utica Avenue, showing the East New York Savings Bank, 1933. The crowd in front of the bank is worried about their savings. The reason the bank is closed is because of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's order closing all banks in the early part of 1933. The bank could not be reopened until declared solvent by the Federal and State Bank Examiners." (text from the original photograph)