Brownsville Branch, June 25, 1942. The Brownsville Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library was designed by Lord & Hewlett and completed in 1908. The Brownsville Library was one of the original independent libraries that constituted the core of the Brooklyn Public Library established in 1902. The two-story, five-bay, brick building has seen a number of renovations in its history including work completed following a fire in 1922.

Provident Loan Company, Brownsville Branch, ca. 1905. This simplified Beaux-Arts style structure was built in the first decade of the 20th century. Designed by architect, Arthur G. Stone, the building was erected to house the Jenkins Trust Bank. After that firm collapsed in the financial Panic of 1907 the branch was closed. In 1909 the building was sold to the Provident Loan Society, a non-profit loan firm that provided short-term cash loans, in direct competition to the shady loan sharks and pawn brokers of the day. The Loan Society moved out in the 1960s, after which the structure was occupied by various retail stores. At some point between the early 1980s and the 2007 the facade was reclad with marble tiles at the base and had a large concrete band installed over the tops of the large windows (some of which have also been bricked up). The Beaux-Arts ornamentation just under the roofline remain, as does the lovely tiled Mediterranean style roof.

1525 East New York Avenue, 1942.

1525 East New York Avenue, May 6, 1936. The business occupying this triangle plot is Brockman Monumental Works, a gravestone company run by members of the Yiddish-speaking, Jewish community that lived in Brownsville. Only a few blocks from this intersections, a number of Jewish cemeteries run along Jamaica Avenue including Beth-Olam, B'nal Jeshurum, and Machpelah Cemetery, where Harry Houdini is buried.