5th Avenue - Berkeley Place, 1929. This corner building was one of the hundreds of James Butler' grocery stores opened by Irish immigrant Butler. The original store opened in 1882 in Manhattan with more stores added each year. In 1905, over a four month period, he opened 40 stores. Though this photograph is black and white, you should imagine that the storefront is green, as ALL of the James Butler stores were painted the same dark green. A 1910 advertisement of the store enticed with quip, "Thrift is the highway to prosperity and happiness, and every one of the James Butler groceries is an entrance to this pleasant road." By 1922 James Butler would have 577 stores open in New York, New Jersey and Long Island, and just before the business went into bankruptcy in 1935, there were more than one thousand. Butler himself died in 1934, perhaps precipitating the bankruptcy of the following year.

How high the hydrant Caption: "How high the hydrant--Either they're building fire plugs higher these days, or ... well, at any rate, 18-month-old Anthony Castaldo of 272 3d Ave. isn't worrying about much of anything except how to beat the heat. Scene at President Street and 3d Avenue shows he found the answer. Forecast for today is fair with the high near 80 degrees--Eagle photo by Senko"; he holds a small can in front of the water gushing from the fire hydrant, two girls look on, behind him on left, and a black car is parked in right background.

St. Augustine, ca. 1890. When established in 1870, St. Augustine of Hippo was the 26th Catholic Church in the City of Brooklyn. The first service was held in a rented house at house at 43 Prospect Place, and 18 members were in attendance. The community's first church was dedicated March 19, 1871. In 1888 the original church property was sold to the Union Elevated Railway Company (due to plans for an elevated line along Fifth Avenue) and the cornerstone was laid for a new church on Sixth Avenue and Sterling Place. The design of the church was completed through an architectural contest. The applicants were given the freedom to depart from more traditional styles and to "introduce as much novelty as good taste allowed." Though no prize was offered for the contest, the massive $300,000 budget was considered highly motivating. The winning architects were the Parfitt Brothers who designed a transitional English-Gothic style church with a 26-foot-square tower. It was described upon completion in 1892 as "Brooklyn's finest church" by the New York Times.

In 2013 the Brooklyn Collection acquired several boxes of Brooklyn Dodgers memorabilia from Al Todres, a lifelong collector. Todres certainly wasn’t the only one actively collecting Brooklyn Dodgers material nearly 60 years after the team was transferred to Los Angeles. Why does a baseball team that left Brooklyn in the middle of the last century still inspire so much loyalty and curiosity? Every collector has a different answer, and it certainly goes beyond statistics and player performance. The team that would become the Dodgers played in Eastern Park when Brooklyn was still an independent city, through a depression and two world wars. The story of the Dodgers runs parallel to the development of modern Brooklyn, but it wasn’t always an easy story.

ST. AUGUSTINE’S ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH & RECTORY, BROOKLYN Address: 116-130 6th Avenue, Brooklyn Architect: Parfitt Brothers Constructed: 1888 The Gothic Revival, High Victorian style church is known as "the Cathedral of Park Slope. When it opened,The Brooklyn Daily Eagle declared St. Augustine Church “one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture in the country,” and later, “one of Brooklyn’s most picturesque church.” The New York Times headline the day after the dedication declared St. Augustine: “Brooklyn’s Finest Church.” The American Institute of Architects Guide to New York City (Harcourt Brace Publishing, 1988) says of the church: It was called “Brooklyn’s finest church” by the New York Times on opening day. The church’s architectural significance placed it as one of the first slew of properties heard by the then-new Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1966. The Diocese of Brooklyn opposed any landmark designation and the church remains calendared ever since. St. Augustine’s is today a landmark of Brooklyn and Park Slope in all except official designation. LPC Statement of Significance: St. Augustine's Roman Catholic Church and Rectory are an acclaimed pair of ecclesiastical buildings, located in the heard of Park Slope, just outside of the Historic District, the church, with its tall corner tower and conical steeple, is a prominent structure, visible from a great distance. The church and rectory were designed in 1888 by Parfitt Bros., one of the major architecture firms active in Brooklyn during the late 19th century. St. Augustine's Church is a Gothic Revival style structure designed with an eclectic combination of European elements. The most unusual feature of the church is its double apse, a form derived from German architecture. Also notable are the corner towers, elongated pointed-arched windows, steep sloping roofs with slate tiles, and the trumpeting angel perched on top of the Sixth Avenue apse.

Sixth Avenue Baptist Church, February 28, 1960. Founded in 1872 following a split with the nearby Hanson Place Baptist Church, the Sixth Avenue Baptist Church first occupied a wood-frame Sunday school mission on its present site. Construction on the current church building commenced in 1880 and completed just after Christmas of that year.

"East side of Sixth Avenue between Berkeley Place and Lincoln Place, looking north."

Construction of the BMT Fourth Avenue line at Carroll Street, February 20, 1912. At far left is the D'Ambrosio Italian American Restaurant at No. 262 Fourth Avenue. At far right, with the American Flag flying, is Public Bath No. 7 at President Street. The neo-Renaissance baths, completed in 1910, are the oldest surviving public bathing facility in Brooklyn; the building was converted to a gymnasium, the Brooklyn Lyceum, in 1937. A multi-year restoration project was recently completed ahead of further conversion.

“View from behind home plate of a pitch thrown during a Brooklyn Dodgers versus Chicago Cubs game. Pitcher is Lefty Liefield of the Chicago Cubs from 1912-1913.” - Ralph Irving Lloyd This is the second Washington Park, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers (previously the Brooklyn Superbas, Bridegrooms, Trolley Dodgers, National Leaguers) from 1898 to 1913. In 1913 they decamped to Ebbets Field on the east side of Prospect Park. The apartment buildings visible over the right field fence were on the north side of 1st Street, between Whitwell and Denton Places.

Who said it's hot? Caption: "Who said it's hot?--The \[eleven] kids in front of 575 Carroll St., between 4th Avenue and 5th Avenue, give a demonstration on how to beat the heat as they frolic in spray from a fire hydrant. Vincent Vollaro (left), 620 Carroll St. and Dominick Montemarano, 579 Carroll St., hold their dog, Rusty, who doesn't seem to enjoy it as much as they youngsters."

Etching of the Old Dutch House, Long Island, circa 1907, from Eugene L. Armbruster photographs and scrapbooks Built in 1699, the Old Stone House was originally home to a family of Dutch farmers. On August 27th, 1776, barely two months after the Declaration of Independence was made public, the Old Stone House served as the location for one of the first major battles in the Revolutionary War; the Battle of Brooklyn. The Battle of Brooklyn was a significant defeat for the American Continental Army. Realizing that they were outnumbered five to one, General William Alexander and Major Mordecai Gist led a regiment that came to be known as the Maryland 400 (although there were only about 270 soldiers) against 2,000 British troops. They fought to cover the retreat of another 9,000 American soldiers, led by George Washington himself. They were able to escape in a strategic retreat through the Gowanus Canal, across the East River, and safely into Manhattan. The British troops defeated the Maryland 400 due to their superior numbers. In the aftermath, the British began their occupation of both Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Old-law tenements at 154 Fourth Avenue between Butler and Douglass Streets, October 29, 1936. A few blocks from the busy intersection depicted in Billboards and Signs, Abbott found this boarded-up row of old-law tenements. Rather than conform to the new fire and sanitation regulations, the Fulton Savings Bank, which owned the buildings, abandoned them. The geometric pattern formed by the blocked windows attracted Abbott’s eye, as did the profusion of posters for movies, sports, and cabaret on the first floor. Taken one week before election day, the photograph shows a Democratic Party campaign poster for Franklin D. Roosevelt and Herbert K. Lehman. The tenements were torn down in late 2007. Today, a twelve-story luxury development (No. 150) stands in their place.