Men outside Clinton Market, an “Italian American Grocery,” 1958.

Red Hook Play Center, June 26, 1961. The Red Hook Play Center, one of eleven public pools built by the WPA, opened to the public in August, 1936. Today, the Olympic-sized pool is named for benefactor Sol Goldman and is part of the larger Red Hook Recreation Area, which includes athletic fields and fitness facilities. The pool facility was built on a lot created by landfill in 1904 for a freight terminal that was never constructed. In 1939, three years after the Play Center’s opening, the Red Hook Houses development was completed across several adjoining blocks. By the 1980s, the pool’s condition had deteriorated, necessitating a three-year restoration project funded in part by Sol Goldman (Goldman was again called on to contribute funds when a budget shortfall imperiled public pool openings in the summer of 1991).

View of the Gowanus Canal from the Manhattan and Queens-bound platform of the elevated Smith—Ninth Streets Station, December 15, 1958. The station, completed in 1933, is the highest subway station above ground level, worldwide.

The 9th Street Bridge, located just north of the Hamilton Avenue Bridge and under the Culver Viaduct, is a lift bridge. Formerly a bascule bridge, the current bridge underwent renovation and reopened in 1999; it has a lift span of 82 feet and a vertical clearance, when lifted, of 60 feet above the canal.

Defonte’s Sandwich Shop, 1939. Founded in 1922 by Nick Defonte, the sandwich shop claims to be the oldest eatery in Red Hook.

Bennett Place, 1958. A small alley between Nelson and Luquer Streets, Dennet Place, for many years, was mislabeled on maps as Bennett Place (the street's first unsolved mystery). In fact, Morrell, the photographer of this image, notes the name of the street as Bennett, also. Evidence of the street can be traced back to city directories of the 1870s. The residents of Dennet's homes have long been a small tight-knit community of Italian American families. Most refer to it as "Cat’s Alley" (the street's second unsolved mystery). The homes on the short block are two- and three-story attached houses. The houses have a peculiar feature: small street-level doors. Each home has a set of stairs that rise up to an above street level entrance, while under the stairs mini doors, more appropriate for a fairy tale creature than a New Yorker, sit at street level. And the purpose and origins of these doors remain a mystery (secret no. 3!), even to the families that have lived there for decades.

St. Mary's School on New Year's Eve 1958. St Mary's, the parish school of the adjacent St. Mary Star of the Sea Roman Catholic Church, was established in 1867. Today, it is the private International School of Brooklyn.

Small fry beat the heat Boy in bathing suit in Gowanus area sitting on top of open fire hydrant; two girls in bathing suits looking on from sidewalk; iron fence and ground floor of building in background. Caption: "Small fry beat the heat -- Emilio Pastrawa, 8, does it the old-fashioned way by holding hot feet under stream of cold water from fireplug near his home at 18 Dennet Place."

Public School 27 at the corner of Nelson and Hicks Streets, 1930. This school building was constructed in 1890, but an 1885 Brooklyn Eagle report describes a school operating at the same location five years earlier. The report details unsanitary conditions in the low-lying area: the Slab City shanty town near the Gowanus Canal, “sewerless streets,” tidal and runoff ponds, and a “vast public dumping ground” along Delevan Street between Richards and Dwight Streets.

J.H.S. 142, Stranahan Junior High School, June 26, 1961. J.H.S. 142, the junior high school attached to P.S. 142, occupied a mid-century addition at the corner of Henry and Coles Streets (note the 1959 cornerstone). The school closed in 2006.