Front gardens at the intersection of Carroll and Hoyt Streets, 1960. Carroll Gardens takes its name from its proximity to Carroll Park and the unique front-garden layout devised by surveyor Richard Butts. The 1973 Historic District Designation Report praises Butts vision: “The tree-lined streets, with long rows of low two-and three-story houses, set back uniformly behind carefully tended gardens, exhibit, to a degree unusual in an urban environment, an awareness of the values of open space, a remarkable degree of architectural unity and a quiet dignity.” The late-1860s draining of the swampland surrounding the Gowanus Canal spurred development east of Smith Street, including the blocks surveyed by Butts. The row of townhouses at the eastern end of Carroll Street, adjoining Hoyt Street, were built in the late 1870s, among the last in the district.

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.

303 President Street (first five-story building from left), February 8, 1960. Nos. 303-317 were built by William J. Bedell in 1876. 303 and 305A appear to have been altered, 305A quite recently. Some houses in this row still have their original cast iron railings and gates.

Carroll Gardens Historic District was designated a landmark in 1973. Check out the distinctive front gardens and bustling commercial streets of the neighborhood.

The Central Power Station of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT) was built in 1901 to replace a powerhouse that had burned down in Ridgewood, Queens the year before. This facility was to take over the functions of the burnt-out powerhouse and provide energy to a new sprawling set of BRT lines. Brooklyn Rapid Transit selected the Gowanus Canal location to provide the station with easy access to coal, water, and other necessary resources. According to the building's 2019 Landmark Designation report, it is considered "of the most prominent buildings constructed along the Gowanus Canal in the first half of the 20th century." Engineer Thomas E. Murray is credited as the designer of this Classical and Romanesque Revival Style masonry structure. As technology progressed, the building's massive boiler house eventually became obsolete and was demolished in the 1950s. Nevertheless, the power station would go on to supply energy to the BMT Fifth Avenue line even after the BRT dissolved. It ended its career serving New York's consolidated transit system as part of MTA's Fourth Avenue Line. In 1975, the city sold the building and it was briefly found use as a paper recycling plant. Beginning in the late 1990s, the building stood abandoned as a lot of light industry left Gowanus. The power station's vacant interior became the perfect canvas for graffiti artists, and its cornice served as a billboard for political messages, like "End stop & frisk. Hands off the kids!" and "Open your eye girl," that survive to this day. By 2001, runaways and homeless teenagers converted the building's cavities into a community, christening it the "Batcave," an allusion to the animals who lived in the beams of the massive structure. The "cave" was furnished with street-scavenged mattresses, outfitted with rainwater supplied toilets, a fridge, and a TV that was powered (by means of 400-feet of extension chord) by the Carroll Street Bridge. According to Zachary Edminster, a previous tenant of the "Batcave," the community who settled there had a strict no hard drugs policy. Eventually, a 2006 New York Daily News article exposed the community of homeless residents. Following the article, the power station was then partially sealed off to discourage trespassers. The squatters of the building trickled out, though the "Batcave" was still utilized as a destination for underground parties and events. The graffiti-covered walls and jagged ceiling often enticing urban explorers and artists. In 2012, a philanthropist bought the building with plans to turn it into Powerhouse Arts, a fabrication and education space for artists. The reincarnation of the "Batcave" is slated to open in 2021, with an addition where the boilerhouse stood designed by starchitects Herzog & de Meuron.

The South Brooklyn Christian Assembly, 1960. Built as the Carroll Park Methodist Episcopal Church in 1872-3, the Victorian Gothic structure was set back from Carroll Street, in keeping with the block’s layout. The building was sold to the Norwegian Methodist Episcopal Church in 1891, as the neighborhood — then considered a part of Red Hook — saw an increase in its Scandinavian immigrant population. Sold again to the South Brooklyn Christian Assembly in 1949, the church was included in the 1973 designation of the Carroll Gardens Historic District. Sadly, the church was damaged in a mid-1970s fire and replaced by a pair of townhouses incongruous with the rest of the block’s 1870s architecture.

Carroll Street Bridge, 1960. Opened in 1889, the Carroll Street Bridge is a rare retractable crossing, one of two in New York City and three (as of 2013) still in service in the United States. It opens diagonally, with its span slowly pulled into a reserved pocket on the Gowanus Canal’s western bank. Bridge openings are now a rare event, but were once quite common. According to the New York Times: “As recently as the 1990s, the canal was a major waterway for paint factories, oil depots, sand and gravel suppliers, and warehouses alongside it, and the Carroll Street Bridge had to be opened 500 to 700 times a year.”

By Benjamin Serby The leafy Brooklyn neighborhood of Carroll Gardens is nestled between Degraw Street (or Sackett, depending on your source) to the north and Hamilton Avenue to the south, bounded to the east by either Hoyt or Bond Street (again, answers may vary) and Hicks Street to the west. It’s just a small slice of the borough’s “brownstone belt,” but it packs a wallop, as any pizza enthusiast will tell you. With its deep front lawns, stoop-sitters, and tiny pasticcerias, Carroll Gardens is a unique corner of the city, to be sure — but, in many respects, its past and present tell us much about New York City as a whole. Read the Gotham Center blog post that inspired the walk here.

The Carroll Street Bridge crosses over the Gowanus Canal between Bond and Nevins Street and resides near the border between the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Gowanus and Carroll Gardens. Of the 794 bridges and tunnels currently operating under the purview of the New York City Department of Transportation, it is the least-used bridge in the city. Despite this, the Carroll Street Bridge is actually a New York City historic landmark. It is one of only three remaining retractable bridges operating in the United States! It is also the only wooden bridge in NYC used for cars! (More bridge fun facts: one of the other two retractable bridges also resides in NYC, the Borden Avenue Bridge in Hunters Point, Queens). By the 1860s, the Gowanus Canal was becoming a central hub of modern-day industrial activity for the city of Brooklyn. To advance this industrialization, the city built six bridges to cross the canal. One of them was the original and non-retractable Carroll Street Bridge, an old wooden swing bridge, which closed in 1887 due to fears of its imminent collapse. In 1888, Brooklyn Mayor Alfred Chapin and the Brooklyn Common Council announced their plans for a replacement bridge. One request by local landowners for the new design was a retractable span that could slide into the shore to allow an easier passage for boats (the canal was narrower at Carroll Street). The city approved this design and construction began that same year. The new Carroll Street Bridge opened in 1889 at the cost of $29,600 to build and was designed by the Department of City Works engineers Robert Van Buren and George Ingram. Since then, there have been only slight alterations to the structure. One necessary modification came in 1908 when the bridge’s steam motors were replaced by electric motors. Despite being closed twice in the 1970s, as well as an incident in the mid-1980s that resulted in the bridge being stuck in the open position for several years, the Carroll Street Bridge is a resilient little piece of architecture. In 1987, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the bridge an official city landmark.

Monte’s Venetian Room, Carroll Street, 1960. Monte’s, the storied mob and Rat Pack hangout near the banks of the Gowanus Canal, opened in 1906 as Angelo’s Tavern, after owner Angelo Montemarano. During prohibition, Angelo’s operated as a speakeasy, establishing its ties to Brooklyn’s extra-legal communities. In 1938, Nick Monte, Angelo’s son, undertook an extensive renovation — including the addition of signature red booths — and reopened as Monte’s. Though impossible to corroborate, legend has it that Monte’s became a regular meeting place for Frank Sinatra (said to love the cheesecake) and Sammy Davis Jr. (who allegedly delivered an impromptu after-hours performance). When Monte’s reopened in 2011, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz described its 1970s scene to the New York Post, “\[Monte’s] was a power restaurant for people in public life and not-so-public life. The food was very good, but you went for the ambiance.”

National Packing Box Factory, Union Street, 1960. James Dyckman, a carpenter by training, lost his Front Street box factory to an 1880 fire. He chose to rebuild on Union Street, east of the Gowanus Canal on the site of a former “lime, brick and lath yard.” Dyckman hired architect Robert Dixon to design his new complex, which eventually included five buildings. No. 543 opened in 1889.

The Carroll Street Bridge crosses over the Gowanus Canal between Bond and Nevins Street and resides near the border between the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Gowanus and Carroll Gardens. Of the 794 bridges and tunnels currently operating under the purview of the New York City Department of Transportation, it is the least-used bridge in the city.

343 Smith Street, furthest right on the corner of Smith and Carroll Streets, February 12, 1960. This block of buildings was built 1871-1872. Similar to the other Smith Street blocks in the Carroll Gardens Historic District, this block contains ground floor retail space with apartments above.

Nos. 255-267 Carroll Street, from left, February 8, 1960. These seven houses were all built by William J. Bedell in 1872. The designation report for the Carroll Gardens Historic District notes that "the homogeneity of design in each facade is created by the use of segmental arches over all the windows." Each house is fronted by large gardens, a distinctive characteristic of the district.

Seaway Export Packing Co., 1960. Located just west of the Gowanus Canal, the Seaway company dissolved in 1982. Today, the warehouse space has been converted to a bar and restaurant.

No. 323 Smith Street, on the corner of Smith and President Streets, February 8, 1960. An entrance to Carroll Street Station is visible. 315-323 Smith St. were built in 1870, making them some of the oldest buildings in the Carroll Gardens Historic District. The designation report noted the large ground floor display windows set in wood frames, which served to distinguish the residential and commercial parts of these buildings. The wood frames are still visible today at Nos. 317 and 319.