“Fulton Street, east from South Oxford Street, showing the B. M. T. elevated and the station at Cumberland Street. June 15, 1940.” The Fulton St. El had closed two weeks prior to the photo date. An entrance to its replacement, the then-new IND Fulton Street Line (A/C trains), is just out of frame to the right.

Cuyler Gore, 1942. A “gore” is a small triangular park often found at diagonal intersections. Cuyler Gore is named for the abolitionist minister Theodore Cuyler, of the nearby Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church. The city of Brooklyn purchased the western portion of the park in 1845 for the sum of $1. In 1983, the park was expanded to include an area between Cumberland Street and Carlton Avenue, as Cumberland Street was closed to vehicular traffic between Fulton Street and Greene Avenue.

The Hanson Baptist Church at the corner of Hanson Place and South Portland Avenue, 1940. Built between 1857 and 1860, the stately brick and stucco structure has been the home to a Seventh Day Adventist congregation since 1963. Nearly a century earlier in 1864, the occasional minister of the then-Baptist church, Robert Lowry, composed the hymn “Hanson Place,” referencing the church. It was later featured in the Western films of director John Ford.

A dog's day Five children under sprinkler playing with dog on empty street before vacant lot; two boys behind sprinkler looking on; buildings and street behind lot. Caption: "A dog's day at Dean St. and 6th Ave."

The city is home to more than one million school-aged children—at least an eighth of the population across the five boroughs. While there many distinct ways to be a kid in New York City, there are also some iconic experiences, places, and routines that most, if not all, city kids share as they grow up.

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.

The Swedish Methodist Episcopal Church was first founded in 1872 as First North River Bethel Ship Society. This congregation was a direct result of the first Swedish Methodist Church ever founded. That first church was actually founded in the United States, in New York, and on a ship. Immigrant Olof Gustaf Hedstrom started the Bethel Ship society in 1845 on a ship docked at a pier in Manhattan. They would move the ship to Brooklyn and then move the congregation to dry land a few decades later. In the 1920s the First Spanish Church was organized and in the 1960s, as the Scandinavian population declined drastically, the two churches merged. Today the building is the Immanuel & First Spanish United Methodist Church.

New York City accommodates all juxtapositions. Spend enough time here and no two things paired together, however odd, will seem unusual. This is the city where nothing can be out of place however willy-nilly the arrangement may be: from the gently surreal sight of a coyote cowering beneath an SUV in Manhattan, to the more terrible and spectral image of ash-covered workers wandering the daytime streets of the Financial District. Whether it is welcome or not, the city will make room for it. But for all this open-armed receptiveness -- allowing this or that to suddenly and irrevocably appear and to become a new fact of city life -- the city remains a strange host and one whose ultimate indifference can seem a form of cruelty. (This story can be seen in its original context here)

Hanson Place Seventh Day Adventist Church ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: c. 1857-1860 STYLE: Italianate This building was originally erected as the Hanson Place Baptist Church, an outgrowth of the Atlantic Street Baptist Church, but has been owned by the Seventh-Day Adventists since 1963. Constructed of brick above a brownstone base and trimmed with wood, this Italianate church gives distinction that still retains of much of its nineteenth-century atmosphere.

Fire rages at the Fulton Flatbush Storage Co. warehouse, just south of Fulton Street; December 6, 1917.

178-180 Ft. Greene Place, ca. 1970s. For the first quarter of the 20th century, this building housed a wholesale meat market owned by Julius Dahlman. In 1921, the New York-based meat newsletter "The Butcher's Advocate" announced Dahlman's engagement, only to retract it in the next issue and apologize for the mistake, saying, "Dahlman, it seems, already has one wife and does not contemplate taking on another." The building was demolished in 1978 as part of the Atlantic Terminal urban renewal.

Pacific Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, May 30, 1958. The first Carnegie Library built in Brooklyn, the Pacific Branch opened its doors on October 8, 1904. The library, deigned by Raymond Almirall, suffered structural damage from subway construction, and multiple fires, leading to its near closure in 1973. Following a preservation campaign, and the renovated branch reopened in 1975.

The headquarters of the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, 1931. The big house the school occupied was sold to the Visiting Nurse Association of Brooklyn who razed it and in 1929 constructed a Colonial Revival (alternately referred to as neo-Federal) headquarters designed by the firm of Clark & Arms. The non-profit organization, founded in 1888, provided home and community-based health care services. In 2000 the building was purchased by the Alliance of Resident Theaters/New York. The Alliance offers office, rehearsal, and performance spaces for more than 20 performing arts organizations.

The traffic swarmed square outside of Barclay's may seem newly developed, but in fact, it was first established in 1860 when the Brooklyn Jamaica Railroad established a stop simply named "Brooklyn."

The same location, May 17, 1940. "The building is No. 177. The parking space replaced the houses numbers 161 to 175. On the right, at Fifth Avenue, is a gasoline station, where stood houses numbers 179 to 181." - P.L. Sperr

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.

In 1935, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia ordered for the seizure of all pinball machines. They were considered gambling machines, like slots or roulette, which had been made illegal the year prior. Pinball was supposedly a culprit in corrupting the morals of America's youth.

Pacific Branch, BPL 25 Fourth Avenue Raymond F. Almirall, 1903 Brooklyn’s first Carnegie library, the Pacific Branch (named for its location at Pacific Street) was heralded upon completion for its dignified Beaux-Arts design. The interior of the building, which has retained its original two-story stacks, was also praised for its light, air and efficient use of space. The building’s brick façades feature prominent limestone trim, including keystones above the arched door and window openings and oversized torches and swags supporting the cornice. The building has had a difficult history, including early damage in 1914 during the construction of the nearby subway, as well as a number of fires. Murals completed in 1939 by the Works Progress Administration graced the second floor for a number of years, but are no longer extant. Despite widespread support, the branch is not a designated city landmark. In 2013, it was under threat of being sold to a developer, but public outcry and political pressure led the BPL to reconsider these plans.

Dubious Camel advertisement at the northeast corner of Carlton Avenue and Fulton Street. The north side of Fulton Street (right) was formerly home to a vibrant commercial strip, since razed and redeveloped, with lunch counters and a variety of merchants. In the background, the beehive steeple of the Church of the Messiah at Clermont and Greene Avenues.

78th Precinct, ca. 1928 Brooklyn’s 78th precinct was built in 1925 in a Renaissance Revival style. This building is more elegant than many of the other precincts in New York City, which are constructed to look like fortresses. But the 78th was built in the post-World War I, pre-Depression era of success that America enjoyed throughout the Roaring 20s, and resembles an upscale bank more than a police station. The building, like a few other New York precincts built in the early 1900s to the late 1920s, was constructed from limestone. The green lamps on either side of the main entrance, which can be seen on every precinct in New York, are a result of a tradition that dates back to the 1650s in New Amsterdam, when night watchmen would carry green lanterns for identification. The NYPD still uses the lanterns as a symbol of their vigilance.

The Lockwood Academy on South Oxford Street, May 1925. Opened in 1870 by Quaker educator John Lockwood, the Lockwood School operated here until 1928. For the final three decades the school was owned and run by a pair of well-loved sisters, Emma and Mary Carr. The Carrs had been early teachers at the school and were gifted the institution by Lockwood upon his retirement. In 1928 when the school closed, Emma Carr was nearly 80, dressed like she had stepped out of the 1860s, and credited her spryness and vitality to a long time vegetarian diet.

Prospect Heights - Sprinkler at the Dean Street Playground between 6th and Carlton Ave. Prospect Heights - Sprinkler at the Dean Street Playground between 6th and Carlton Ave.

161 to 181 Flatbush Avenue, east side, south from Pacific Street to Fifth Avenue; July 23, 1934. The buildings occupying this block, with the exception of No. 177 Goodyear Sporting Goods, were later demolished.

Pillar of Fire Church, August 6, 1942.