Sometimes deciphering a neighborhood name can be pretty simple. It doesn't take a genius to puzzle out how Brooklyn Heights or the Navy Yard got their names, but other 'hoods have a little history behind their monikers. This story examines the background of some of Brooklyn's neighborhoods.

The Friends Meeting House, seen at right, was completed in 1857 and is attributed to architect Charles T. Bunting. In 1867 the building, which served as the religious home of the community, also became the home to a Quaker school. The school began with one teacher and 17 students. The educational operations moved into a new building next door at 112 Schermerhorn in 1902. Today the meeting house is still in regular use as a house of worship.

1840s row houses on Warren Street in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, October 9, 1960. These three-story row houses were built by John Greacen, Jr. between 1845-47, on land purchased by his father, John Greacen, Sr. in 1832. The elder Greacen lived in both Nos. 225 (far right) and 229 (second from right — No. 227 is obscured by the angle of the photograph). At the time, Warren Street was known as John Street, named for the father-and-son duo who spurred its development.

The Sharon Hall Hotel, formerly The Montrose. June 5, 1961. Montrose Morris, a leading late 19th century Brooklyn architect, built the fifteen-unit, Romanesque Revival apartment building in 1888. The Montrose, to which he lent his first name, functioned as a preliminary study for the Alhambra apartment building in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a larger development and an extension of the Hoyt Street building’s floorplan. Each of the Montrose’s fifteen units had entrance hall illuminated by a street-facing stained glass window, parlor, library, and three bedrooms. The building was converted to the Sharon Hall Hotel during the 20th century, and later demolished, likely in the late 1960s or later.

Foster Building, New Year’s Eve 1958. Built in 1898, the four-storefront-wide brick building retains much of its original detail, including pediments above each of its four residential entrances and the bold “Foster” name on a panel above the shared cornice. The origin of the Foster name is unclear; it was built by William B. Tubby for owners Mary J.F. Pratt and Ida F. Grampton.

Northeast corner of Court and Amity streets, New Year’s Eve 1958. Built for grocer Thomas McGlinn in 1848, a 20th century remodel added 160 Court Street’s signature black marble storefront.

Apartment building at the corner of Amity and Clinton Streets (No. 173 Amity), February 8, 1960. Built in 1900, No. 173 Amity features curved bays matching its neighbors on Clinton Street, and a combination of limestone and brickwork on its Amity Street facade, interrupted by two-story bay windows. The Landmarks Preservation Commission cites the influence of the Chicago World’s Fair in its architectural “eclecticism.”

219 Clinton Street, 1960. Described in the 1969 Historic District Designation Report as “without a doubt the most imposing property in the Cobble Hill Historic District,” 219 Clinton Street includes the first electric passenger elevator built in a private building, dating to an early 1890s renovation of the 1844 home.

Abrahim Sahadi opened A. Sahadi & Co. on Washington Street in Manhattan in 1890. In the first few decades of the 20th century, the store catered to the sizable Syrian and Lebanese populations that lived on the "Lower West Side." Construction of the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel (formerly the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel) pushed the thriving business out of the neighborhood and into a storefront on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. There the three generation family-owned and run business continued to grow. They purchased a factory building in Sunset Park in the 1980s to house their expanding wholesale business. And from the small storefront seen here in 1958 at 187 Atlantic Avenue Sahadi Importing Co. has grown into the two adjacent storefronts at nos. 189 and 191.

“336 Atlantic Ave., south side, west of Hoyt Street, showing a home bought by Mrs. Pruize from Samuel J. Krooks of No. 421 East 11th Street.” Eugene L. Armbruster, 1922. The brick, shingle-roofed house appears on Brooklyn maps as early as 1855. In Armbruster’s 1922 photograph, the Coca-Cola placard visible above the ground floor storefront may indicate a grocery or lunch counter operating in the space. Today, the shop window and entrance have been mostly enclosed while the building remains intact.

Some readers might remember this building as the Sharon Hall Hotel. Prior to its revamping however, it was an apartment building known as the Montrose. This magnificent structure was designed, sometime between the 1860s and 1880s, by Montrose W. Morris, the Brooklyn based architect best known for designing some of the earliest multi-unit apartment buildings in New York City. The design of the Montrose is very similar in style to the Alhambra, another larger apartment building in Brooklyn’s Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood, also designed by Morris. The Montrose stood on the corner of State Street and Hoyt Street in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Boreum Hill. It was a five-story building with fifteen apartments and seemingly quite fancy for the time. Each apartment included its own private reception hall in which you could exit through two sets of sliding doors leading into a dining room and parlor on one side and a library on the other. Although the exact year when the Montrose became the Sharon Hall Hotel is unknown, based on John D. Morrell’s photograph above, we do know it was already a hotel in the year 1960. The building seems to have been demolished soon after Morrell photographed it, sometime in the 1960s or 1970s. A more modern townhouse now resides on the corner of State and Hoyt. Thankfully not suffering the same fate as the Sharon Hall Hotel, the city designated the Alhambra a historic landmark in 1986. I suggest if one wants to travel back in time for a glimpse of the Sharon Hall Hotel, all one has to do is visit the Alhambra and admire the beauty of a time past.

"View of west side of Court Street between Amity Street & Congress Streets looking south. Whelan Drugs on corner right."

Court Street at Warren Street, June 5, 1961. No. 212 Court Street (right), at the southwest corner of Warren Street was at the time occupied by a bar and restaurant. In 1985, the Community Bookstore moved into the renovated space, and would become a beloved neighborhood fixture. Proprietor John Scioli, with his wife Susan, opened the first Community Bookstore in Park Slope in 1971, and later expanded with an outpost in Brooklyn Heights. When the couple divorced, in 1980, John kept the Brooklyn Heights store, while Susan retained the original Park Slope location. In 1985, after a rent hike forced the Community Bookstore to abandon its Montague Street storefront, Scioli purchased 212 Court Street for $500,000. Making his home in an upstairs apartment, Scioli amassed a collection of tens of thousands of books — rare, forgettable, and otherwise — stacked haphazardly throughout the dusty and claustrophobic ground floor. Scioli kept his own hours, usually opening in the afternoon and closing up shop late at night, and could often be found perched on his folding chair out front, cigarette in hand, sorting through new arrivals. In 2015, Scioli sold the property for $5.5 million and closed up shop for the final time a year later. The building has since been renovated, and a spare real estate office occupies the once cluttered former bookstore.

Hoyt Street, north from Douglass Street, Carroll Gardens. 1942. The building at extreme left is 244 Hoyt Street. Buildings along the east side of Hoyt Street would soon be razed for the construction of the NYCHA Gowanus Houses, completed in 1949.

Set of three rowhouses with connected iron porch, 1933. These houses date to the mid-19th century, appearing on property maps as early as 1855.

In the opening decades of the 20th Century, the proliferation of new subway lines in Brooklyn changed the shape of Brooklyn's busiest intersections; new routes were excavated and transit hubs born, replacing the streetcars and elevated railways of years past. This collection includes a selection of photographs documenting subway construction in and around Times Plaza, Flatbush Avenue, and Ashland Place.

Plank Road Collapse Along Schermerhorn Street, September 9, 1929. Following heavy rains on the night of September 7th, the entire plank road on Schermerhorn Street between Smith Street and Boerum Place—in place for the construction of the IND Fulton Line— collapsed. The area of collapse was 100 feet long and 50 feet wide, from curb to curb. Just before 1:00 AM, four people stepped out of a car in front of 123 Schermerhorn Street and following a loud roar turned around to see the car they had just vacated no longer on the street, but instead deep in the excavation hole. No injuries were reported.

Southward view of Smith Street, crossing Atlantic Avenue, September 23, 1928. The photo was taken in preparation for the construction of the South Brooklyn segment of the IND Culver Line (today's F/G), which would connect to the Eighth Avenue Line at Jay Street. At right is the F. Figge Provisions wholesale market. Today, the market site is occupied by the Brooklyn Detention Complex.

Excavation for the Independent Subway System (IND) tracks at Schermerhorn Street, east of Smith Street, June 1, 1929. The newly-completed Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower is visible in the background. The IND broke ground on the Fulton Street line (today’s A/C) in April, 1929, and commenced cut-and-cover excavations shortly thereafter. Construction for the Hoyt-Schermerhorn Streets station, a six-track junction with the planned IND Crosstown line, required the demolition of buildings along the south side of Schermerhorn Street (at right).

Gundolt Carpet Workroom, 1962. The single story workshop and adjacent three-plus story facility were built from “clinker brick,” dark, dense bricks produced at very high heat. Once unfashionable, clinkers rose to popularity as a building material during the Arts and Crafts movement. The taller building at right was built in 1920 as a stable and parking facility for the Riley & Latimer trucking company. The design included a three-story elevator shaftway, in order to accommodate wagon storage on the roof itself. Riley & Latimer closed around 1936. A 1947 ad for Gundolt Carpet touts “good pay” and “steady work” for carpet sewers.

Famed Brooklyn architect (and Quaker) William B. Tubby designed the Richardsonian-Romanesque-style Friends School. Completed in 1902, the three- story red brick building had a few additons completed by the same architect (who was also an early graduate of the school while it was located in the Meeting House next door). Originally an elementary school, the 1902 building also included space for a kindergarden and was expanded to include a high school in 1907. In the early 1970s the school moved into 375 Pearl Street, a 1928, former Brooklyn Law School building.

Some readers might remember this building as the Sharon Hall Hotel. Prior to its revamping, however, it was an apartment building known as the Montrose.

The former Second Unitarian Church of Brooklyn, 1934. Affectionately known as the “Church of the Holy Turtle” for its squat cruciform footprint and low, green roof, the church was built in 1858 on land leased from the Catholic Church. Its founding minister included the abolitionist Reverend Samuel Longfellow, brother of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The church’s final service was held in December 1924; it was later rented to various tenants. In 1962 — three years before the establishment of the Landmarks Preservation Commission — the church was razed ahead of a planned supermarket development. That plan was defeated by the Cobble Hill Association, who successfully petitioned for the creation of Cobble Hill Park, dedicated in July 1965.

The forty foot-wide Gothic Revival house at 223 Congress Street, 1960. Built in 1849 for use by St. Paul’s Roman Catholic Church and the Free School for Boys, it was leased to Reverend John Hughes, Bishop of New York, until at least 1870. Originally two stories with a high basement, the third floor and mansard roof were added later in the 19th century. Subsequent changes to the top-floor dormer windows provoked an uncharacteristic rebuke in the 1969 Historic District Preservation report: “It is for alterations such as these that the Commission could aid owners in achieving a distinguished result!”

Opening in 1867, the Brooklyn Friends School started in the basement of the Quaker meeting house in Boerum Hill. One of the earliest New York schools to encourage diversity amongst its students, it still operates today on Pearl Street.

130 Court Street, designed by McKenzie, Voorhees & Gmelin, 1922; addition: Charles A. Holmes, 1936 This formidable civic building stands on the site of the formerly sizeable Cobble Hill or “Cobleshill,” as it was known in the late 18th century. Before this steep hill was flattened in the mid-19th century, it was the location of the Cobble Hill Fort, from which it is believed that General George Washington oversaw the Battle of Brooklyn in 1776 (a plaque on the building commemorates this). During the War of 1812, the fort was reestablished as Fort Swift, named after General Joseph G. Swift. The Renaissance Revival style building resembles a Florentine palace, with its heavily rusticated façades, large arched windows and distinctive cornice held up by sculpted eagle brackets. It was originally home to the South Brooklyn Savings Institution, which formerly operated from 160 Atlantic Avenue at the corner of Clinton Street. The building now houses a grocery store, and is located in the Cobble Hill Historic District.

"Northwest corner of Court and Kane Streets, “Dr. P.I. Adesso, dental surgeon, has offices on 2nd floor,” 1958." This brick and terra cotta Queen Anne building dates to 1886, when Kane was known as Harrison Street. In addition to the dental surgeon upstairs, the ground floor pharmacy features a prominent advertisement for Ex-Lax, the laxative product then manufactured on Atlantic Avenue.

Atlantic Avenue at the intersection of Court Street, facing west along Atlantic, 1944.

Gross Studio, located on Atlantic Avenue. People are visible in the door and window of the building, possible the proprietors of the studio. By the mid 19th century Americans (and Brooklynites) were enthralled with the new technology of photography. The Gross Brothers Photography Studio was open as early as 1850 and provided the neighborhood citizens with cartes-de-visite, stereoscopes, ambrotypes and tintypes, all exciting new features of commerical photography.

Amity Street, between Court and Clinton Streets, February 12, 1960. The Landmarks Preservation Commission’s 1969 Designation Report for Cobble Hill describes No. 179 (center-right, with mansard roof) as “an unusually interesting example of the French Second Empire style as modified by Neo-Grec decorative motifs,” noting it’s prominent triangular pediments, mansard roof, and ironwork. The townhouse was built in the early 1870s for John Shuster, the owner of “a successful marble works."

Court Street, west side, north of DeGraw Street, December 31, 1958. The Paras Court Theatre is seen at right at 292 Court Street. The theatre opened in 1924. The building included a 599-seat theatre on the main floor and a dance hall on the second floor. The local Italian community used the hall for social gatherings including the 1925 "Primo Annuale Ballo." The theatre closed in 1959 and, at some point, after that a mid-century facade was added to the main entrance way, creating a storefront with metal screens and window frames. The building functioned as a day care from 1979 and today is a Montessori school. The mid-facade has also been replaced.

Improvised pool Caption: "Improvised pool--These city kids can't cool off by plunging into the old swimming hole, so they've made their own swimming pool out of a tank used by builders in construction work. Bobbie Perkins of 183 Congress St. sprays hose on pals, Jackie Kennedy, 3 1/2, of 175 Congress St., and Jackie's brother, Jimmy, 5;" another boy is sitting in background; portion of front steps and railing in right background.

Home Made Delicatessen at the corner of Court and Warren Streets, 1958. No. 210 is part of a set of Greek Revival rowhouses built between 1845-47, notable for its distinctive twin chimneys. The houses were built for John Greacen Jr., whose father John Greacen had purchased a block-and-a-half parcel of land on Warren Street (then John Street), west of Court Street (then Red Hook Lane) in 1832.

Bar at the corner of Hoyt and Bergen Streets, June 5, 1961. 148 Hoyt Street, today known as the Brooklyn Inn, is one of the oldest bars in Brooklyn. Anton Ziener opened the German tavern in 1885, with furnishings and financing from Bushwick’s Otto Huber Brewery, owners of several of the borough’s beer halls. It continued to be a German establishment through 1956, including clandestine operations during Prohibition. Since then, the bar has had several owners, but much of its original woodwork and tin ceiling remain intact. (It’s also still cash only.)

Main entrance to the Central Court Building, Schermerhorn Street, 1932. Constructed between 1929-1932, the Central Court Building by Collins & Collins is somewhat surprising for its architectural style. By the late 1920s, the grand Renaissance Revival and Beaux-Arts styles had fallen somewhat out of vogue, in favor Art Deco and early modernist elements. Nonetheless, 120 Schermerhorn’s Classical motifs and elegant limestone cladding effectively convey civic authority.

St. Paul’s Convent, 1960. Built in the 1840s for the wife of Captain Isaac Brewer 👨‍✈️, a wealthy ship captain, 235 Clinton later became the home of the Convent for the Sisters of Charity of St. Paul's Roman Catholic Church. The Sisters left in 1978, but the stained glass windows remain.

"Clinton Street, st the S.W. corner of Kane Street, showing the Christ Protestant Episcopal Church." Designed by famed church architect Richard Upjohn for the fourth Epsicopal congregation established in Brooklyn, the cornerstone of this church was laid in 1842. Louis C. Tiffany designed an altar, altar railing,pulpit, lectern and chairs in 1917 and these interior features were entirely restored following the fire that devastated the church in 1939. In 2012, lighting hit the tower and falling debris killed a man who was walking underneath.

Schermerhorn Street, east of Smith Street, after excavation work for the IND subway was completed. April 7, 1932. Although the excavation trench along Schermerhorn Street had been covered and traffic along the surface road had been restored, service along the Fulton Street did not begin until 1936, almost exactly four years after this photograph was taken. Connecting service to the IND Crosstown line (today’s G) began in July 1937. The Hoyt-Schermerhorn Streets station may look familiar to Michael Jackson fans: it was one of the locations used in 1987’s Martin Scorsese-directed music video for “Bad.”