Casino Theatre, Flatbush Avenue; February 27, 1928. The Casino Theatre was opened in 1909 in the heart of Brooklyn's theatre district. Twenty years later, it went the way of its vaudeville and burlesque revues: it was closed, torn down, and replaced by the commercial building that still occupies the site.

“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.

The St. Felix Street entrace of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, ca. 1931.

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.

Fulton Street El, Brooklyn, at Lafayette Street, May 27-28, 1941. View looking east.

"West side of Clinton Avenue between DeKalb Avenue and Lafayette Avenue, 1974." No. 320 (right) is a Second Empire house built in 1867-8 for John O’Mahony, a liquor dealer. The mansard roof, entranceway, and lintels survived a 1920s-era remodel. No. 324 (left) is a larger and more imposing Second Empire structure, built in 1869 for the willow ware pottery manufacturer Lambert Heyniger.

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.

At the turn of the 20th century, Downtown Brooklyn had a theater district to rival Manhattan’s. In the space of a few blocks near the Flatbush Avenue Extension, a collection of grand multi-use ballrooms and smaller vaudeville stages proliferated. Just a few decades later, most had fallen into disuse and disrepair, but in many cases, the buildings themselves survive. Here’s a look at a thriving entertainment district of days gone by — and the contemporary adaptive reuse projects reinvigorating its legacy.

The Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower under construction, 1929. At the busy intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush stands the Williamsburgh Savings Bank, dividing the low-rise Brooklyn neighborhoods of Boerum Hill, Fort Greene, Prospect Heights, and Park Slope. At 512 feet, the building is the tallest in Brooklyn; once the tallest structure between Manhattan and Paris. Built between 1927 and 1929 for the Williamsburgh Savings Bank, the building boasts a four-sided clock face, the largest in the world until 1962. (It was surpassed by the Allen-Bradley Clocktower in Milwaukee.) Against the architect’s wishes, the client insisted on a golden dome, meant as a nod to the Bank’s pre-existing building in Williamsburg (the neighborhood is spelled without the ‘h’). Along with the copper dome, the Spanish detail gives the art-deco style a neo-Moorish flavor. Ownership of the building changed over the years through mergers and acquisitions, as Williamsburgh Savings first became a part of the Republic National Bank and was later acquired by Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Company (HSBC). “The Willie”, as it is affectionately known, has been converted into luxury condominiums by co-developers The Dermot Companies and Magic Johnson. The ornamented hall, with a mosaic mural of Brooklyn, 63-foot ceilings and 40-foot windows, was vacated on September 30, 2005 as new ownership took over and now serves as an event space. Although still the tallest building in Brooklyn (though perhaps not for long with the planned conversion of the Atlantic Yards), the Williamsburgh Savings Bank is not the tallest structure. This honor belongs to a 597-foot radio and television tower at nearby Brooklyn Tech High School.

Attached Greek Revival row houses, 1958. The homes were built in 1853 for the developer Samuel I. Underhill, along with a matching pair at 297-299 Cumberland Street (at right). Before Italianate brownstone townhouses came into vogue, Greek Revival row houses were a popular choice for Fort Greene builders and homeowners. The four wooden row houses were built with a shared colonnade porch, each with its own stoop leading to a parlor-level entrance.

Pedestrians negotiate piles of snow on State Street, just west of Flatbush Avenue; March 15, 1888. No. 110 Flatbush avenue is the building in the foreground at right.

Aftermath of a cave-in that occurred during BMT Brighton Line construction at St. Felix Street and Hanson Place, April 17, 1917. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle described the scene: "A sudden slide of sand, bringing a tremendous impact against the supporting timbers in the new Brooklyn Rapid Transit subway excavation...caused a collapse of the construction work there today, and at least six men were carried down into a hole 50 feet deep." The Eagle further noted that "an Italian, known only as Dominick, died," the only fatality from the collapse. Twelve years later, the Hanson Place Methodist Episcopal Church (out of frame at right) was declared structurally unsound, due to damage to its foundation. A new church was built on the same site.

“Lafayette Avenue, north side, east from St. Felix Street to Fulton Street, showing a row of old houses, Nos. 39 to 53. The second building bears the inscription: ‘Morrison Dining Saloon.’ 1922." The rowhouses on this site were demolished between 1982-1986, creating a small green space known as “BAM Park” for the Brooklyn Academy of Music campus nearby. A 2012 study showed high levels of contaminants in the park’s soil, and it is currently slated for remediation and redevelopment.

Restaurants on Lafayette Avenue in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, October 25, 1959. The buildings at left (Sherry's Cross Roads, Esquire Cafe) have been replaced. Albergo's restaurant has since closed at No. 63 Lafayette, but in 2017 another Italian eatery has taken its place.

Cuyler and the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church In 1860, Brooklyn's Park Presbyterian Church, then building a new church on Lafayette Avenue in Fort Greene invited the celebrated Pastor Theodore Richard Cuyler to be its pastor. When the church was completed in 1862, the congregation changed its name to the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church. There Cuyler spent the next 30 years. In 1860, when he became pastor the congregation numbered 140 people; when he left, in 1890, it had grown to 2,330 and was the third-largest Presbyterian congregation in America. He wrote 22 books and more than 4,0000 articles. Cuyler and Henry Ward Beecher were wary friends and sometimes shared a podium. In 1872, Cuyler invited the Quaker leader Sarah Smiley to address his congregation. He was criticized by the Presbytery of Brooklyn for inviting a woman to address a mixed-sex assembly. Cuyler's vociferous opposition to slavery is a large part of what commended him to Park Presbyterian Church, which was founded by abolitionists. "On the Sunday when fire was opened on Fort Sumter," said the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, "the American flag was raised on the steeple of the Lafayette Avenue Church and it stayed there until Lee surrendered and the confederacy collapsed." "During the Civil War riots in this city," wrote the New York Tribune, "his church, with that of Henry Ward Beecher's, was closely guarded by the authorities" Two thousand people crammed into Lafayette Presbyterian Church for Cuyler's Funeral on March 1, 1909.

“Painless Parker” dentist, ca. 1896. Signs read “I am positively IT in painless dentistry.” This advertisement faces the triangular lot in the center of the three-way intersection of Flatbush, Atlantic, and Fourth Avenues. Edgar R. R. "Painless" Parker, "the wonderful wizard of painless dentistry," was the most flamboyant if not the best of all dentists. He employed dancing girls, a brass band, performing tigers and walruses, and a general circus setting to calm the masses frightened by dentistry. He arranged for a bugler to stand behind the patient and let fly with a mighty blast at the precise moment that Parker extracted the tooth..."painlessly." His enduring contribution may that he pioneered the concept of group dental practice: at his height Parker operated thirty West Coast dental offices, employed 75 dentists and grossed $3 million annually. When he died in 1952 the obituaries labeled him a "chain-store dentist." But he is remembered today principally for his stunts. After some years as a street dentist, extracting teeth at fifty cents per, he established spectacular headquarters in Brooklyn. He extracted 357 teeth in one day- on a vaudeville stage- and had a necklace made of them which he wore while practicing his trade.

147 St. Felix Street, April 17, 1917.

“Ashland Place, south from and across DeKalb Avenue. On the left is a corner of Fort Greene Park and in the background is the Fulton Street elevated structure. The buildings in the center of the photograph are on the south side of DeKalb Avenue, extending to St. Felix Place, 1927."

"Hanson Place Methodist Episcopal Church, with scaffolding being prepared for its demolition, ca. 1929." Dating to 1873, this was the second Methodist church built on the site, where it replaced a smaller structure built in 1857. In 1927, the Hanson Place church merged with Methodist congregations from Ridgewood, Queens and nearby Fleet Street with the intention of building a new structure in a different location. The newly united congregation was forced to reconsider their plans in 1929, when the Department of Buildings ruled the Hanson Place structure unsafe for occupancy due to subway construction beneath its foundation. Ultimately, they elected to build a new church next door to the nearly-complete Williamsburgh Savings Bank. In 1931, the new, red brick Neo-Gothic Hanson Place Central United Methodist Church was completed.

Church of the Messiah at Clermont and Greene Avenues, ca. 1910. After a fire destroyed the steeple of the Greene Avenue Presbyterian Church (as it was called in the early part of the century), it was rebuilt with its distinctive beehive tower. A five-alarm fire in February 1969 rendered the building unsalvageable.

The Brooklyn Strand, a 1918 vaudeville theater on Fulton Street at Rockwell Place, 1941. Next door (right) is the Majestic Theater, vacant and listed for rent. Today, the Majestic building is home to the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Harvey Theater (which maintains many interior details of the original theatre), while the Strand is now the BRIC house, a non-profit arts performance space.

“Clermont Avenue, south from Lafayette Avenue, showing St. John's Roman Catholic Chapel (white building) and the Church of the Messiah (cone-shaped Steeple). June 21, 1941.” Today, St. John’s is the Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School, named for the first Catholic Bishop of Brooklyn. In 1868, Loughlin and the diocese of Brooklyn purchased land on Clermont Avenue with the intention of building a massive cathedral. He was ultimately unable to finance the project, but did build the Bishop’s residence at the northeast corner of Clermont and Greene Avenues. The Church of the Messiah was razed after a five-alarm fire in February 1969. The distinctive “beehive” steeple was added after a previous fire in 1910 destroyed the original steeple and belfry.

Brooklyn Hospital, founded in 1845. The Brooklyn Hospital was founded as the "Brooklyn City Hospital" in May of 1845, supposedly following an incident in which a man from Buffalo, New York broke his leg at Fulton Street, in proximity to nearby Brooklyn City Hall. The hospital played a major part in providing treatment and aid for soldiers of the Union Army during the Civil War. It continued to play the role of carrying for sick and wounded soldiers in the Spanish-American War and both World Wars. In 1880, the hospital established the first nursing school in Brooklyn and the first in the State of New York. This was made possible by a generous donation by the women of the Fruit and Flower Mission. The hospital also installed the second Electrocardiograph in Brooklyn in the year 1926.

Fulton Street El, Brooklyn, at Lafayette Street, May 27-28, 1941. View looking west.

For this story, we'd like to share our personal picks from our combined collections, that represent what this time of year means to us, and to introduce the team of Librarians, Archivists, Collection Managers, Educators and Administrators, who make up the fantastic staff at the Center for Brooklyn History.

Times Plaza, September 13, 1913. Times Plaza, so-called for its proximity to the offices of the former Brooklyn Daily Times newspaper, refers to the Downtown Brooklyn intersection of Atlantic, Flatbush, and Fourth Avenues. Times Plaza has long been a hub of Brooklyn transit. This 1913 photo includes: the Atlantic Avenue station of the Fifth Avenue El; the Flatbush Avenue terminal of the Long Island Railroad (now Atlantic Terminal); local streetcar traffic; and, in the foreground, excavation for the new BMT Fourth Avenue subway line. At the time, Brooklyn Elevated Railway provided a connection between the Fifth Avenue El and Long Island Railroad's Atlantic Avenue Line (this service was discontinued in 1916). The Hanson Place Methodist Episcopal Church is visible in the background.

Behrens Pharmacy at the northwest corner of DeKalb and Clermont Avenues, 1942. The sign has changed, but the pharmacy continues to operate at this address.

Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument, undated postcard. During the Revolutionary War, more than 11,500 prisoners of war died aboard British ships anchored in nearby Wallabout Bay. The prisoners died of overcrowding, contaminated water, starvation, and disease, and either had their bodies thrown overboard or were hastily (and poorly) buried at the shoreline. Because of this callousness, thousands of body parts and bones washed up on Brooklyn’s waterfront for years to come. In 1808 the remains were first entombed in a crypt on Jackson Street (now Hudson Avenue), near the Brooklyn Navy Yard. In 1873 the prison ship martyrs remains were moved from their location to a vault in the park that was created at the site of a former Revolutionary War fort (then Washington Park, today Fort Greene Park). In the late 19th century various constituencies advocated for a permanent memorial. In 1905 McKim, Mead and White created the design for a new entrance to the crypt, including a wide staircase leading to a plaza from which a massive Doric column rose. The Stanford White-designed monument was 149-foot-tall and crowned with a bronze lantern, created by sculptor Alexander Weinmann (who also designed four bronze eagles for the base). It was dedicated in 1908 with the President-elect William Howard Taft in attendance. Between 1937 and 1948 an elevator allowed visitors to ascend the column. Over the last century, the monument has undergone a series of vandalization and restorations. The eagles were removed in the 1960s due to continual defacement. After smaller restoration efforts in the 1940s and 1970s, a major effort was undertaken to repair, clean and conserve the monument, the crypt, and the surrounding plaza. The newly restored plaza (with modern lighting and two original and two replica eagles) was unveiled in 2008, a century after its original dedication.

Subway construction on Ashland Place, north of Lafayette Avenue, January 30, 1911. The excavation underway was for the BMT Fourth Avenue line, which runs under Ashland Place between Fulton Street and the start of Fourth Avenue at Flatbush Avenue. The elevated line in the middle ground is the Fulton Street El.

The Queen of All Saints Chapel and School at Lafayette and Vanderbilt Avenues, ca. 1913. Designed by Reiley & Steinback, construction of the elaborate Gothic Revival Catholic church began in 1910 and was completed in 1913. When opened it was lauded by the Brooklyn Daily Eagle as "one of the two or three most beautiful specimens of Church architecture in the United States."

Times Plaza, viewed from Fourth Avenue, April 22, 1948. The view includes the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower, Interborough Subway headhouse, and the Flatbush Avenue terminal of the Long Island Railroad.

91 Lafayette Avenue, 1940. The building at the northeast corner of South Portland Avenue and Lafayette Avenue is the only remaining house of what was once a row of old brownstones. Addresses 93-99 were demolished in 1936 to building a new 10 story apartment building, which still stands.

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.

Facade detail: Queen of All Saints Roman Catholic Church, 1928.

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

The Brooklyn Masonic Temple, from Clermont Avenue, 1927.

Fulton Street El, Brooklyn, at Lafayette Street, May 27-28, 1941. View looking east.

“Lafayette Avenue, at the northwest corner of Clermont Avenue. September 19, 1941.” Three 1857 wood-frame houses on Lafayette Avenue and an unusually narrow brick building at the northwest corner of Clermont Avenue.

Cultural Medallions are porcelainized enamel plaques affixed to the exterior of buildings, in order to commemorate an individual (or occurrence) that has made a significant contribution to New York City’s rich cultural heritage. These are the Cultural Medallions in Brooklyn. See more from the Historic Landmarks Preservation Center here.

“DeKalb Avenue, north side, east from Vanderbilt to Clinton Avenues, showing former brownstone private residences. October 12, 1940.” DeKalb Avenue is named after Baron Johann de Kalb, a Bavarian-French military officer who served in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War and was killed at the battle of Camden.

Marianne Moore was born on November 15, 1887 in Kirkwood, Missouri. She attended Bryn Mawr College in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1909 with an A.B. in history, economics, and political science. As a student, she wrote poetry and short stories for the campus literary magazine Tipyn O’Bob, inspiring her later career as a poet and writer. Moore published extensively throughout her career, establishing herself as one of America’s most renowned poets alongside the likes of Ezra Pound, H.D., and T.S. Eliot. In 1915, her poems appeared in both The Egoist, a literary journal based in London, and the Chicago-based Poetry journal. Her first book of poetry, aptly titled Poems, was published in 1916. In 1924, her second book of poetry Observations, won the Dial Award. In the late 1920s, Moore became editor of The Dial, a well-established, yet sporadically published, literary magazine which focused on a variety of subject matter throughout its tenure. Moore came on as editor in 1925 and would serve as until the journal’s final year in 1929. After publication of The Dial ended, Moore and her mother moved to 260 Cumberland Street in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Fort Greene where they lived for the next thirty-six years. For nearly half of that time spent in Brooklyn, Moore tended to her elderly mother who passed away in 1955. Moore remained in Fort Greene until 1965 before moving to Greenwich Village in Manhattan. In 1951, she won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for her fifth book of poetry Collected Poems, forever solidifying her legacy. In her later years, Moore became synonymous with her eccentric attire of donning a black cape and tricorn hat, as seen above from a reception at the Gage & Tollner’s restaurant in Brooklyn Heights. She passed away in 1972 at the age of eighty-four. Moore’s time spent in Brooklyn lives on to this day. Her house on Cumberland Street still exists and her papers and ephemera are open to researchers at the Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia.

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.

Horse-powered excavation for the BMT Fourth Avenue line on Ashland Place, north of Lafayette Avenue, January 10, 1911. The Brooklyn Academy of Music is visible at the edge of the frame, upper left.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the coolest cat of all? We're actually not quite sure we're fully qualified to award that title...but here is a collection of our favorite historic photos of felines from our partners!

The Majestic Theater and storefronts on Fulton Street, 1959. The Majestic marquee lists two current showings: The Black Shield of Falworth (1954) and The Mole People (1956). Fulton Street restaurants include Lotus Inn Chow Mein (no. 655) and Cafe Copa Bananas Cocktail Lounge (no. 659).

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."

Wood-frame row house at 333 Adelphi Street, 1958. This Greek Revival house dates to 1855 and appears in advertisements for boarders in the late 1860s. In the 1880s, it was home to a kindergarten, where “special attention \[was] given to timid or backward children.”

200 Lafayette Avenue (Vanderbilt Avenue facade), 1957. The (now) bright yellow wood-frame house is arguably the most photographed house in Clinton Hill. Purchased in 1903 by the Skinner family, the home was still in their care in 2010 and likely still today.

The Joseph Steele house, built around 1850 — likely as an extension of the smaller wing on its east side — is a wooden building in the Greek Revival style. During the 1850s, this part of Brooklyn still had some farmland and open space; the cupola atop its roof would have provided a sweeping downhill view of more-urban Brooklyn Heights, Wallabout Bay, and the land in between.

The southeast corner of Adelphi Street and Lafayette Avenue, 1941. At the corner is 329 Adelphi, which, along with its near neighbor at 333 Adelphi (third from the corner), are the oldest wooden houses in Fort Greene, according to the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

View of Ashland Place, looking north toward the Brooklyn Academy of Music (center-right, in the distance), October 19, 1910. This photograph was taken as part of a survey ahead of the construction of the BMT Fourth Avenue Line, which today runs beneath Ashland Place. The photographer's vantage point is outside the former No. 149 Ashland Place (Ashland Place has since been extended to include the former Raymond Street, at which point addresses were renumbered). At left, on the west side of Ashland Place are storefronts for the Long Island Bird Store — advertising poultry and pigeons — and a hay and grain supplier. Today, the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower (One Hanson Place) stands immediately to the right of this vantage point.

The southeast corner of Fort Greene Park, DeKalb Avenue and homes on the east side of Washington Park.

Commercial strip on the north side of Fulton Street, east of Ashland Place, 1941. Tenants include a barbershop, Italian restaurant, hardware store, and “permanent linoleum floors.”

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.

The Brooklyn Academy of Music, from St. Felix Street, ca. 1931. Founded in 1861 in Brooklyn Heights as the Philharmonic Society of Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s original building was destroyed in a 1903 fire. The present building was designed by Herts & Tallant and opened in the fall of 1908 with a Metropolitan Opera performance of Faust.

The house at 200 Lafayette Avenue is what the landmarks commission calls “the largest and best remaining example, of a wooden suburban mansion in the transitional Greek Revival/Italianate style now standing in any of the five boroughs of New York City.” Throughout its 179-year history, the house has only had three owners. The Skinner family, who currently own the home, have owned it since 1903.

Y.M.C.A Central Branch, ca. 1915. Funded by luminaries including John D. Rockefeller and designed by the Trowbridge & Ackerman firm, the Neo-Georgian Central Branch of the Y.M.C.A opened in 1915. After years of declining membership, the State of New York bought the building in 1967. It was converted into office spaces and in 2011 was named the Shirley Chisholm Building, in honor of the first African American woman to be elected to the U.S. Congress, and first African American woman to run for President of the United States.

“South Elliott Place, north from Lafayette Avenue, showing the Brooklyn Technical High School in the background, 1941.”

Rear view of the Brooklyn Central Branch YMCA at 55 Hanson Place, from Fulton Street. The street in the center of the photo is Fort Greene Place, 1930.

"Red Cross Parade: \[Employees Association of Morse Dry Dock and Repair Co.] May 20, 1918." The parade is marching west on Lafayette Avenue, across South Elliott Place. The spire at center is the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church at South Oxford Street.

Fulton Street, west from St. Felix Street. In the background is the tower of the Smith, Gray & Company Building, August 1941.

Orpheum Theater, 1941. The Orpheum Theatre opened on December 31, 1900, and presented live performances to an auditorium that sat nearly 2000 people. The B.F. Keith-Albee chain took over the venue between 1912 and 1929 and hosted mostly vaudeville. For the last 24 years, RKO operated the theatre. This photograph captures the marquee in June 1947 as the nearby elevated train infrastructure was being removed. In 1953 the theatre closed and the building demolished. After decades of functioning as a parking lot, a new building was erected on the site in the mid-2010s.

260 Cumberland Street is the tall building visible down the block. Poet Marianne Moore moved here with her mother in 1918. Moore worked at the New York Public Library and published her first volume of poetry "Poems" in 1921. Moore was highly regarded as a poet during her lifetime and even became somewhat of a celebrity, famous for her tricorn hat and cape and featured in magazines such as Life, the New York Times, and The New Yorker. Ford Motor Company even asked her to come up with names for a new series of cars, though they rejected her suggestions.

A collection of churches across New York City from the New York Public Library.

Prior to European settlement, Atlantic Avenue was an unpaved trail ending at the East River. By 1816, when the Village of Brooklyn was incorporated, the road became the village’s southernmost boundary. Originally called District Street, it was renamed Atlantic Street in 1855 (at 75 Atlantic Avenue, an engraved street sign marked “Atlantic Street” is still extant) and designated an Avenue in the 1870s. In 1825, District Street developer Charles Hoyt and his associates petitioned the City to establish a ferry between Manhattan and Brooklyn, but Manhattan landholders feared real estate development competition with Brooklyn, so it was not until 1834, the year Brooklyn was incorporated as a city, that a lease was granted for the “South Ferry” between Whitehall Slip and District Street, for which an ornate ferry house was built. In 1832-36, the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad was built to connect District Street to Long Island, with its terminal at the present intersection of Flatbush Avenue. The line was operated by the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR), incorporated in 1834. The world’s first subway was constructed at this time underneath Atlantic Avenue to provide steam train service between the railroad terminal and the South Ferry. After steam trains were outlawed in Brooklyn in 1859, the subway tunnel was abandoned and horse car service was introduced above ground (the brick-vaulted tunnel was long forgotten, but in 1980, many decades later, it was rediscovered by a historian named Bob Diamond). Thus, in the span of just a few years, District Street became the conduit for business transactions and the transport of goods between Long Island and Manhattan. The street was poised for major change and the surrounding area became desirable as a suburban community due to its newly acquired access to Manhattan. The earliest development began in the 1840s to take advantage of the commercial waterfront. Mercantile and industrial buildings included the Flint Glass Works, producers of gaslight probes, and the original Benjamin Moore Paint Factory at 55 Atlantic Avenue. The transfer and importation of goods was a major enterprise, and businesses like The Fruit Cleaning Company at 14 Atlantic Avenue, prospered. Many commercial buildings from this period are extant on the blocks from Hicks to Clinton Streets. In the late 19th century, the waterfront to Court Street became a premier commercial boulevard with a bank, small shops and a large dry-goods store called Journeay & Burnham. In 1933, bridges and tunnels had surpassed ferries as a means of entering Manhattan, and the South Ferry was terminated. Beginning in the 1940s and completed in 1964, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) significantly altered the character of western Atlantic Avenue, resulting in the demolition of all structures from the waterfront to Columbia Street. In order to promote economic vitality, attract and retain businesses, create jobs and improve residents’ quality of life, the Atlantic Avenue Business Improvement District (AABID) launched in early 2012. The AABID is also committed to marketing and advocating for the street’s roughly 300 businesses and to making capital improvements, such as street beautification, as well as celebrating and preserving Atlantic Avenue’s history and architecture. The western end of the Avenue is protected by the Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill Historic Districts, designated in 1965 and 1969, respectively.

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.

The architecture of the church, which opened on March 12, 1862, is noteworthy. It is one of the finest examples of early Romanesque Revival church architecture in New York (the mode had been inaugurated in the 1840s by the architect Richard Upjohn at the Congregation Church of the Pilgrims on Remsen and Henry streets in Brooklyn Heights.) The simplicity and, some would say, primitivism of the Romanesque style commended itself to dissenting Protestant sects that objected to the Gothic style embraced by high Episcopalian and Roman Catholic congregations for whom sacramental ritual rather than preaching was the main point of the worship service. Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Chruch adopted a semi-circular, "theatrical" seating plan, influenced by that of Henry Ward Beecher's Plymouth Church (1849), which was felt better to serve congregants of a gifted preacher. In 1976, under the Reverend George Litch Knight, who was Lafayette's pastor for 33 years, the church interior was significantly altered by the incorporation of murals, "Mighty Cloud of Witnesses," painted by Hank Prussing, who was then 27 years old and a graduate of nearby Pratt Institute. For the Lafayette Avenue commission, he took 500 photographs of neighborhood scenes and residents as preparation for a mural sequence that depicts vividly observed vignettes of neighborhood life and characters. Its a startling thing to see when you enter the church, but the murals proved popular with many congregants, who even recognized local faces among Prussing's subjects.

The Brooklyn Masonic Temple at Clermont and Lafayette Avenues, ca. 1910. Built between 1906-1909, the imposing Neo-Classical structure is notable for its polychrome terra cotta ornamentation. The details of the facade are rendered in rich green, yellow, blue, brown, and cream.

Corn Exchange Bank, 1937. Constructed sometime between 1910 and 1930 the Corn Exchange Bank was one of a number of branches of the highly successful bank its most well-known branch is on 125th Street at Park Avenue). Like most NYC-based banks, the institution cycled through a number of names. Called Chemical Bank by the 1960s and Chase by the 1990s, the building has been owned by environmental designer and activist, Al Atarra, since the 1970s. The bank vacated the building around the turn of the 21st century and it remained largely empty, though was used for occasional film shoots. One of those shoots changed the name on the facade to Metropolitan Exchange Bank (a fictional institution) and Atarra kept the name, creating a business called M Ex, the Metropolitan Exchange, which was a start-up incubator for creative ventures. One of his wishes, according to a 2010 New York Times article, was to rename the project: "I want to rename it the Brooklyn Arts and Design Area or BADA. Since we're in the BAM District, it'll be BADA-BAM." Though the creative hub is still housed in the building, it seems that his syllabic abbreviation has not caught on.

Brooklyn Technical High School, ca. 1933. The Brooklyn Technical High School building at Fort Greene Place and DeKalb Avenue was built between 1930-33, and is today home to over 5,000 enrolled students. Brooklyn Tech was founded in 1922, after the educator Dr. Albert L. Colston designed a specialized math and science-oriented curriculum to prepare for students for modern, technical professions or collegiate instruction. The school first operated from a converted warehouse at the foot of the Manhattan Bridge, before moving to the purpose-built Fort Greene campus. The twelve-story Collegiate Gothic school building by Walter C. Martin, the Superintendent of School Buildings who succeeded William H. Gompert, incorporates elements of skyscraper construction, including its steel and reinforced concrete structure. While Martin’s building materials of choice were becoming more common, the Brooklyn Tech’s amenities were far from ordinary: the vertical campus included two gymnasia, a radio production studio, an aeronautical lab, and an operational metal foundry (which has since ceased operation). A 456-foot tall rooftop broadcast antenna makes Brooklyn Tech the tallest structure in the borough. Brooklyn Tech has produced numerous distinguished graduates who went on to careers in the sciences, including Arno Allan Penzias (‘51), the 1978 winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics for research instrumental in the development of the Big Bang Theory. In more local matters, Tech has also produced prominent political figures, including US Representatives Matthew McHugh (‘56), Gary Ackerman (‘60), and Anthony Weiner (‘81).

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.

“Lafayette Ave., south side, east from South Portland Ave. At the left, is the Lafayette Presbyterian Church, undergoing repairs. April 4, 1932.” Built in 1862, Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church was known for its abolitionist pastor, Theodore L. Cuyler, and its distinguished congregation of prominent Reconstruction-era political figures, including President Benjamin Harrison and British Prime Minister William E. Gladstone.

“South Elliott Place (left foreground), south of Hanson Place to Atlantic Ave. This view is also general and shows the southern section of Brooklyn. It was taken from atop the Y.M.C.A. Building located at 55 Hanson Place. At the left, beyond the Long Island freight yards on the S.E. and S.W. corners of Sixth Ave. respectively are the Sheffield Farms Co. and the A.G. Spalding Co. Manufacturing buildings. At the right beyond the triangle is the Fifth Ave. Elevated Line on Flatbush Ave., which turned sharply and continued southward on Fifth Ave. June 1926.”

The east side of South Portland Avenue, just south of Fort Greene Park, 1958. The buildings on this block provide a fascinating snapshot of the architectural elements that came in and out of fashion during the latter half of the 19th century. At left is no. 29A, one of a pair of 1878 Neo-Grec brownstones by architect Charles Mushlet. At right are a row of Italianate brownstones built around 1867. In between, a 20th century apartment building with mixed brownstone, brick, and terra cotta facade and a distinctive curved, full-height swell-bay window common to more recent tenement construction.

The Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower, from Atlantic and Fourth Avenues, 1929. The tower was designed by Halsey, McCormack and Helmer and opened in April 1929. The original plans had not included a dome at its top, but the dome was added at the insistence of the bank’s owners, and over the objections of the architects.

Majestic Theater ca 1940 The Majestic Theater opened in 1904 and was known for a variety of theatrical performances, including opera, musicals, and vaudeville. By 1942, the Majestic Theater became a first-run movie theater, and later a church. Not long after this photograph was taken (in 1968), the Majestic Theater closed its doors permanently and remained that way for two decades. Harvey Lichtenstein, Brooklyn Academy of Music President and Executive Producer, raised funds to renovate the theater and it re-opened in 1987 with many of the original elements and details. Today, the former Majestic Theater is the Harvey Theater at BAM, showcasing a variety of creative performances and productions.

1 Hanson Place, the future site of the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower, in 1927. Construction on the 37-story building would begin later that year.