Though converted to the Brooklyn Borough Hall upon the consolidation of New York City and Brooklyn in 1898, the Brooklyn Borough Hall first opened as the city hall of Brooklyn in 1848. The plans were set in motion in 1835 after the city received its charter, however it took some time for the actual building to materialize. The architect Calvin Pollard won the design competition for a Greek Revival building on the site, but though construction began in 1836, it was stalled by the panic of 1837. Thus it was only in 1845, after a bond issue was approved by New York State, that Gamaliel King, another Brooklyn architect, was called upon to finish the building. King provided a simplified version of Pollard's design to be built on the hall's foundation. It is this version (following a couple of renovations) that stands today.

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Andrew Menard's 1988 sculpture, titled "With or Without Reason" inverses the relationship between a sculpted figure and its pedestal. Acting as a quotation of nearby sculptures in Central Park, the work consists of three amorphic figures balancing atop identical poles. The figures and their pedestals, made of epoxy resin and styrofoam, were meant to gradually yellow with exposure to the sun. Their truncated limbs and unsteady stances provide a contrast to their stable compatriots in the park. Andrew Menard's sculpture was on view from May 1st, 1988 until April 1st, 1990. It was funded by the Public Art Fund.

You can create posts on any image on the platform. Posts appear under their associated photos in Urban Archive. The first post that is written about a location is automatically pinned to the location page. On any post you write, your organization’s name will be added to the bottom of the post to ensure proper accreditation. You can create a post by going to any image and clicking the “🖋️ Create a new Post” button. Similarly, you can edit a post by clicking “Published” to reveal the “Edit” option.

160 Atlantic Avenue Designed by Ebenezer L. Roberts This stately building was originally constructed in 1871 for the South Brooklyn Savings Bank, which moved to a larger building at 130 Court Street (site # 13) in 1922. The bank had a number of influential board members, including merchant James Van Nostrand and businessman and politician James S. T. Stranahan, who, during his time as president of the Brooklyn Park Commission, was largely responsible for securing funding and support for the creation of Prospect Park. The Neo-Grec style, Tuckahoe Marble-clad building features round and square pilasters, corner quoins, arched windows supported by colonettes, and a bracketed cornice. Many of its original details have been lost, however, including a two-story pedimented temple front entrance and a balustrade with decorative urns on the roof. The ground floor has also been remodeled. The bank interior had been clad in marble and black walnut woodwork, but was refurbished many times over the years to accommodate new uses. The buildings are located in the Cobble Hill Historic District.

You can create posts on any image on the platform. Posts appear under their associated photos in Urban Archive. The first post that is written about a location is automatically pinned to the location page. On any post you write, your organization’s name will be added to the bottom of the post to ensure proper accreditation. You can create a post by going to any image and clicking the “🖋️ Create a new Post” button. Similarly, you can edit a post by clicking “Published” to reveal the “Edit” option.

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.

Though its name seems to suggest otherwise, Saint Ann's is a non-sectarian school known for its non-traditional education style. How it came to be named after a Saint comes from its eclectic history.

Packer Collegiate Institute ca. 1922 One of the earliest of our many ivy-covered Collegiate Gothic buildings. The exterior of this structure, designed by Minard Lafever and published by him in his Architectural Instructor, was particularly expressive of the functions within. A recent addition has been intelligently carried out completely in character with the original.

Clinton Street row houses, following the construction of the Insurance Building (extreme right), August 5, 1934.

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.

Berean Buildings, 1922. The Berean Buildings — three adjoining three-story brownstone structures — were erected in 1867 at the northwest corner of Court and State Streets. The buildings, included street-level storefronts and large hall for social functions, lectures, and performances. The Brooklyn branch of the New York Conservatory of Music was an early tenant, and late 19th century newspapers included advertisements for music lessons held there. From 1903 to 1922, the newly created Children's Court was held here. Part of the Court of Special Sessions "Inferior Courts," local courts that dealt with "neighborhood affairs," the Children's Court was for legal matters concerning children under the age of 16. Until the late 19th century, criminal courts tried both youth and adults. The Brooklyn Children's Court was among the first efforts at juvenile justice reform. Since 1924, the Berean Buildings have hosted a succession of theaters: first, as the Boro Hall Theatre, a vaudeville house equipped with a new Kimball organ; from 1949 to 1967, as the Teatro Amor, showing Spanish-language films; and finally, from 1968 to 1989, as the Cine-Art Theatre, which showed pornographic films with occasional live strip shows. The building was torn down in the 1990s, and the current large multiplex UA Court Street Stadium 12 opened in 2000.

View north along the east side of Bridge street from the top of contractor's platform at Willoughby Street, May 28, 1923. Less than five years after this photograph was taken during the construction of the BMT Broadway line, this entire block looked drastically different. Between 1929 and1930 the New York Telephone Company constructed their Long Island headquarters here at the northeast corner of Bridge and Willoughby Streets. The 27-story Art Deco building was designed by Ralph Walker (the architect of number telecommunications buildings in New York). In 2008 the first apartments of a condo conversion came on the market for $1 million.

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.”

Exploring foodways in Brooklyn, historic and contemporary, offers up a unique cross-section of considerations around why we eat what we eat, where it comes from, and what that means. What Brooklyn consumes is defined by its plurality and variety. The borough’s access to waterfront shipping ports and proximity to upstate farmlands adds an additional layer to the near-endless number of restaurants, bodegas, grocery stores, delivery options, food trucks, farm stands, and home-cooked meals we enjoy today. Looking back over Brooklyn's peak industrial period in the 19th and 20th centuries, we can also see how businesses such as sugar refineries, breweries, and poultry farms shaped the social and cultural landscape⁠—and indeed, the landscape itself⁠—of Kings County.

St. Charles Borromeo Church ca. 1980 New York Catholics ranked parishes in terms of status. The Church of St. Charles Borromeo founded in Brooklyn Heights in 1849 was the Sixth Catholic Parish in Brooklyn. While it wasn't the first, it was regarded as "select," according to the anonymous inscription on the reverse of a stereoscopic view card depicting the church. The note continues: "The church is also frequented by the most wealthy Catholics, showing however nothing remarkable inside or out. Even the organ is of small capacity." The present church was dedicated in 1869, in the red Philadelphia brick edifice trimmed with Belleville stone, and in the English Gothic style, designed by Patrick C. Kelley, a premiere Catholic architect of the day.

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.

Berean Buildings, Court Street, April 13, 1931. By then, the former court house had been converted to the Boro Hall Theatre, a vaudeville house.

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.

Intersection of Joralemon and Court Streets, with Borough Hall (at left) and the Fulton Street Elevated tracks (in the distance), July 23, 1907. The entrances to the soon-to-be opened IRT subway station at Borough Hall are visible on either side of Joralemon Street, flanked by the iconic subway globe lights. The manure noticeable on the street testifies to the continued employment of horses for the transportation of goods (if no longer people).

Sidewalk and Fulton Street El outside 391-393 Fulton Street, the Empire State Surety Company, opposite Borough Hall, September 19, 1915.

St. Ann’s Church (now part of Packer Collegiate Institute) Begun in 1867, St. Ann's was designed by James Renwick, one of the 19th century’s great American architects who also designed St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Grace Church in Manhattan. The church is one of the best examples of “Ruskinian Gothic” in New York. Ruskin, the famous Victorian art critic, advocated using color in architecture often through polychrome stone and brickwork. Here, this is accomplished with alternating bands of rough New Jersey brownstone and smooth, yellowish Ohio sandstone. As with St. Patrick’s, Renwick designed a grand central entrance with magnificent stained glass windows and two flanking entrances all topped with freestanding gables. The interior was built to seat over two-thousand. Large, undisguised cast-iron columns run down each side of the nave supporting the gallery and roof. There is also cast-iron wainscotting along the side aisle walls. St. Ann's is among the earliest American churches to use cast iron in such a way. Organized in 1787, St. Ann’s is the oldest Episcopal parish in Brooklyn. This church was its third home, and the parish wanted a to build the largest and most imposing church in Brooklyn. The new church was expensive, and the parish went into debt to to build it. By 1878, the debt amounted to over $135,000, the church was delinquent on its payments, and Union Dime Bank began foreclosure proceedings. Only a last minute gift of $60,000 from a wealthy banker kept the parish in their church. Wall Street benefited St. Ann’s church again in 1951 when the daughter of Hetty Green, the “Witch of Wall Street” left it a surprise bequest of $500,000. However, nothing could stem the steady decrease of the congregation. In 1967, the parish sold the church to Packer Collegiate school and moved up Clinton Street to The Church of the Holy Trinity, renaming it St. Ann’s and the Holy Trinity. The church building remained closed for years until 2003 when Packer extensively renovated the interior to accommodate classrooms and offices.

“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.

A.I. Namm and Sons Department Store, ca. 1925. Adolph I. Namm, a Polish immigrant, moved his Manhattan-based upholstery and embroidery trimmings store to Brooklyn in 1891. His first Brooklyn location opened at 452 Fulton Street, at a moment when this section of Fulton Street was developing into a commercial center. With great success, the store expanded to become a department store, which by the 1920s was one of the largest in the city. The section of the building depicted in this circa 1925 was the penultimate construction for the Fulton Street complex (the final section would be constructed at the corner, at right, a few years after this section was finished in 1925). Designed by Robert D. Kohn and Charles Butler, the department store was built with a steel frame and reinforced concrete floors. The facade was rendered in a modern style with sculptural masonry piers and decorative bronze panels. (The later corner annex created a lovely curved corner facade.) In the 1950s the business merged with a neighboring department store to become Namm-Loeser’s. In early 1957 the downtown Brooklyn store closed, when its parent company made the decision to focus on its suburban locations. Later that year the full block complex of Namm buildings were purchased by the parent company of Abraham & Straus Department Store. They demolished most of the block for a parking garage, save for the 1920s additions, which were converted for offices and ground-level retail spaces. These remaining structures were designated NYC landmarks in 2005.

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.

Northwest corner of Jay and Willoughby streets, May 2, 1916. This survey photograph was taken during construction of the BMT Broadway line. The corner wood-frame building is a (highly advertised) coupon and trading stamp store.The wood-frame buildings on this corner survived into the 1930s. They were razed and in 1947 the modernist headquarters for the Board of Transportation was erected here, with the address 370 Jay Street.

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

Located at 170 Joralemon Street, between a rapidly changing downtown Brooklyn and the historic residential neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights, The Packer Collegiate Institute is a designated New York City landmark.

Poster notifying passengers of service changes, 1946. The Court Street station is a two-track stub-end station, constructed as a terminus for local trains of the IND Fulton Street Line. Opened on April 9, 1936, the station was meant to northern end of the HH Fulton Street Local, and possibility a Brooklyn connection along the long proposed Second Avenue Subway. In reality the only train service that the station operated was the Court Street Shuttle, which left Court Street and traveled the three underground blocks to the nearby transfer station at Hoyt–Schermerhorn. Given the proximity to the next station, Court Street was never heavily used and the station was closed (and the shuttle service discontinued) on June 1, 1946. The station was in active use for only 10 years and just under two months. With most of its entrances sealed the station was used for various activities after 1946 including as a testing ground for station cleaning activities, as storage for transit equipment, and as a filming location for movies. On July 4, 1976 the New York City Transit Exhibit opened in the station as part of the United States Bicentennial celebrations. The exhibit was organized by transit employees. Meant to be on display only until Labor Day of that year, the exhibit proved to be immensely popular and remained open, eventually being transformed into a permanent museum.

Street-level decking for the construcion of the IND Fulton Line's Court Street station, at Court and Schermerhorn Streets; November 20, 1930. At right is the German Evangelical Church, a Romanesque structure completed in 1890 to accommodate the City of Brooklyn's growing German population. The church shuttered in 1969 and was demolished in 2006.

Brooklyn Borough Hall The Greek Revival usually found its best expression in public buildings, as is the case here. At an earlier date, a low Federal-style building was proposed to fill the outer perimeter of the entire triangular block; but that plan was abandoned in favor of this higher, more compact building, now dwarfed by an array of surrounding giants.

Gage & Tollner Restaurant ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: mid-1870s STYLE: Italianate The restaurant Gage & Tollner had its beginnings in 1879 when Charles M. Gage opened an eating establishment at 302 Fulton Street. In 1880, Eugene Toller joined Gage and the restaurant was renamed. It moved to 372-372 Fulton Street in 1892. When Gage and Tollner retired in 1911, they sold the business with the proviso that the new owners maintain the customs established by the founders. The unusually high, neo-Grec painted wooden storefront that adorns this Italianate building was probably added when the restaurant opened. The interior projects the atmosphere of the Gay Nineties. The paneled bar was transferred from the old restaurant at 302 Fulton Street. The restaurant used both gas and electricity for illumination, and it was possibly the only restaurant in New York to do so at the time of its closing.

A.I. Namm and Son Department Store ca. 1925 ARCHITECT: Robert Kahn & Charles Butler DATE: 1924-25 STYLE: Art Deco The A.I. Namm & Son Department Store building at 450-458 Fulton Street is the sole surviving portion of the important enterprise that once covered nearly one entire block. Adolph I. Namm was a Polish immigrant who transferred his Manhattan upholstery and embroidery trimmings business to Brooklyn in 1885 and expanded his business into a highly successful department store. This structure, Namm’s last architectural phase, was built in 1924-25 and 1928-29 to the design of architects Robert D. Kohn and Charles Butler, and consists of a structural steel frame with reinforced concrete floors, clad in Indiana limestone with bronze trim. The highly sophisticated, elegant modern design, with a rounded corner, contrasts monumental sculptural masonry piers, vertical window bays, and decorative bronze spandrel panels. The design was undoubtedly by Kohn, one of the few American architects who had produced aesthetically noteworthy and interesting work (c.1905-15) influenced by the Vienna Secession.

Medical Arts Building, 1929. The Medical Arts Building was completed in 1927 to the designs of Mortimer E. Freehof, an architect of a number of Brooklyn Heights apartment buildings. The Art Deco structure is rendered in a tan brick. Its decoration (which gives it a bit of a Gothic feel) is fun and whimsical with lions bracketing the balcony whose sole purpose seems to be to highlight the building's carved name, while plaques of intertwined cranes separating the windows.

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The Brooklyn Supreme Court House, pictured here, was inaugurated on February 28th, 1865. It was the ninth courthouse to open in Brooklyn. Around ten thousand eager Brooklynites attended the building's opening, a long-awaited affair: reportedly, the cornerstone of the courthouse was laid before the start of the Civil War in 1861. The Times reported that upon opening, the building was "brilliantly illuminated, and with flags on the pediments front and rear, present\[ing] a fine appearance." It was completed "at staggering odds," costing a total of $618,000, a hefty sum which is equivalent to around $10 million today. The courthouse was located on Joralemon Street, spanning the block from Fulton to Livingston Street and occupying a lot 350 deep and 140 feet wide, complete with a courtyard facing Joralemon. The three-story structure was built in the Greek Revival Style with Westchester County marble and brick facades. Inside, visitors were welcomed by an enormous dome which stretched 52 feet in diameter and soared 95 feet in height, topped by a glass oculus measuring 17-feet across. Sixteen 28-foot tall iron columns traced the circumference of the rotunda, as did a balcony that housed offices flanking the sides of the dome. Elaborate fresco work, the marble-floored corridors, and iron staircase in the center area of the structure gave a feeling of artistry to the building's interior. The corridors were topped by groin-vault arches and led to the various courts the building housed on the first and second floors. The third floor was used by the janitor and maintenance staff. In the basement, there were six cells for prisoners awaiting trial upstairs and the heating machines for the building. This equipment was part of the effort to keep the building "well warmed, well lighted, and ventilated," qualities which marked the Supreme Court a truly advanced structure for its time. Additionally, the Times reported that "all the different departments are provided with dressing-rooms...in fact, every one thing is arranged in the best manner possible." By 1895, the courthouse fell out of use as Brooklyn's Supreme Court when the remainder of King's County was annexed by the city of Brooklyn. One year later, the courthouse was "redecorated" for use by the Appellate Division, Second Department. The court's opening case made history, not for the content of the case but for the fact that it was the first instance that Supreme Court judges wore their ceremonial gowns on the bench. The New York Journal of Law claimed this "a deliberate conviction that a certain amount of ceremony and symbolism…constantly reminding the Bench and Bar alike of the obligation of conscientious and decorous official conduct." The Appellate Division, Second Department moved to Brooklyn Borough Hall in 1903. The former courthouse was demolished in October of 1961.

Court Street buildings, including the unusual Neo-Tudor at No. 93, June 21, 1959. The steep, shingled gable and detailed brickwork at No. 93 stand out from the neighborhood's more common brick and brownstone structures, and the Art Deco skyscrapers closer to Borough Hall. The Tudor outlier was built by architects Martyn Weinstein and Samuel Malkind in 1927. Its exposed beams have long since been covered by stucco and, at present, the building is without Landmarks protection.

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Since the founding of the city, Brooklyn has had many civic groups dedicated to encouraging education. In the mid-19th century, a number of libraries emerged that would form the basis of the Brooklyn Library today. This is the story of how it came to be.

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.

Abraham & Strauss ca. 1929 Abraham & Straus was a department store founded in 1865 by Abraham Abraham and Joseph Wechsler with a flagship location at Fulton and Hoyt Streets in the Downtown Brooklyn neighborhood of Brooklyn. Abraham & Straus was originally a dry goods dealer under the name Wechsler & Abraham located at 285 Fulton Street. The store was so successful that the Wechslers were bought out by the Straus family, partners of Macy’s department stores, which led to the name change and the new store location on Fulton and Hoyt Streets. A New York Times article from 1893 reported on the business change. According to the article, the new store was an estimated 1,500,000 cubic feet, five stories, and roughly 40,000 daily shoppers. Also mentioned in the article was the list of goods sold in the new store, which included, “silks and dress goods, cloths, laces, embroideries, cloaks, shawls, linens, gloves, china and glass, sterling silver, bronzes, ribbons, house furnishings, upholsteries, art embroideries, books, furniture, carpets, and stationary.” By 1965, Abraham & Straus became the third largest department store in the United States. In 1995, the store became part of the Macy’s department stores which eliminated the Abraham & Straus branding. The original location at Fulton and Hoyt Streets continues to be operated as a Macy’s Department Store until March 2025.

Shops on Fulton Street, October 4, 1959.

Eastward view of Willoughby Street, at Jay Street, March 16, 1915. In the distance, the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument is visible in Fort Greene Park. The Beaux-Arts building at center-left is the New York and New Jersey Telephone and Telegraph Building, at the northeast corner of Lawrence Street.

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.

A department store founded with the motto "Don't Sell America Short... Sell It Shirts!"

The Brooklyn Academy of Music, opening in 1861, was the Athenaeum’s greatest rival, and BAM was larger, closer to the homes of the Heights elite, and attracted first class orchestras and performers. The Athenaeum adapted, and became a meeting place for organizations, rallies, and revivals, as well as a more traditional lecture and performance venue. It worked for a long time, until 1902, when the City of New York took over the third floor, which contained the auditorium and ante-rooms, as a courtroom for the Court of Special Sessions. The court stayed until at least 1932.

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.

Clinton Street, Brooklyn Heights, February 12, 1960. This Brooklyn Heights street scene includes No. 182 Clinton Street (center, second from corner), known as the New York residence of Bill W., the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. A World War I veteran and stock speculator who lost money in the 1929 crash, Bill was a sufferer of alcoholism who began his recovery in 1934. The next year, Bill began to host growing meetings of recovering alcoholics like himself at his Brooklyn home. Since Bill's death, the building has become a nondescript landmark (contrary to local legend, the stoop has nine steps, not twelve), unlike Bill's Akron, Ohio home, which has been converted to a museum.

Brooklyn Union Gas Company ARCHITECT: Frank Freeman DATE: 1914 STYLE: Neo-Classical The substantial neo-Classical style Brooklyn Union Gas Company Building was constructed in 1914 as the new headquarters for the borough’s oldest and most important utility company and was designed by noted architect Frank Freeman. The Brooklyn Union Gas Company traces its origins to 1824 when a group of entrepreneurs including Joseph Sprague and Alden Spooner proposed establishing the Brooklyn Gas Light Company. Competition between the gas companies grew particularly heated in the 1880s but all seven of the major Brooklyn firms eventually merged in 1895 to form the Brooklyn Union Gas Company. As an indication of its success, in 1912 the company began to plan for a new headquarters and inaugurated this building in 1914. Frank Freeman’s design for the Brooklyn Union Gas Company Building employs the Classically-inspired architectural vocabulary that characterized many of Freeman’s post-Columbian Exposition commissions. Much of the building’s architectural decoration is also symbolic of the structure’s original role as the headquarters of an important gas company, depicting such devices as flaming torches and blazing oil lamps.

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Clinton Street, Brooklyn Heights, 1927.

353-355 Fulton Street, April 12, 1916.

The Brooklyn Athenaeum and Reading Room was founded in 1852 by a group of prominent Brooklyn citizens as a library and respite for young men. There they could gather for instruction and that "innocent relaxation," which the wear and tear of mercantile life so imperiously demands, according to its first president, John Taylor, in his first annual report. The three story building, designed by William Field, had commercial storefronts on the ground floor, including a book store, the reading room and library on the second, and the concert/lecture hall, which could hold 2,000 people, on the third.

Fulton Street, near Boerum Place, ca. 1950. Passengers are boarding the first of two new buses for Brooklyn. These buses replaced the Putnam Avenue Line streetcars on February 5, 1950. The Putnam Avenue Line began as a horsecar route in 1874 and became an electric trolley line in 1893. The streetcars were replaced briefly with buses in 1941 only to be returned to trolley service a year later in 1942, in an effort to save rubber, gas, and oil during the Second World War. In 1950, the B26 buses permanently replaced the trolleys. Visible across the street is the Tivoli Theater; the marquee reads "Betty Hutton & Fred Astaire 'Let's Dance' & 'Dark City'." All of the buildings in this view would be demolished in the next ten years for the Brooklyn Civic Center Project.

Brooklyn Fire Headquarters ca. 1945 In 1892, the Brooklyn Fire Department opened its headquarters at 365-67 Jay Street, located between Myrtle Avenue and Willoughby Street in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights. The building was designed by renowned Richardsonian Romanesque Style (and later, Neoclassical) architect Frank Freeman, also known for such brilliant works as the Herman Behr Mansion in Brooklyn Heights, and the Eagle Warehouse in the DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn. Six years after it’s opening, the Brooklyn Fire Department would be no more due to the consolidation of all five boroughs into the City of Greater New York on January 1, 1898. No longer being an independent city requiring its own fire department headquarters, Brooklyn’s 365-67 Jay Street station was absorbed into the newly incorporated Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY). In 1941, the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens had a total of 89 engine companies who employed 2,089 workers, with an average of thirteen fires daily. The Rescue 2 unit of the FDNY occupied the building on Jay Street in 1929 where they remained until 1946. The building continued to function as a working firehouse until the 1970s, when it was leased out to Brooklyn Polytechnic University for classroom space amidst severe state budgetary cuts in education at the time. 365-67 Jay Street was designated for landmark status in 1966 by the recently formed Landmark Preservation Commission of NYC and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. In 1987, the firehouse was converted into affordable housing apartments for local residents who were being displaced by construction for the newly-developed MetroTech Center, a sixteen-acre academic and industrial research park.

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.

150 Livingston Street, November 28, 1960. In the chaos after the financial Panic of 1893, the Provident Loan Society was established as a broker of short-term cash loans. A reputable organization compared to the predatory lenders — loan sharks and pawnbrokers — that preyed on desperate borrowers, the business was founded by New York City’s most prominent business leaders and financiers, including J.P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt II, Jacob Schiff and Solomon Loeb. As a not-for-profit organization, all surpluses generated were donated to charity, resulting in millions of dollars of donations. By the middle of the 20th century Provident Loan Society had 16 offices around New York City, including this one on the corner of Livingston and Smith Streets, which opened in 1915. It survived though 1960 at least, and likely later. At some point prior to 1985 the block bound by Livingston, Smith and Schermerhorn Streets and Boerum Place became city-owned and the building was likely demolished around that time. Today only five Provident Loan locations remain, though the firm continues to be the only not-for-profit pawnbroker in the United States.

Brooklyn Gas Co., cooking class, ca. 1913. The new headquarters for the Brooklyn Union Gas Company opened in 1914 at 180 Remsen Street. As the headquarters, it included a ground floor showroom for gas appliances, the president's private offices, and large spaces for public gatherings and classes. A February 1915 gas-focused journal noted the graduation of the domestic science division. It notes: "The course consists of six lectures. At the conclusion of the course each student will receive a certificate certifying that she is able to scientifically conduct a household."

Five attached row houses, Nos. 136-144 Clinton Street (right to left), at Aitken Place, 1922. According to photographer Eugene Armbruster, the Italianate row houses were built by Wm. Evans in about 1845. City directory records confirm the houses were completed by 1855. The two houses at right were torn down ahead of the 1925 construction of the 12-story Insurance Building. Likewise, the corner building, No. 144, was replaced by a single-story Art Moderne structure in 1937. The St. Charles Borromeo Roman Catholic Church is visible at extreme left.

Adolph I. Namm was a Polish immigrant with an embroidery and upholstery business in Manhattan. In 1885, he moved his business in Brooklyn, and by 1891 he opened a new store at 452 Fulton. At the time, that stretch of Fulton Street was emerging as a popular commercial shopping destination. His son, Benjamin Harrison Namm, eventually took over the business. During its heyday, the store was enormously successful. It was also one of the largest cash-only enterprises in Brooklyn, competing with other large department stores like Abraham & Straus. The A.I. Namm & Son flagship store was closed in 1957, and the business moved to the suburbs. The building has since been sold and purchased several times. The store once covered an entire city block, but the 450-458 is the last remaining portion today.

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.

372 Fulton Street, ca, 1942. In 1879, Charles M. Gage opened an eating house at 303 Fulton Street. Eugene Tollner joined the restaurant in 1882 and the business was christened Gage & Tollner’s. In 1892, the restaurant moved into a new building, 372-374 Fulton Street, where it became famous for serving a variety of seafood and meat dishes. Over the years, the Gage & Tollner restaurant was loved by local Brooklynites and even attracted celebrities for its fine food and drinks topped with an elegant dining experience. The restaurant was later sold to A.H. Cunningham and Alexander Ingalls in 1911 and then to the Dewey family in 1919. The Gage & Tollner restaurant was dedicated to serving fresh seafood and served a wide variety of dishes featuring clams, fishes, scallops, lobsters, and crabs. Oysters are perhaps the most beloved dish in the city’s history, and this is reflected in Gage & Tollner’s menu. For instance, there were more than fifty oyster preparations to select from in 1919. Other favorite dishes at the restaurant included seafood cocktail, lobster cream stew, and the signature broiled soft clam “bellies”, a dish invented and named by Seth Bradford Dewey. Even though the restaurant building was converted to electric lighting in the 1890s, it continued its tradition of turning on the gas lights for five days during its anniversary so customers could enjoy a particularly romantic dining experience at the restaurant. On the day of the anniversary celebration, Edward and Thomas Dewey would dress up as Mr. Gage and Mr. Tollner. The Dewey family took pride in carrying on the restaurant’s traditions, and its menu remained largely unchanged over the decades. When restaurateur Peter Aschkenasy took over the space in 1989, he continued the restaurant’s rich traditions, but upgraded the menu by bringing in famed southern chef Edna Lewis, whose Charleston she-crab soup was the star of the new menu. However, later owners found it difficult to maintain that tradition and remain profitable due to both changes in tastes and the economic climate in the Fulton Mall district. By the 1980s, the area had changed significantly since the restaurant’s early days. This was the result of numerous factors, such as the deindustrialization the borough, changing demographics, the closing of high-end department stores (especially Abraham & Straus), and the closing of traffic on Fulton Street. As a result, the area began attracting discount shoppers rather than upscale gourmands that made up the restaurant’s clientele. The last owner of Gage & Tollner’s, Joe Chirico, commented that some restaurants simply go “out of style” and the eatery was subsequently closed in 2004. The building was purchased by the Jemal family in 2004 for $2.8 million, who hoped to rent it to an upscale restaurateur. Despite those intentions, the building was housed by a TGI Fridays through 2007 and then an Arby’s in 2010. In April 2021, the restaurant reopened under new owners!

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This is an abbreviated version of Brooklynology blog post, the rest is available at this link. Walking the urban landscape of New York, one comes upon buildings of different styles and periods—one of the great joys of living in an older city. Even in this wildly varied landscape, the armories stand out. One can walk down a row of modest apartment houses and, turning the corner, confront one of these massive structures looming like an apparition from the middle ages. But how did they come to be here and how did their use change, particularly their transformation from military to civilian uses. What follows is not comprehensive documentation, but a selective jaunt through the evolution of our Brooklyn armories.

Brooklyn City Hall Tower Fire. 1895. This photo of the week depicts a roof level view of the 1895 fire at Brooklyn City Hall (today’s Borough Hall). If you look closely, you can see fire ladders propped against the building and firefighters on the roof using hoses to extinguish the fire. The fire started because of a lighted gas jet in a third floor closet. The fire left significant damage, destroying the clock and bell tower, as well as most of the top floor. This photograph was taken by Dr. Ralph Irving Lloyd (1875-1969), a Brooklyn ophthalmologist and an avid amateur photographer. Throughout his life, Lloyd documented primarily historic 17th, 18th, and 19th century houses located in the New York City metropolitan area. The collection of his photographs includes roughly 400 lantern slides like the one pictured above. The lantern slide, popularized in the late 19th century, displayed a positive image on a glass plate. This could then be displayed for an audience to experience. This was significant because for the first time, photography became a shared medium, visible by a broad audience. Production of lantern slides ended over 40 years ago, so it’s a rare and unique experience to see one for yourself!

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!”

With the historic restaurant now reopened, Brooklyn Historical looks back at Gage and Tollner's storied past!

The features of the modern-day clown are said to come from multiple mediums: the British theater of Joseph Grimaldi, the early circus of Philip Astley, and Leoncavallo's opera Pagliacci. The clown is a derivative of the Ancient Greek and Roman Zanni, or "rustic fool." Initially created as an accompaniment to the witty Harlequin, the clown has evolved into the stand-alone character we are familiar with today.

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.

Brooklyn Elks Lodge, 1929. The Beaux-Arts Elks lodge was designed by McKim, Mead & White and completed in 1926. The handsome limestone and terra cotta building featured amenities including a pool, bowling alley, and a theater. However, the Elks tenure was the be short lived: in 1940, the building became the headquarters of the New York Department of Education. The city sold the building in 2003, and it has since been adapted for high-end residential. The theater, accessed by the 22 Boerum Place entrance, has been home to the ISSUE Project Room avant-garde performance arts organization since 2012.

While Fulton Street has remained well-known throughout Brooklyn as a retail area, few may know that it was once home to the flagship of one of the largest department stores in America.

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.

Packer Collegiate Institute ca. 1922 The Packer Collegiate Institute was established as the Brooklyn Female Academy on Joralemon Street in 1845. It was formed by a committee of local citizens who were interested in the education of young women. The school’s first president was Dr. Alonzo Crittenden, who presided over a student body of 350 girls from 19 states. Between the 1800s and 1850s, there was a profound transformation in female education in the United States, and a number of specialized secondary schools for young women, referred to as academies or seminaries, were founded. The school burned down on New Years’ Day, 1853, and reopened in 1854 with the assistance of a generous $65,000 gift—the largest donation to aid American secondary education at the time—from Mrs. Harriet Packer, widow of William Packer, and former trustee of the Brooklyn Female Academy. One condition of Packer’s donation was her request for the dissolution of the Brooklyn Female Academy Corporation, which was to be replaced by what is today’s Packer Collegiate Institute. Prominent Brooklyn architect Minard LaFever designed the Gothic Revival building, presently known as Founders Hall.

Borough Hall, originally City Hall, is located in the heart of downtown Brooklyn and is one of the borough's oldest public buildings. It was also home to two highly contentious 900 square foot murals, whose final fate remains unknown today.

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.

View from the top of the Brooklyn Fire Headquarters

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."

Reconstruction work on the Fulton Street roadway, beneath the Fulton Street El tracks, September 22, 1919. Both the BMT Fourth Avenue and IRT Eastern Parkway lines run beneath Fulton Street, now a pedestrian walkway in Columbus Park, adjacent to Brooklyn Borough Hall. The buildings at left — including the Baltimore Dairy Lunch counter, No. 389 Fulton — have since been razed.

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Clinton Street, south from Livingston Street in Brooklyn Heights. August 5, 1934. The steps at bottom left lead to St. Ann’s Church, now part of the Packer Collegiate Institute. The building visible across Livingston Street (farthest left) is No. 133 Clinton Street, formerly the clubhouse of the Brooklyn Excelsiors, the early baseball club whose descendants would become the Brooklyn Dodgers. The Excelsiors were founded as a team of the “Jolly Young Bachelors” fraternal organization and are credited with expanding the sport’s popularity via recreational games during the Civil War.

Hall of Records, ca. 1950. The Brooklyn Civic Center looks much different today than it did in the early 20th century. At that time the largest municipal building was the Hall of Records. Erected on the corner of Boerum and Fulton, the classical, limestone building was designed by William Mundell between 1885 and 1887. The building housed the vital records of first the city of Brooklyn and then the borough of Brooklyn. In the 1950s during the Civic Center Urban Renewal, the Hall of Records and its even older neighbor, the Brooklyn Courthouse, were razed for the newly expanded Cadman Plaza. In 1961 the Brooklyn Law School replaced the two grand 19th-century buildings.

\[Courtesy citations-bus drivers at 370 Jay Street], August 13, 1963, 2005.48.813, NYCTA Photograph Unit Collection; New York Transit Museum.

Eastward view of the intersection of Court and Schermerhorn Streets, October 12, 1928. The storefronts at center-left are Nos. 97 an 99 Court Street. The descending stairway on the Schermerhorn side of the building marks the location of a contemporary entrance to the New York Transit Museum, itself housed in the then-unbuilt Court Street subway station . The station opened in 1936 as the terminus for westbound local trains on the IND Fulton Line (Manhattan-bound express trains split from the local route at Hoyt-Schermerhorn). At extreme right, the facade of Sts. Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Cathedral, founded 1913.

Brooklyn Citizen Building, August 9, 1915. The Brooklyn Citizen was a daily newspaper published from 1886 to 1947. During the construction of subway tunnels in Downtown Brooklyn in the 1910s the plans originally included the demolition of the Citizen Building, as the tunnel was supposed to run directly under. After plans were altered and the path moved, the building was spared and only required shoring. The newspaper discontinued publishing in 1947. The Citizen Building had been purchased in 1945 by the city as part of the eventual Civic Center urban renewal project. The building was still standing and vacant in 1954 when a fire tore through the structure under suspicious circumstances, related to some accused shady dealings by fire officials. It was demolished fully soon after.

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Fulton Street, at its intersection with Joralemon, Adams and Willoughby Streets, showing the Fulton Street Elevated line of the B.M.T. At center building is the City Hall (now Borough Hall), with the Brooklyn Citizen Building at right, ca. 1910.

With the closure of restaurants, bars, movie theaters, libraries, and schools as a precaution to help prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, many New Yorkers are likely feeling a bit cooped up by now. While you can't visit your favorite spots in person, you can visit them through this City Story.

Elevated trestle over Fulton Street, at Boerum Place (Court Square), July 23, 1907. The stairway at center left led to the Boerum Place station on the Fulton Street and Brighton elevated lines. At left is the former Hall of Records building across Boerum Place. Borough Hall is visible in the background, at center, beyond the elevated tracks. At right, the flatiron-shaped building between Fulton and Adams streets is the office of the Brooklyn Citizen newspaper. The intersection has been transformed over the last century, with the 1940 closure and dismantling of the Fulton Street elevated tracks the most striking change. By 1961, the Hall of Records and Supreme Court Buildings had been demolished ahead of the construction of the Brooklyn Law School, while Boerum Place has been widened to meet vehicular traffic coming off the Brooklyn Bridge, via Adams Street.

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.)

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Demolition of the Brooklyn Supreme Court, October 16, 1961.

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.

Harriet and Thomas Truesdell House 227 Duffield Street dates from the mid-19th century, was home to the Truesdells from 1851 – 1863, and is the home where Harriet died in 1862. The Truesdells were intimately involved in the American Abolitionist movement, befriending such luminaries as Ralph Waldo Emerson and William Lloyd Garrison. The Truesdells were associated with the house until the 1920s. The history of slavery in Brooklyn and New York City is a field which is still very much emerging. More research needs to be done and much more information needs to be incorporated into the accepted canon of history. As preservationists and historians, we should be doing everything possible to save and record the stories, records and artifacts of that time before they are lost. 227 Duffield Street was designated as an Individual Landmark on February 2, 2021. As much of early American life took place in the domestic realm, especially the organizing and formulation of controversial reform movements such as Abolitionism, the designation of a site of conscience such as 227 Duffield Street as an individual New York City landmark helps grant protection to a building which will only grow in importance and significance as our understanding of history expands.

Survey photograph of Bridge and Fulton Streets, June 10, 1907. The Hoyt Street-Bridge Street stop on the IRT Eastern Parkway Line (2/3 trains) is beneath this intersection, with two entrances presently located at the photographer’s vantage point and the site of excavations pictured. The sign reads “The care of this street is not within the jurisdiction of the Borough President. All complaints should be lodged with the Board of Rapid Transit Commission.”

Sketch of the Loew’s Metropolitan Theater façade by Anthony F. Dumas, 1919. The 3,618-seat theater opened on September 15, 1918. Designed by Thomas Lamb, it was then the largest theater built since the invention of motion pictures, with entrances on Fulton, Smith, and Livingston Streets. Today, it is the home of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, having undergone extensive restoration in 2002.

The Spencer Memorial Presbyterian Church was founded in 1838 and has a history of radical and controversial pastors, most notably William Glenesk who took over pastoral duties in 1955. He was outspoken on topics such as homosexuality and drug use, including telling his congregation in one sermon that the hallucinatory drug LSD contained properties that “contribute to the creation and glory of God.” He created a hospitable space for the LGBTQ community, hosting discussions and events, as well as providing a meeting space for LGBTQ organizations, such as the Gay Alliance of Brooklyn (GAB), a civil rights advocacy group. During his tenure, Pastor Glensk included artists and performers in his services. At this time, Brooklyn Heights was an artistic neighborhood with a number of well-known LGBTQ residents, including Truman Capote, Carson McCullers, Benjamin Britten, and others. The church closed in the mid-1970s was plagued “with grave financial difficulties” and had not been able to “maintain sufficient congregation.”

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You can create posts on any image on the platform. Posts appear under their associated photos in Urban Archive. The first post that is written about a location is automatically pinned to the location page. On any post you write, your organization’s name will be added to the bottom of the post to ensure proper accreditation. You can create a post by going to any image and clicking the “🖋️ Create a new Post” button. Similarly, you can edit a post by clicking “Published” to reveal the “Edit” option.

Murphy's Hat Shop at the southeast corner of Myrtle Avenue and Fulton Street, October 19, 1915.

It's time to get old school with these noteworthy temples to education. Brooklyn's schools are impressive and fascinating for many reasons. They are home to famous alumni; are housed in architecturally stunning buildings; act as incubators of resistance against racism and discrimination; and are consistently pioneering innovative approaches to education. Most importantly, they teach civic engagement and provide opportunities for academic and economic empowerment to Brooklyn's children and young adults. Read on and get schooled.

1890s apartment building at the corner of Clinton and Pacific Streets, 1960. According to the Cobble Hill Historic District Designation Report, the building is typical of the transitional architectural styles of the area, featuring a rusticated Romanesque Revival ground floor and sheetmetal bay windows.

Bijou Theatre, 1928. Replacing the mansion of the local Livingston family, the Bijou Theatre opened in November of 1893. Owing to its convenient location in Downtown Brooklyn, the theatre was a smashing success. Originally featuring all live performances, in 1908 Marcus Loew took over operations of the venue and converted it to a movie house with vaudeville performances. Following a final program in May of 1929, Loew's ended its lease of the space and plans were made to raze the theatre for a 30-story office building. That building never came to be. In the late 1950s, a boxy modern building was constructed. Today it houses the New York City Civil Court Kings County.

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.

Court Square (now Boerum Place) and Fulton Street, December 17, 1907. This view shows trolley #2523 on the Broadway trolley line, as well as other trolleys. The intersection also is busy with pedestrians, shops, horse-drawn carts, and an elevated train line. According to the photograph notes, trolley #2523 was manufactured by the John Stephenson Car Company. Based in New York City, it was founded in 1831 producing carriages and horsecars. As the technology evolved so did their products; a major builder of streetcars, they manufactured 25,000 cars between 1876 and1891 alone for American and international transit systems. Stephenson was acquired by the J. G. Brill Company in 1904, which continued to produce streetcars and later autobuses.

You can create posts on any image on the platform. Posts appear under their associated photos in Urban Archive. The first post that is written about a location is automatically pinned to the location page. On any post you write, your organization’s name will be added to the bottom of the post to ensure proper accreditation. You can create a post by going to any image and clicking the “🖋️ Create a new Post” button. Similarly, you can edit a post by clicking “Published” to reveal the “Edit” option.

"Fulton Street at Joralemon Street Survey photograph during construction of the BMT Broadway line. Northwestward view of Brooklyn Borough Hall and the tracks of the BMT Fulton Street Elevated line. Multiple trolleys are visible on Fulton Street, and construction is visible along the side of the street, beneath the elevated tracks, September 19, 1915."

Between 1954 and 1957, the Municipal Art Society surveyed historic buildings in all five boroughs to create a database of potential landmarks to preserve. Local residents and MAS staff compiled individual sheets devoted to about 200 buildings. Each sheet outlined the building’s date, location, and style and provided a description and a small photograph. This is the list of Brooklyn buildings.

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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.”

The building was torn down in 1942, the event recorded in a photograph in the New York Public Library’s collection. Today, Key Food occupies the site of the Athenaeum.