Underneath the tracks of the Fifth Avenue El, over Flatbush Avenue, south of Fulton Street, August 1941. Elevated service on the Fifth Avenue line was discontinued in June 1940, but the remaining tracks weren’t demolished until September 1941. In the background is the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower at 1 Hanson Place, completed in 1929, and until 2010 the tallest building in Brooklyn. At left is the Corn Exchange Bank Trust Co. at 19 Flatbush Avenue.

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.

“Fulton Street, east from and across Flatbush Avenue Extension, underneath the B. M. T. elevated. The four-story building (center) is the Witteman Building and is on the east side of Flatbush Avenue Extension. April 27, 1940.” Service on the Fulton Street El was discontinued on June 1, 1940, just weeks after this photograph was taken . At street level is an East New York-bound Fulton Street Line streetcar. Today, the B25 bus replaces the Fulton streetcar line.

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.

“31-39 De Kalb Ave., at the northwest corner of Flatbush Ave. Extension. Also seen, is Flatbush Ave. Extension, west side, north from De Kalb Ave., to Fleet Street. July 22, 1934.” Today, the northwest corner of DeKalb Avenue and the Flatbush Avenue Extension is home to the original location of Junior’s, the restaurant chain known for New York-style cheesecake. In 1934, the building’s tenants included clothing retailers, a storefront doughnut shop, and the Enduro sandwich shop, owned by Junior’s founder Harry Rosen.

In November of 1950, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle visited Barton's Bonbonniere, Brooklyn's fastest-growing candy chain. The article captures a 50's candy factory in full swing.

Eastward view along Willoughby Street towards Flatbush Avenue Extension, March 18, 1915. The building seen at right is the Brooklyn Department of Health. Today that corner remains a city health building but early 20th century structure has been replaced with a 1940 red brick, subtle Art Deco building. None of the buildings that lined the south side of Willoughby Street remain extant. In the distance stands the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument in Fort Greene Park.

Entrance to the New York Telephone Company Building, ca. 1995.

“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."

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.

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.

“145 Ashland Place, between De Kalb Ave., and Willoughby Street, showing the City Prison, as seen from Lafayette Street. July 10, 1932.” The Raymond Street Jail, later the Brooklyn City Prison, was built in 1836 to hold the city’s male prisoners (an annex for female prisoners was added in 1839). In an oversight emblematic of the building’s purpose, the prison was constructed without a front door (an entranceway was later carved out of the completed facade). The facility was closed in 1963 and razed ahead of the construction of the Brooklyn Hospital Center.

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.

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.

L. Sisskind Co. Glass and Glazing, 310 Bridge Street, July 26, 1959.

“Flatbush Avenue Extension, at the northeast corner of DeKalb Avenue, showing the Paramount Theatre Building, the view being south toward the latter avenue, 1932.” Opened in 1928, the Paramount Theatre building has been owned by Long Island University since 1962. In addition to film screenings, the theater hosted jazz, rock and roll, and Yiddish music performances. Despite its conversion for use as classroom space and a gymnasium, the building retains much of the theatre's original decorative detail.

Former Bridge Street African Wesleyan Methodist Episcopal Church, 1959. The Bridge Street African Wesleyan Methodist Episcopal Church is the oldest African American congregation in the Brooklyn and Long Island area. Its origins date to 1766 and the open air Brooklyn sermons of Methodist convert Thomas Webb. The congregation became the Sands Street Wesleyan Methodist Episcopal Church and later the First Methodist Episcopal Church of Brooklyn, both mixed race communities. In 1817 the African American members withdrew from the community and went about establishing their own congregation called the African Wesleyan Methodist Episcopal Church (AWME), which first built a church near High and Jay Streets. In 1854 the growing AWME Church purchased a building previously occupied by the First Congregational Church at 309 Bridge Street. The church building they moved into was Greek Revival structure constructed between 1844 and 1847. The red brick church has wooden columns and entablature (the top decorative feature of a column). The Bridge Street church moved in 1938 to 277 Stuyvesant Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant, into the former home of the Grace Presbyterian Church, where it remains today. The red brick church on Bridge Street (now no. 311) is today the Wunsch Building of NYU’s Polytechnic Institute. The more than 150-year-old church is the admissions office and hosts social, cultural, and academic events.

Public School 613 on State Street, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn; March 6, 1960. The school building dates to around 1930, having replaced the previous P.S. 15 at State Street and Third Avenue. P.S. 15 closed in 1942, following declining enrollment. During the 1950s, it became P.S. 613, one of the city's so-called "600 schools" — programs for disabled, mentally ill, violent, or pupils otherwise considered unfit for enrollment in the public school system. The system operated into the 1970s, and was decried as a "dumping ground" for children from poor families who might have otherwise benefitted from specialized instruction.

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.

135 Johnson Street, 1931. Edward Weck & Co. was a cutlery manufacturer established in Brooklyn in 1890. Weck was a German immigrant who, according to evidence, was raised in a city known for its production of straight razors. Early on the company manufactured pocket knives, kitchen knives, and scissors, though they were best known for an early shavette-type razor called the Weck Sextoblade. They sold the products out of storefronts in Manhattan and Brooklyn, the equipment (which later included surgical instruments) was manufactured at this seven story building in Downtown Brooklyn. The company moved to Long Island City in late 1950s or early 1960s, and the building was demolished during the construction of MetroTech.

The intersection of Tillary Street and Park Avenue, 1941. The surrounding land had been cleared for the construction of the Fort Greene Houses (today the NYCHA Ingersoll Houses), completed in 1944. Soon after, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway would be routed along Park Avenue to connect Downtown Brooklyn’s East River Bridge Crossings with Williamsburg and points north. The church visible in the background is the Church of St. Michael and St. Edward at 108 St. Edwards Street, near Myrtle Avenue.

Brooklyn Press Printing at No. 59 Lawrence Street, July 19, 1959.

West side of Bridge Street between Myrtle Avenue and Johnson Street, October 4, 1959. No 304 is third from left.

The MetroTech Center is a large business and industrial hub in Downtown Brooklyn. Construction began in 1992, leading to the demolition of more than 100 houses and 50 businesses. Here, you can see what the streets looked like before MetroTech.

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.

Our Lady of Mercy Church, ca. 1915. This circa 1915 photograph depicts the third structure that housed Brooklyn Height's Our Lady of Mercy Church. In 1904 the parish was informed that their church building on Debevoise Street (constructed 1869) was to be demolished for the approach to the new Manhattan Bridge. In 1906 the cornerstone was laid for a new building with frontages on Schermerhorn and State Streets. The new church, dedicated in 1908, was designed as a mixture of Romanesque and Renaissance styles. The construction included not only the church but also a school, rectory, and a residence for the nuns, who were the school's educators. Once again the parish found itself in the path of the city's infrastructure process, this time the construction of a subway station and the widening of the street. The church closed and was demolished in 1930.

Recently while digging through the BPL Archives, an archivist found a really outstanding clipping about the Fox Theatre. "Wired Seats at the Fox Help Deaf Hear Talkies"; assisted listening devices in 1930! And how cutting edge! “A number of choice seats in the mezzanine,” reads the article, “have been equipped with the device, which consists of a telephone headpiece and receiver and an adjustable hand switch by which the person using it can control the volume of the sound coming through the instrument.” What other innovations did the Fox champion? What other cool stuff was showing at the Fox?

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

Subway construction for the BMT Brighton Line at DeKalb Avenue Station, May 15, 1919. The station opened June 22, 1915 with service available on the Fourth Avenue Line (today's D/N/R trains). Construction continued for five years, culminating with the opening of Brighton Line (B/Q) service on August 1, 1920.

View west on Fulton Street, beneath the Fulton Street El, during construction of the IRT Eastern Parkway Line (2/3), April 30, 1908.

“Nevins Street, south from Flatbush Ave. Also Flatbush Ave., west side, east from Nevins Street. This view is no longer existent. The buildings were razed, to make way for the new Fox Theatre, a motion picture house. June 1926.” The Cowperthwait Furniture Company building was demolished in 1927, along with the rest of the buildings on the triangular block between Flatbush Avenue, Nevins Street, and Livingston Street.

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).

Hudson Avenue, south from DeKalb Avenue, 1942. Buildings on the south side of Fulton Street are visible in the background. Until 1940, Hudson Avenue carried the northernmost section of the BMT Fifth Avenue El. Like many blocks near Atlantic Terminal, Hudson Avenue’s tenement buildings and brick warehouses have been replaced by new construction.

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.

Myrtle Avenue and the Myrtle Ave El, looking east from Navy Street, 1941. Opened in 1888, El service operated along Myrtle Avenue until 1969. Out of frame is the entrance to the Navy Street Station. At left, lots have been cleared for the construction of the Fort Greene Houses, later renamed the Ingersoll Houses after Brooklyn Borough President Raymond Ingersoll.

Subway construction beneath elevated trains on Fulton Street (left) and Flatbush Avenue (right), September 10, 1907. This photo captures the past and present of Brooklyn public transit: the Fulton and Fifth Avenue elevated trains (the latter over Flatbush Avenue); streetcars running on both streets; and reinforcements in place to brace the elevated trestles for excavation associated with the IRT Eastern Parkway line, beneath Flatbush.

The Crescent Theatre (formerly Montauk Theatre), pictured one year after its re-opening on Flatbush Avenue Extension, December 21, 1909. The theater would go on to operate under several names before its demolition in 1940.

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.

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!

The E.F. Albee Theater (later the RKO Albee Theater) at the intersection of Fulton Street and DeKalb Avenue, 1925. The Beaux-Arts theater, designed by Thomas Lamb, opened in 1925. It was named for vaudeville impresario Edward Franklin Albee (grandfather of the Broadway playwright), whose Keith-Albee-Orpheum Corporation was a major manager of vaudeville and, later, motion picture venues. The Albee Theater featured a grand interior lobby, with crystal chandeliers, marble columns, and what was at time considered the world’s largest rug, a 2,800 square foot Czech Maffersdorf carpet. The theater was closed and demolished in 1978, making way for the Albee Square Mall, itself razed in 2008 for redevelopment. The new mixed-use City Point project includes a movie theater.

Explore this endearing mode of mass transit that disappeared from New York City's streets in the mid 20th century.

On January 11th, 1940, Workers went to work demolishing Werba's Theatre. Under the names of Montauk, The Crescent and Schubert-Crescent, it was once the proud citadel of Brooklyn's Social and Political Elite.

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.

“St. Edwards Street, north from Auburn Place toward the Brooklyn Navy Yard. On the left, where Leo Place meets St. Edwards Street, is the Lattemen shoe factory. On the right is Public School No. 67. The dwellings preceding the school were later razed and an annex added to the school.” Out of frame to the left is the Church of St. Michael and St. Edward, 1927.

A building of the Fort Greene Houses (later renamed the Walt Whitman Houses) under construction at 15 St. Edwards Street, July 1942.

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.

Fulton Street, looking east across Flatbush Avenue Extension. June 21, 1941. One year after service was discontinued, the Fulton Street El is being dismantled.

The Church of St. Michael and St. Edward was built between 1891-1906 at what was then the intersection of Canton and Division Streets (later St. Edwards Street and Leo Place). The Catholic church served a predominantly Irish and working-class congregation of local residents employed at the neighborhood’s factories, waterfront, and, during wartime, Navy Yard. In 2010, the diocese of Brooklyn closed the church, following years of declining attendance.

View from the top of the Brooklyn Fire Headquarters

"Lawrence Street, west side, south of Johnson Street, showing Lawrence Street entrance and side view of Mayflower Branch of Plymouth Congregational Church. July 1, 1934."

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.

Billed as the first movie theater built for talkies, the Paramount on Flatbush and Dekalb Avenues opened in 1928 with the movie Manhattan Cocktail. Alan Freed, who coined the term "rock and roll" in 1951, staged revues here while working for radio station WINS. Following its purchase by Long Island University, the movie house showed its last feature, Hatari, with John Wayne, in August 1962. The next year it was converted to a gym, though its famous Wurlitzer organ still played on.

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

First Free Congregational Church ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1846-47 STYLE: Greek Revival The former First Free Congregational Church, with its simple, rectangular shape and temple front, is one of the few remaining examples of the vernacular Greek Revival building popular in the mid-nineteenth-century. The “Free” in the name refers to the policy of not charging a rental fee for its pews. The building has changed hands many times, and by 1854 it housed the oldest African American congregation in Brooklyn, which used the basement to hide escaping slaves. It is now the student center for the Polytechnic Institute of New York Universit

“St. Edwards Street, at the northeast corner of Auburn Place, showing the City Park branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. In the background is Cumberland Hospital; on the left Public School No. 67, 1940.” The predecessor to Walt Whitman Library (called the City Park Branch before 1943) opened in a storefront on Nassau and Bridge Streets in 1900. Eight years later, a beautiful new library, funded by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, built in the Classical Revival style, and designed by Rudolph L. Daus, opened on St. Edwards Street in Fort Greene. The library was named for Whitman on the125th anniversary of his birth in 1943.

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.

Men gathered outside 109 Willoughby Street, the parsonage of the St. Boniface Roman Catholic Church, October 9, 1960. At far left is the Art Deco brickwork of the Bell Telephone building, a 27-story building completed in 1928.

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.

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 cobblestoned Flatbush Avenue Extension, at Prince Street, February 8, 1915. The Manhattan Bridge is visible in the distance, with the Myrtle Avenue El visible in the middle ground. Below Flatbush Avenue, construction continued on the subway connection between the Manhattan Bridge tracks BMT Brighton Line. The DeKalb Avenue Station, south of this point, opened in June, 1915.

The Smith, Gray & Company Building at the intersection of Nevins Street, Fulton Street, and Flatbush Avenue. Completed in 1888, the building featured two 210 foot towers, one which housed a large illuminated clock. In 1892, a fire destroyed much of the building, causing the clock tower to collapse on the Flatbush Avenue Station of the Fulton St El. Pictured here in 1941, the rebuilt clock tower is being scaled down to its current seven story height, sans clock. At left is the Fox Theater at 20 Flatbush Avenue.

Dime Savings Bank, ca. 1910. The landmarked Dime Savings Bank is a Classical Revival structure built on an oddly-shaped plot at the intersection of Fulton Street and Dekalb Avenue. Originally constructed between 1906 and 1908 by the firm of Mowbray & Uffinger, it houses the Downtown Brooklyn branch of the 1859-established Dime Savings Bank. Between 1931 and 1932 the bank was enlarged by the firm of Halsey, McCormack & Helmer, who had only recently completed the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower at One Hanson Place. The colonnade rows of Ionic columns were (and continue to be) a striking visual within the neighborhood's streetscape. The decoration on the facade, including reliefs of Mercury, the Roman God of commerce, reference its commercial occupations. The Pentelic marble utilized here, known for its translucence, was actually mined from the same ancient quarries that the Greeks used for these classic temples including the Pantheon. The Dime Savings Bank was the first American structure to use this material after a British syndicate reopened the quarry. The building remained a bank for more than a century (cycling, as most banks do, through various names). Chase Bank sold the building in 2015 to a developer for $90 million. That developer began accumulating development rights and as of 2017 work had commenced on Brooklyn's first supertall, a 1000-foot skyscraper that will, of course, incorporate the landmark bank into the base of its design.

Dime Savings Bank ca. 1900 ARCHITECT: Mowbray & Uffinger DATE: 1906-08 STYLE: Neo-Classical The home office of the Dime Savings Bank, built in 1906-08 and vastly enlarged and altered in 1931-32, is among Brooklyn’s most notable works of commercial architecture. Since its founding in 1859, the bank has always maintained its headquarters in downtown Brooklyn. When the bank acquired the present location, it commissioned the finn of Mowbray & Uffinger to design an imposing structure. Built in 1906-08, it was articulated as a temple form adapted to the unusually-shaped site, and was substantially altered and enlarged in 1931-32. An outstanding example of neo-Classical design, the marble-clad exterior features stately Ionic colonnades, a soaring dome, and an ornamental program which appropriately allegorizes industry and progress. The alterations were designed by the firm of Halsey, McCormack & Helmer, specialists in bank buildings.

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.

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.

The Montauk Theatre, a 1,750-capacity venue built in 1895, sat in the way of the Flatbush Avenue Extension, a 1907 project to widen and extend Flatbush Avenue to carry traffic to and from the Manhattan Bridge, then under construction. Rather than raze the structure, the city bought the building and its site for $230,000, then sold it for just $11,500 to a company who undertook to move the theater to a site on the new Flatbush Extension. (The terms of the deal rose eyebrows at the time, as the company who re-purchased the building shared an executive with its original owners.) An August 1907 report in Harper’s Weekly described the move: “The remarkable engineering feat of moving the Montauk Theater in Brooklyn forty-five feet backwards from its foundations, turn it half around, and then slide it at a right angle, sixty-five feet more to front on another street has not only aroused the interests of engineers and architects, but vividly recalled the strange circumstances which prefaced the feat.” The relocated building reopened in 1908 as the Crescent Theatre.