"The Excelsior Brewing Co., ca. 1910. Excelsior was founded in 1896, when its owners took over a brewery facility on Pulaski Street from the Frederick Hower Brewing Company. Like many beer producers, Excelsior struggled to stay afloat during Prohibition by selling “near beer” — while also smuggling the real stuff to bootleggers. In August 1930, “dry squad” agents discovered a pipe connecting the brewery to a garage across Pulaski Street, where kegs could be filled with real, albeit off-label, Excelsior suds. The brewery survived, as authorities weren’t able to determine who was responsible for the scheme. Two years later, Excelsior was forced to shut down, selling the facility to Kings Brewery Company, who in 1935 became the first city brewery to offer its beer in cans. Kings closed in 1938, leaving the building abandoned until its demolition during the 1950s."

St. John's College, 1954. Designed by the Diocese of Brooklyn favorite architect, Patrick Keely, for their own institution of higher education, St. John’s College was built between 1870 and 1872. The Romanesque Revival structure had all the trappings of a Victorian pile: fancy brickwork, mansard roof, turrets and towers, dormers, bays, bows, and a domed cupola. The college remained here, becoming St. John's University, before moving to Queens in the 1950s. Following this relocation, the building has been home to a variety of Catholic schools and community service organizations.

St. John the Baptist Church, east of Lewis Avenue, September 9, 1932.

Bushwick Avenue mansions, including Catherina Lipsius House (a.k.a. Frederick Cook House, at right) and William Ulmer Mansion (center), January, 1925. Bushwick was a hub of Brooklyn’s 19th century brewing industry with dozens of beer producers operating in and around the neighborhood. Bushwick Avenue, then nicknamed “Brewer’s Row,” was the district’s show street, home to large single-family mansions built for brewery owners, often by prolific architect Theobald Engelhardt. In 1889, Catherina Lipsius, owner of the Claus Lipsius Brewery (named for her two husbands, both deceased), hired Engelhardt to design her Brewer’s Row mansion, which he executed in the American Round-Arched style. In 1902, Lipsius sold her mansion to Dr. Frederick A. Cook. Beyond his medical practice, Cook was a seasoned Arctic explorer whose dubious claim to have reached the North Pole in 1908 set off controversy. Fellow explorer Robert Peary claimed to have reached the pole a year later, in April 1909, and accused Cook of fabricating his account. Of the two explorers, Peary was better connected, and therefore better equipped to mount a public relations campaign to discredit Cook’s claim. The expense of defending his reputation cost Cook dearly; bankrupt, he lost the Bushwick Avenue mansion to foreclosure. One of a handful of Brewer’s Row mansions to survive the wave of arson and property damage that plagued Bushwick during the 1970s, the Lipsius House was designated a New York City Landmark in June, 2013.

"When Prohibition was introduced, I hoped that it would be widely supported by public opinion... I have slowly and reluctantly come to believe that this has not been the result. Instead, drinking has generally increased; the speakeasy has replaced the saloon; a vast army of lawbreakers has appeared; many of our best citizens have openly ignored Prohibition." –– John D. Rockefeller

William Ulmer Brewery, ca. 1920. The first building of this brewery complex was completed in 1872 by Theobald Engelhardt, a German-American architect for the German-American brewers William Ulmer and Anton Vigelius. Ulmer came from a brewing family and had worked in the brewhouses of his uncles (both of whom has apprenticed with the Yuengling Brewery). By 1879, Ulmer was the sole proprietor of this business. Engelhardt designed the main brewhouse (and its ca. 1881 addition) in the Rundbogenstil (or round-arch) Romanesque revival style. He also completed the office building at 31 Belvidere and a number of nearby outbuildings. The German Eastern District of Brooklyn (Bushwick, Ridgewood, etc.) had a long history of brewing dating back to the mid 19th century. Ulmer was wildly successful selling his lager, and by 1896 he was reported as being a millionaire. While many other New York brewers included adjacent beer gardens in their complexes, there is no evidence that Ulmer sold his product in bottles or cans. To increase his bottom line he invested in real estate in both Brooklyn and Queens. He retired from the business in 1900, passing it on to his children. Brooklyn beer production reached its peak in 1907, and the Ulmer Brewery produced their highest yield the next year. By the time Prohibition was enacted in 1920 there were still at least 24 breweries in this area. But like the Ulmer Brewery (seen here with a "for sale/to let" sign, most breweries closed with the new legislation. Later the building was used for light manufacturing. Today the building (sans the mansard tower seen here) is home to artists and their workspaces. The entire complex was landmarked in 2010.