“143-145 Vanderbilt Ave., east side, north of and near Myrtle Ave. July 22, 1934." Semi-attached wooden frame houses built in 1850 as rental properties for the Brooklyn merchant Henry Rider. Today, these houses are part of the Wallabout Historic District.

Arbor Day One boy with shovel and other African American children gathered around newly planted tree. Caption on verso: "Arbor Day: Frederick Ross, 6, of 101 N. Portland Ave., completing the task of tree planting which concluded Arbor Day exercises by veterans organizations and neighborhood, church, school and civic organizations in Fort Greene Housing yesterday."

In this excerpt from the Brooklyn Historical Society's audio tour, host Nelson George and historian Francis Morrone discuss the communities and architecture of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, Brooklyn — including interviews with longtime neighborhood residents.

“Myrtle Ave. 'L' from Fort Greene Park.” Originally the site of a fort built for the Revolutionary War and reoccupied during the War of 1812, the community surrounding the land started using it as public space shortly after the threat of the War of 1812 passed. By 1847, it was designated Washington Park, and twenty years later, famed landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux began designing its new layout. In 1897, the new Olmsted and Vaux’s landscape was renamed Fort Greene Park.

128 Clinton Avenue ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1853-54 STYLE: Greek Revival This unusually well-preserved and rare free-standing Italianate style frame house with Greek Revival style elements was erected for Henry and Susan McDonald in 1853-54. The house’s cubic form, low-hipped roof, strongly projected bracketed eaves, molded window surrounds, wood-and-glass double doors with segmental-arched transom and wood reveal, and columned portico enriched with dentils and paired brackets are characteristic of the Italianate style. Greek Revival style elements include the fluted porch columns with Tower of the Winds Corinthian capitals and first-story windows with eared surrounds.

Commodore Barry Park, formerly known as 'City Park' is the oldest in Brooklyn. It was acquired by the Village of Brooklyn in 1836.

“133 to 139 Park Avenue, at the N. E. corner of Cumberland Street. October 10, 1940.” Today numbered 131 and 135 Park Avenue, the two buildings adjoining the northeast corner of Cumberland Street are among the few to survive the construction of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway along Park Avenue.

“The Sacred Heart Church, near the northeast corner of Park Avenue. October 10, 1940.” This tower marks the entrance to what was then the Sacred Heart Institute, the school of the Roman Catholic Sacred Heart Church, completed 1877, located one block over on Clermont Avenue. To the right at 41 Adelphi Street is the church rectory.

In 1902, the first Farm Garden was opened to provide city children the invaluable experience of cultivating and caring for the land. Its founder said of her creation: "I assure you that all the virtues can be taught from a little patch of ground, not eight feet square." Read on to learn of this history and legacy of New York's Farm Gardens.

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.

One out of every seven WPA dollars was spent in New York City. Robert Moses oversaw the construction of 650 playgrounds while serving as the parks commissioner. These playgrounds, a rule-less respite for kids without backyards, are ubiquitous with WPA projects of the 1930's.

Cumberland Street, east side, south from Park and Myrtle Avenue, showing part of the large area where Fort Greene Houses will be erected. On the left are buildings on Carlton Avenue, April 11, 1941. The Fort Greene Houses, a 15-building development, were built on this site in 1944. At right, buildings on the south side of Myrtle Avenue are visible behind the tracks of the Myrtle Avenue El.

The Vanderbilt Avenue Station on the Myrtle Avenue El, 1942. The Vanderbilt Paint Co. is at the northwest corner of Myrtle avenue.

Myrtle Ave. ‘L’ at Cumberland Street, ca. 1955. Interrupted by the Whitman Houses between Park and Myrtle Avenues, Cumberland Street continues as Washington Park on the eastern edge of Fort Greene Park (right).

The wood-frame home seen on the far side of the intersection is 69 Vanderbilt Avenue, ca.1945. No. 69 was an 1850-built wood-frame home that matched its immediate neighbor at no. 71. Master carpenter, Richard P. Pease, built both homes in 1850. This photograph was captured before the construction of the BQE which runs over the middle of Park Avenue at this location. During the construction of that highway in the late 1950s, the main beam in the basement cracked, compromising the foundation of the house. Over the next decades, the home sank and warped and was largely neglected, despite being occupied. The final resident of the house lived there from childhood in the 1930s until he was evicted from the dangerously unstable house (which was also filled junk) in 2009. Despite the homes' landmark status, the safety issues trumped the designation, and the city demolished the house in 2015. Given the proximity of the neighboring house and to control asbestos, workers took the house down with hand tools like hammers rather than wrecking balls.

“North on St. Edwards Street, across Myrtle Avenue, from Fort Greene Park, 1940.”

"Myrtle Ave. ‘L’ West from Vanderbilt Ave. Station, ca. 1955." Opened in 1888, the Vanderbilt Avenue Station was a stop on the Myrtle Avenue El, serving trains on the Myrtle and Lexington Avenue lines. This photo was taken from the western edge of the station’s island platform, above Clermont Avenue. 374 Myrtle Avenue is the building at farthest left.

The 19th century saw Fort Greene develop from farmland held by a few families to a residential neighborhood, populated by a mix of Brooklyn’s working, merchant, and upper classes. Today, much of the neighborhood has been well preserved, including several blocks of brownstone and rowhouse architecture, churches, parkland, and civic institutions dating to the 19th century. Even in areas transformed by postwar urban renewal and commercial development traces of an earlier era remain.

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.

Richard Wright, author of "Native Son."

“Cumberland Street, east side, north from No. 37, seen in the foreground, is just south of Flushing Avenue. Upon the vacant lot once stood the Boughton farmhouse. April, 1925.”

“Park Avenue, north side, east from north Oxford to Cumberland Streets.” Buildings on the south side of Park Avenue (right) would be razed in 1941 for the development of the Fort Greene Houses, now the NYCHA Walt Whitman Houses. Buildings on the north side would also be demolished, to make way for the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, first proposed in 1936 and completed in 1964.

“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.

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.

Bandstand in Washington Park, now Fort Greene Park, at the future site of the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument, ca. 1895.

The Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument is a memorial to the more than 11,500 American prisoners of war who died while detained aboard sixteen British prison ships during the American Revolutionary War. The remains of a small portion of those who died on the ships are interred in a crypt beneath its base. The monument, designed by architect Stanford White, is topped with an eight-ton brazier (funeral urn) by sculptor Adolph Weinman. This photo is undated, but may depict the November 1908 dedication ceremony, when a crowd of 15,000 gathered for President William Howard Taft’s address.

Admiral's Row was a series of Second Empire-style homes formerly used by naval officers at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Though the Navy Yard was decommissioned in 1966, some Admiral’s Row buildings were occupied into the 1970s. After decades of neglect, in the late summer of 2016, all of the buildings, save one (Building B) were demolished. Pictured here: Quarters E-F-G (center) and Quarters I (right).

“Flushing Avenue, south side, west from N. Elliott Place. At the left foreground between N. Elliott Place and St. Edwards Street are some old buildings soon to be demolished. Beyond St. Edwards Street is a city park. August 25, 1938.” The “city park,” now called Commodore Barry Park, was acquired by the Village of Brooklyn in 1836 and is the borough’s oldest park. Today, the Commodore Barry Park Pool sits just west of North Elliott Place.

“North from a point just above Myrtle Avenue, running across Auburn Place and showing the New Cumberland Hospital on the left, 1940.” Founded as the Brooklyn Homeopathic Dispensary in 1852, the New Cumberland Hospital moved from Cumberland Street to its new nine-story building at the corner of North Portland Avenue and Auburn Place in 1918. Despite the change of address, the new hospital was officially named Cumberland Hospital in 1922. In the early 1940s, Cumberland Hospital was one of few structures spared from demolition as the surrounding blocks were razed for the construction of the Fort Greene Houses. The hospital was closed in 1983, as part of the City Health and Hospitals Corporation reorganization ahead of the opening of Woodhull Hospital. Today the 1918 building serves a homeless shelter while the 1950s hospital addition is the Cumberland Diagnostic & Treatment Center.

“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.

Drake's Cake Building, ca. 1915. Constructed in 1913 for the Drake Bakeries, this factory structure with an Arts and Craft style facade was designed by the firm of Dodge & Morrison. One of the largest commercial cake bakeries in the region, Drake was producing 15 tons of pound cake a day by 1914 and was becoming well known for their ring dings, yodels, devil-dogs and coffee cakes. The business was so successful that they expanded this factory building all the way to Waverly Avenue in 1925. In 1960 the company was sold to a large food conglomerate. Today it is part of Hostess, who still make some of the Drake favorites and the building on Clinton Avenue is a charter school.

Richard Wright Photograph by Carl Van Vechten

“Myrtle Avenue (El, thereon), west from North Portland Avenue to Leo Place, showing extensive demolition for the erection of Fort Greene Houses. The view is from Fort Greene Park. In the background is St. Edwards \[sic] Roman Catholic Church.”

World War II was the largest military conflict in history. An estimated 70 million people died worldwide. Beginning with the rise of Hitler in Germany, the world plunged into war, just twenty years after the First World War. The United States was slow to join the conflict directly, finally declaring war on the Axis Powers after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941. However, prior to this formal declaration, the US government, while technically remaining neutral, sent military aid and equipment to the British through a law called the Lend-Lease Act. After Pearl Harbor, the United States directed their complete industrial and economic energy into the war effort. This approach to war, known as Total War, involved the vast majority of the American population in some form or another. The United States in general, and New York in particular, transformed during this conflict to meet the needs of the US military and its allies. As you read, consider the different ways New Yorkers stepped up to contribute to the war effort (8.6b, 11.8b) and how WWII can be considered a "Total War" (8.6b, 11.8b) For Teachers: Lesson Plan on WWII from home