Kent Avenue, west side, between Myrtle and Park Avenues, showing Public School No. 157, 1929. Constructed in 1906, P.S. 157 is elaborate Gothic Revival-style building designed by C.B. J. Snyder. The school suffered neglect, water damage, and misguided alterations throughout the 20th century. The original structure included an ornate parapet with 40 terra cotta “learned” owls attached. In the early 21st century, an architectural firm undertook an extensive renovation that recreated more than 5,000 units of terra cotta, including the parapet and owls.

The Mergenthaler Linotype Company set the standard for printing companies in the late 19th century and early 20th century with a design so robust it remained unchanged for almost a century. Ottmar Mergenthaler, a German-born clock designer, invented the linotype machine to replace the arduous process of hand-setting individual characters lines for printing newspapers, books, magazines, and posters. Linotype, or "line-o-type," cast a line, or "slug," of characters which were entered by a typist on a 90-character keyboard. The line, or "matrix," would serve as the mold for a molten metal alloy to be cast into it. The final result of the process was a metal slug, ready print on a letterpress. Mergenthaler built his company's factory in the neighborhood of Wallabout, in proximity to both the Brooklyn Harbor and the newly minted Myrtle Avenue El. The original factory building, on Ryerson Street between Flushing Avenue and Park Avenue, was updated in 1906 for an Albert Kahn design reinforced-concrete structure. By 1916, Mergenthaler's factories grew to take over the blocks spanning Hall and Grand Streets to the east and west and Vanderbilt and Park Avenue to the north and south. The Mergenthaler Linotype Company's buildings still exist, though the linotype company was pushed into oblivion by the invention of phototypesetting, and later, computerized typesetting programs.

St. Mary’s Episcopal Church ARCHITECT: Richard T. Auchmuty DATE: 1858-59 STYLE: Gothic Revival St. Mary’s Church is a beautiful Gothic Revival structure reminiscent of an English rural parish church. Built in 1858, it was designed by a relatively unknown architect, Richard T. Auchmuty, in accordance with the religious philosophy of ecclesiology. This movement laid out a strict set of rules for the design of Episcopal churches, which required the honest use of the best materials, the orientation of the church on an east-west axis, and the exterior design to reflect the plan and construction of the interior. In addition to its handsome form, St. Mary’s has beautiful ornamentation and attractive pointed-arched and rose windows.

P.S. 157, The Benjamin Franklin 850 Kent Avenue, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn 1909 Shortly after the turn of the 20th century, architect C.B.J. Snyder’s goal was to build a world-class public school system for New York City. Constructed in 1909, P.S. 157, an “H” design pioneered by Snyder, is a fine example of the Colligate Gothic style of architecture reminiscent of the classical architecture of Oxford, Bryn Mawr, and Princeton. The building’s parapets are accentuated with 40 terracotta owls, representing “wisdom.”

Military band marching in the Brooklyn Memorial Day Parade. May 30, 1895. The building at left (with awning) is 684 Bedford Avenue.

Walt Whitman circa 1890. Whitman lived at 99 Ryerson Street in 1855, the year he published Leaves of Grass. It was here that he received a letter from Ralph Waldo Emerson, calling Leaves of Grass the “most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed.” “I greet you at the beginning of a great career,” he wrote. Whitman lived in several buildings in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill for over 28 years, but this is the only home of his still standing. He longed for a more permanent home: “My good daddy used to say: ‘Oh! what a comfort it is to lie down on your own floor, a floor laid with your own hands, in a house which represents your own handiwork—cellar and walls and roof!’”

817-827 Bedford Avenue, March 30, 1958. The A.D Freed Oil Company seen at right at no. 823 survived in this location until 2015 when it was replaced by a new glass-front multi-family residential unit.

Engine #209 Taaffe Place, 1957. The Brooklyn Fire Department Engine 9 was organized in 1869 at 159 Taaffe Place (formerly Graham Street) in a building that had formerly housed the volunteer Engine 12. In 1892, Engine 9 was called to a massive fire at a series of buildings on Nostrand Avenue, and its firefighters performed a number of daring rescues. The engine company moved into a different building in 1966, and was eventually disbanded in 2003. The building at 159 Taaffe Place still stands and has a faded sign "American Refractories" above the large rolling metal gate. The top floor looks to be a residence.