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.

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.”

275 Park Avenue, ca. 1918. This building was erected in 1890 as home to The Van Glahn Brothers, one of several large wholesale grocery supply businesses located in Brooklyn that developed at the end of the 19th century. In 1907, the brothers sold the property to their growing neighbor, Rockwood & Co. Chocolate Company, whose factories were located just behind this building on Waverly and Park. The company produced Tootsie Rolls, among other candies, in this plant until 1967. Like many properties located along Brookyn's waterfront between 1960 and 2000, this building sat empty for more than 20 years before converted into a rental property in 2002.

In 1884, a market grew out of the bustling up-and-coming neighborhood adjacent to the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The wholesale market sold produce, meat, fish, and provisions until the 1940s when it was shut down. This was in part to make room for factories to produce weaponry and war materials for World War II, but also due to fear that spies could infiltrate the yard next door.

Wallabout Market was a wholesale produce, meat, fish, and provisions market that operated from 1884 until the 1940's. The market, designed by William B. Tubby, was the second-largest wholesale market in the world during its lifespan. Its Flemish stepped roofs and decorative spires reference the neighborhood's Walloon and Dutch past.

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!’”

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.