My Archive Spring 2019 "This was my grandfather's factory in Brooklyn. The factory made steel medical furniture. It is one of those family photos that I have known forever. I guess they assembled all the workers for a photo shoot. My grandfather is towards the center, wearing a suit, behind the second man from the left who is kneeling." —Paul Tascarella

Park Street, toward Broadway, after streetcar tracks have been removed. October 21, 1935. The row houses on the northwestern side of the block date to at least 1886, and were built as frame structures with brick foundations. These houses were likely built for workers from Bushwick’s breweries, including the massive Liebmann & Sons complex nearby. At left, the tracks of the BMT Broadway elevated are nearby. The construction of the Broadway, Lexington Avenue, and Myrtle Avenue elevated lines contributed to 1880s development in Bushwick.

P.S. 52, June 25, 1931. P.S. 52, a modified Italianate school building designed by James W. Naughton, was constructed in 1883 as an extension for nearby P.S. 24. Naughton was the City of Brooklyn’s Superintendent of Buildings from 1878-98 — his career overlapped with celebrated New York Superintendent of School Buildings C.B.J. Snyder — during which time he designed over 100 Brooklyn schools. The school held its final classes in 1945, before the building was sold for factory conversion. In 1981, a third-floor classroom was removed for exhibition as a 1920s-era period room in the New York State Museum in Albany. Since 1996, “The Schoolhouse” has been home to a community of resident artists.

Queen Anne row houses on Bushwick Avenue (No. 683 is the corner building), March 29, 1935. This row of Queen Anne houses were designed by prolific Bushwick architect Theobald Engelhardt for brewer William Ulmer, whose own mansion, also Engelhardt-designed, was located across Bushwick Avenue. The single-family homes were completed in 1890.

Demolition of the Rheingold offices on Stanwix Street, 1981. The rise of national brewery conglomerates like Anheuser-Busch spelled the end for Rheingold. The Bushwick brewery complex ceased operations in 1976.

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.

My Archive Spring 2019 "The lady in the photo is my Aunt Giovanna (Jean) Tascarella-Deriso. the photo dates from the mid-1940s and the house, at 711 Bushwick Avenue, was my grandfather's house. A cousin was in the neighborhood recently and the house is still there, (although a little run down) and the lions on the front steps are still there as well. I heard that my grandfather painted a mural on the basement wall. I wonder if it's still there?" —Paul Tascarella

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.