110 Bridge Street ARCHITECT: Louis E. Jallade DATE: 1908-09 The Thomson Meter Co. Building, among the most aesthetically interesting industrial structures in New York City, is a pioneering American building that employs, in part, a frank exterior expression of its concrete structure. It also displays a fairly early use in New York of polychromatic glazed terracotta. The success of the Thomson Meter Co., founded c. 1890 in Brooklyn to manufacture John Thomson’s patented water meters, led to a new 4-story (plus basement) factory, built in 1908-09 to the design of Louis E. Jallade, with the Hennebique Construction Co. as general contractor. Jallade’s use of ceramic ornament, particularly leaf motifs in terra cotta, was clearly influenced by Parisian examples. After Thomson’s death, this building was sold in 1927 to the New York Eskimo Pie Corp., a subsidiary of the parent firm, for the regional manufacture of the first American chocolate-covered ice cream bar (created in 1920). Eskimo Pie products were made here until 1966.

Sands Street Terminal was a station on the demolished BMT Myrtle Avenue Line. The complex was large with two levels. Its lower level had four tracks, serving trains going to Park Row in Manhattan via the Brooklyn Bridge Elevated Line. Alternatively, the upper level had a terminal and a loop for terminating trains. The station closed for good on March 5, 1944.

The Manhattan Bridge, viewed from the intersection of Washington and Front Streets, ca. 1978.

Siloam Presbyterian Church is a historically Black church that was founded in 1849 by Reverand James A. Gloucester, who was formerly enslaved. From 1849 to 1851, he used his church to harbor fugitives fleeing slavery through the Underground Railroad. Supported by the New Yokr Vigilance Committee, Gloucester provided those seeking freedom with medical aid, food, and clothing. The church even raised funds to support John Brown, the radical abolitionist who later led the raid of Harper's Ferry, VA, commonly quoted as a "dress rehearsal for the Civil War." The congregation of Siloam Presbyterian Church has relocated several times. It has always provided a critical space for community support and activism.

75 Poplar Street, April 5, 1958.

"97 Bridge Street, at the N.E. corner of York Street, showing also the Brooklyn Union Gas Co. tank on York Street." The frame building at the corner was recently demolished. Notice the architectural palimpsest on the building at the left. A palimpsest is traditionally a parchment made from animal hide that has been scraped "clean" again so that new text can be written on it. In many cases the ghost of the original text can be seen faintly behind the text words. In the case of architecture, a palimpsest is the partial remains or outline of a vanished building seen on existing buildings.

View of the Brooklyn Bridge and downtown skyline from Main Street Park, ca. 1979.

Vol. 5. Plate, C. \[Map bound by Poplar St., Sands St., Jay St., Pearl St., Johnson St., Pierrepont St., East River; Including Middagh St., High St., Cranberry St., Orange St., Nassau St., Pineapple St., Concord St., Clark St., Tillary St., Love Lane, Furman St., Columbia Heights, Willow St., Hicks St., College Pl., Henry St., Monroe St., Clinton St., Liberty St., Washington St., Adams St.], 1880.

20 Henry Street, April 1, 1937. The Mason, Au and Mangenheimer Candy Company constructed this six-story brick factory building in 1885. It was designed by Theobald Engelhardt, who constructed many of Greenpoint, Williamsburg, and Bushwick's industrial structures. The candy company, which was established in 1864 by two confectioners, produced both chocolate covered and gummy candies. Their best known products were Mason Peaks and Mason Mints (chocolate covered coconut and mints, respectively). They also made Dots and Crows, both gumdrops and still available today! The candy factory occupied this building until 1949. In 1972 the Mason Company was purchased by Tootsie Roll. In 1975 the building became a Mitchell-Lama affordable housing complex called the Middagh Street Studio Apartments. The affordable housing program was ended in 1999 when the landlord bought the building out of the program. A condo conversion was undertaken in the early 21st century. First coming onto the market during the 2008 recession, the fully completed conversion (which included the original factory building and an additional 14-unit building next door) went on the market in 2012. The factory units now sell for between $450,000 and $2.595 million. The conversion, thankfully, included the saving and renovating of the candy factory's painted facade signs.

Family standing on the stoop at 115 Jay Street, May 22, 1936. These photographs were part of a group Abbott took in “Irishtown,” a slum of pre-Civil War houses nestled under the anchorage of the Manhattan Bridge. Lacking cellars, central heat, hot water, toilets, and bathtubs, many of the houses had been declared uninhabitable by the City. In the only portrait of the Changing New York project, Abbott captured the dignity of this African-American family living at no. 115 Jay Street. She later recalled that the family told her “a dog shouldn’t live in this place.” Vendors like the pots-and-pans salesman in Traveling Tin Shop were a disappearing breed when Abbott took this photograph, but they still serviced the City’s poorest neighborhoods. A public housing project now stands on the site of 115 Jay Street. In 1950, the entry ramps of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway cut through the area and further marginalized it.

Fulton Street El tracks at Middagh Street, undated. The corner building at right was 152 Fulton Street. In the background, left of the elevated tracks over Fulton Street as they continue eastbound into Brooklyn, a pile of earth indicates a construction project underway: the development of Cadman Plaza Park. In 1935, The city acquired the land east of Fulton Street for redevelopment as parkland adjacent to the borough’s civic center. In 1940, elevated service was discontinued over this part of Fulton Street, which would be renamed Cadman Plaza West. Today, the eastern side of this intersection includes the Cadman Plaza exit ramp from the Brooklyn Bridge roadway.

View of the Lower Manhattan skyline, past the Brooklyn Bridge, from the intersection of John and Pearl Streets; ca. 1975. The brick building at right is the former Arbuckle Brothers sugar refinery, once responsible for producing a sugar-based coating which protected roasted coffee beans from going stale prior to delivery. The Arbuckle refinery has since been razed, with the site now home to John Street Park, the easternmost section of the Brooklyn Bridge Park development. The park is a landscaped salt marsh with pedestrian crossings, including a small trace of the former Arbuckle empire: the refinery's iron and concrete footings have been left untouched, amid native tidal grasses.

199 York Street, 1923. Following the opening of the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1801, the Irish Catholic population of Brooklyn boomed. In that period, Brooklyn Catholics were required to travel to Manhattan to attend church. Given the inconvenience, the community began requesting that a priest come to Brooklyn to perform mass. At an unknown date circa 1820, Father Philip Larisey traveled to the home of William Purcel, on the corner of Gold and York Streets, to say mass for the nascent community. This was the first Catholic mass celebrated in Brooklyn. On January 7, 1822 a committee was organized in the same home to formally ask the consent of the Bishop for the establishment of a Brooklyn Church. In April of the same year, the plot for a church building was purchased on the corner of Jay and Chapel Streets. St. James Church was dedicated in August 1823, the first Catholic Church on Long Island.

"Brooklyn: Front Street - Gold Street, 1934" At this corner once stood St. Anne's (later Ann's) Roman Catholic Church. Built in 1860 by the well-known architect of Catholic Churches Patrick Keely, the congregation would be combined with nearby St. George's Church in 1986 and the building demolished in 1992.

49 Sands Street, ca. 1940.

High Street and Cadman Plaza, undated (after 1935). This photo by Federal Art Project photographer David Robbins was taken from underneath the platform of the Sands Street BMT station. Sands Street was a two-level station with multiple platforms handling train traffic to and from Park Row, via the Brooklyn Bridge and the BMT Fulton Street, Myrtle Avenue, Fifth Avenue, and Lexington Avenue lines (and other discontinued lines sharing the same elevated tracks). The station was closed in March, 1944 and demolished shortly thereafter as part of the city’s redevelopment of Cadman Plaza. Widespread subway service in Brooklyn had made continued elevated train service superfluous, while the construction of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway required the constriction of exit ramps for connecting Brooklyn Bridge traffic.

Traveling Tin Shop, May 22, 1936. "The location of the photograph is unknown but the neighborhood resembles Talman and Jay Streets in the Fort Greene area of Brooklyn, which Abbott photographed on the same day."

Talman Street between Jay and Bridge Streets. Talman Street was demolished to make way for the BQE in the 1950s. The origins of this small street of wood-frame homes date to the late 19th century. By the time the Irish community was being replaced by an African American community in the 1930s, the homes still had no running water, toilets, and central heat.

High Street Station, August, 1964.

St. James Cathedral ca. 1936 In 1822, the small but growing Catholic community in Brooklyn sought a church, a pastor, and a burying ground of its own. On July 25, 1822, the cornerstone for the first Long Island Catholic church, St. James, was laid at Chapel and Jay Streets; the new building was consecrated a year later. A cemetery and a school soon followed. Under New York State law in effect through the 1830s, parish property was owned by an elected lay board of trustees. Lay trustees bought property, built the churches, schools, and related structures, and controlled the daily operations of the parishes.

A Brooklyn Daily Eagle article from 1937 highlights what CSI looked like in the 30s. Shown to the press for the first time, the newly funded laboratory employed twelve cops to "trace down the wolves in human form who rove the city to rob and kill."

73-83 Sands Street. Did you know that Brooklyn had a red light district? Sands Street, which was close enough to the waterfront and the Navy Yard to be a gathering spot for sailors, catered to this group (and New Yorkers seeking a sordid thrill) with saloons, tattoo shops, gambling spots, and boarding houses. In the 19th century this disreputable area was referred to by locals as the "Barbary Coast" and by the mid 20th century was called "Hell's Half Acre."

Empire Stores, 53-83 Water Street, 1980. Long underutilized, the Brooklyn waterfront received a facelift beginning in 2002 when then Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor George Pataki set aside 1.3 miles of waterfront to create a promenade and park. Construction began in 2008 and the park opened to the public in 2010.

Assumption Parish School (formerly P.S. 8), October 12, 1958. When this three-story Greek Revival schoolhouse was completed in 1846, it became the first public school in Brooklyn (despite the P.S. 8 designation, applied at a later date). The school was phased out after 1906, when a new P.S. 8 building on Hicks Street at the western end of the block. By 1920, the building was home to the parish school of the Church of the Assumption. The parish sold the building in 1975; it has since been converted to co-op residences.

"Empire Stores Warehouse. Showing the Empire Stores warehouse buildings with weeds, wooden pallets, and the shell of an automobile on the street in front of the buildings. Partial view of Robert Gair's cardboard box factory building, located at 1 Main Street, 1968."

Brooklyn: Sands Street - Pearl Street.

Bliss Works, Brooklyn,ca. 1910-1915. A building with a long and storied history. Built between 1891 and 1901 it originally was one of a number of buildings in the neighborhood that housed the factories of the E. W. Bliss Machine Company. The former factory is one of the longest remaining artist live/work loft buildings, and the location of a major Loft Law litigation. It housed a paper recycling plant on the first floor until 2014 which also played a part in a major mafia sting operation in the 1990s. Artist such as String, KRS-One and Q-Tip have shot videos here. And it is the first "safe house" location in the dystopian future of the online video game "The Division."

Front Street warehouse, ca. 1958.

Water and Dock Streets, ca. 1890. Opened in 1869, the Empire Stores was the center of operations for the Arbuckle Bros. Coffee Company. One of a number of "stores" that lined the Brooklyn waterfront (for the movement, processing, and housing of cotton, lemons, jute, tobacco, sugar, and coffee), this building is only one of two that survive. These brick warehouses were vast and dark spaces. A number of architectural features facilitated the buildings functions including, the large openings for easy hoisting goods and massive metal shutters that kept the elements, fire, and thieves out. Abandoned in 1945, the building remained empty for decades. In 2016 the building was finally reopened as a retail hub, featuring restaurant and high end stores, as well as an annex to the Brooklyn Historical Society.

A. Zerega's Sons building (background) at 28 Front Street, ca. 1935. Founded by Antoine Zerega, a French immigrant of Italian background, in 1848, Zerega's is the oldest pasta company in the United States. Zerega Avenue in the Bronx is named after the pasta maker. The company moved from DUMBO to Fair Lawn, New Jersey in 1952.

Images of small children boxing are not something we come across every day so when we found this picture in the Brooklyn Public Library's Brooklyn Daily Eagle collection we dove into its history.

Washington Street advertisements, ca. 1939.

Empire Stores warehouse buildings, viewed from New Dock Street, 1968. The Sweeney Manufacturing Company building, located at 30 Main Street, and Robert Gair's former cardboard box factory at 1 Main Street are visible in the background. Established in 1869, the Empire Stores is a series of seven separate warehouses. Shipping merchant James Nesmith built the first phase of four-story warehouses which were then known as “Nesmith & Sons Empire Stores.” The warehouses stored raw materials such as cotton, lemons, jute, tobacco, sugar, and coffee imported on cargo ships from Africa, South America, and Cuba. Business was so good that, in 1885, James’ son Henry Nesmith built the remaining five-story warehouses on the eastern end. Large openings on the water side facilitated easy hoisting of goods to and from the adjacent piers. During the 19th century, the Brooklyn waterfront was so completely lined with warehouses similar to Empire Stores that it was nick-named the “walled city.” The Empire Stores are among the few that remain. In the 1920s, the Empire Stores became part of Arbuckle Coffee, then the country's largest coffee business, and a significant presence on the DUMBO waterfront. Arbuckle managed every aspect of the Brooklyn coffee business: coffee beans unloaded into the Empire Stores were sorted, glazed, roasted, ground, packaged, and shipped in nearby buildings. The Arbuckle brand Yuban is still in stores today. Abandoned in 1945, the buildings remained empty for decades. The building was rehabilitated as part of the development of Brooklyn Bridge Park, and recently reopened as a retail hub, with restaurants and high-end stores, as well as the Brooklyn Historical Society - DUMBO.

Tenements and wood-frame dwellings on Garrison Street, a single block between Front and York Streets in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, ca. 1938. Arnold Eagle’s photo is part of his “One Third of a Nation” series, shot with David Robbins. The project document the living conditions in poverty-stricken New York City neighborhoods, and shared its name with a 1938 “living newspaper” production by the Federal Theatre Project dramatizing similar themes. Garrison is named for John Garrison, an early 19th century judge who also served as president of the Village of Brooklyn. At right in the middle ground, is Mercein Street, a single-block street named for Andrew Mercein, a political figure of the same era who lived on nearby Sands Street. Both streets were eliminated in the early 1950s to make room a westbound exit ramp from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Today, a parking lot entrance roughly lines up with the former path of Garrison Street.

Vinegar Hill is a quiet, historic pocket of Brooklyn tucked between the Brooklyn Navy Yard and the Manhattan Bridge, its Belgian block streets framed by rowhouses and the looming smokestack of a former Con Edison power station. Unlike its heavily trafficked neighbor DUMBO to the west, Vinegar Hill has largely escaped tourist crowds and large-scale development, preserving a rare sense of old New York. The neighborhood's story began in 1748 when the Sands brothers purchased 160 acres and ambitiously dubbed the area the “City of Olympia.” But it wasn’t until 1800 that the name Vinegar Hill stuck, a marketing move by developer John Jackson to attract Irish shipwrights, evoking the 1798 Battle of Vinegar Hill in Ireland. By the mid-19th century, waves of Irish immigrants fleeing the Great Hunger transformed the neighborhood into a gritty waterfront enclave nicknamed “Irishtown.” Known for its illicit poitín whiskey stills and gang activity, most famously the White Hand Gang, it was a hard-edged working-class community with deep roots. Much of old Vinegar Hill was leveled in the 1950s to make way for the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and the Farragut Houses, but the surviving streets still carry the weight of history. Today, as plans move forward to convert the long-dormant power plant into a renewable energy hub, the neighborhood stands at another turning point, balancing preservation and reinvention.

Manhattan Bridge Overpass, ca. 1977. The site that gives DUMBO its name: Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass.

"97 Bridge Street, at the N.E. corner of York Street, showing also the Brooklyn Union Gas Co. tank on York Street." The large natural gas tanks seen in this photograph, once dotted the streetscapes of the five boroughs. The most well known were in Elmhurst Queens, which were dismantled in 1996. A pair of tanks in Greenpoint met a more spectacular end in 2001 when they were imploded. It is unknown when the tank seen here was demolished, though considering the density and growth of this neighborhood (in comparison to Elmhurst or Greenpoint), it was likely gone long before the others.

Beneath the surface of New York City's bustling subway system, carrying a billion passengers yearly, lies a hidden narrative of racial disparity in fare evasion policing. We delve into three distinct locales: Jay Street-Borough Hall Station in Brooklyn, the South Bronx's 40th Precinct, and Queens' Transit District 23. Each spot unveils how minority communities face biased fare enforcement. This exploration not only exposes the underlying issues in subway policing but also connects to larger themes of racial profiling and urban inequality.

York Street at the Brooklyn Bridge looking north along Garrison Street, ca. 1935. Garrison Street was a small, crooked alley that ran from York Street (the road seen in the foreground) to Front Street. It ran parallel to the bridge for only a hundred or so feet then sharply turned to the north (right) where it ran perpendicular into Front Street. Named after John Garrison a butcher who became a judge and was later the first president of Brooklyn Village. While they survived the building of the adjacent Brooklyn Bridge, they were lost in the mid-century urban development and construction of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in the 1950s.

The Plaza Restaurant, at Middagh Street and Cadman Plaza West (formerly Fulton Street), August 1964.

Talman Street, no. 57, Brooklyn. In the 19th century Talman Street, a small road between Bridge and Jay Streets in what is now called DUMBO, was once home to wooden rowhouses and a small population of Irish immigrants. By the 1930s when Berenice Abbott photographed the street it was pretty run down. During the urban renewal of the 1950s and 1960s, the street was demolished to make way for the BQE and the Farragut Houses, a massive public housing complex. The hand painted signage for Eskimo Pies can be seen on the building (100 Bridge St.) in the background.

Sperry Gyroscope Company Building, ca. 1939. Designed by Frank Helmle and constructed in 1915-1916, the Sperry Gyroscope Company Building (today called the Howard Building) is a reinforced concrete industrial building. The Gyroscope Company was founded in 1910 by Elmer Ambrose. The gyroscope was an important new navigating tool for maritime and air travel. The location of the factory was purposeful, with the proximity to the Manhattan Bridge allowing the building to get sunlight from all directions. Built during the First World War, but prior to Americans entrance to the fighting, the factory manufactured items that aided in ship, plane, and torpedo navigation, actions that the U.S. felt they would likely be involved with soon enough. Despite further inventions and technological advances in the following decades, the Sperry Gyroscope Company was broken up by the mid century though mergers and legal actions. Today the Howard Building's largest major tenant is New York City College of Technology.

"Brooklyn: Concord Street - Jay Street. The view shows the wood-frame buildings between 117-125 Concord Street."

Constructed between 1896 and 1915, this 10-acre block complex was home to one of the largest grocers of imported commodities in the United States. Established in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the Grand Union Tea Company moved its headquarters to Brooklyn in 1896. By 1930, Grand Union had over 700 stores nationwide and shipped millions of pounds of coffee, tea, and other goods per year. Grand Union moved its headquarters to Elmwood Park, New Jersey in 1950. Today, the building stands as a reminder of DUMBO's importance to the growth of American commerce at the turn of the 20th century. The building is now condiminiums.

There is no place like New York — and there is certainly nothing like growing up here. This collection will give you a look into the lives of New York City's youngest and cutest, dating from the late 19th to the mid-20th century.

Brooklyn: Sands Street - Pearl Street.

"Brooklyn: Main Street - Front Street. An old wood-frame building at the corner that had been in existence for more than a century in 1922."