571 Bedford Avenue, 1958. Deep within Hasidic Williamsburg, 571 Bedford Avenue still remains. This Renaissance Revival mansion was constructed circa 1890. The copper bay window and the highly ornamented dormer window framing on the mansard roof have turned green with age. An early owner of the building (likely until his death in 1910) was Moses May, a beef dealer and president of the Brooklyn Hebrew Orphans Asylum. Today the building houses an Orthodox Jewish religious institution.

Payton's Lee Avenue Theater, ca. 1902. This 1,600 seat theater was built in a former church as the Lee Avenue Academy of Music in 1882. By 1895, the theater became the Phoebus Theater, and sometime shortly after, the theater was acquired by Corse Payton. Payton, a veteran actor, renamed the venue: Payton's Lee Avenue Theater. Corse Payton likened himself "America's Best Bad Actor," though despite this self-effacing name, he was quite successful in his career. In multiple billings at the Payton Theater, including "The Dancing Girl," and "The Prodigal Daughter," both Corse Payton and his wife Etta Reed performed on stage. Of the latter production, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported "electric fans kept the audience cool, in the face of the many exciting entanglements of the melodrama." The theater was razed in 1915, the New York Times reported that this was because "the BMT ran an elevated line through its balcony." A new theater, the Roebling, was built on the same site in 1919. The Roebling sat 1,200 guests on one level, rather than in tiered balconies like the original structure. The building changed hands in 1937 and became the Wilson Theater before closing down for good in 1945. The building is now occupied by a Congregation Adas Yereim.

Marvin Cross House. March 30, 1958. Built in the 1870s, this Second Empire mansion was the first headquarters of the Brevoort Club, a swanky Brooklyn gentlemen’s club in the years between 1885 and 1887. Marvin Cross was a lumber merchant, and later Brooklyn Parks Commissioner and member of the Board of Education purchased the mansion in 1891. President Grover Cleveland once dined here as a Cross family guest. In the late 19th century, this fashionable stretch of Bedford Avenue was home to several mansions, many of which have since been demolished.

Hanover Club, ca. 1911. The Hanover Club was a prestigious German-Jewish Club opened by William Cullen Bryant, a publisher of the Brooklyn Times. It was founded in 1890, housed in the former mansion of Oscar Hawley, a wealthy box manufacturer. In its heyday, the club boasted a bowling alley, billiards club, a restaurant, and a cafe. The alley and cafe were open exclusively to women in the afternoon. During these hours, a gentleman was only allowed inside if accompanied by a lady. The club also hosted dinners in true German spirit, one of which was called the "Thumb bit dinner." At said dinner supposedly, guests dined on steak piled high on slices of bread, all while wearing butcher's aprons and hats. The 400-member club moved to a new building in Crown Heights just one year after they moved into the Hawley Mansion. As the clubhouse changed its scenery, so did the neighborhood of South Williamsburg. When the Williamsburg Bridge was completed in 1909, an influx of Jewish immigrants moved from the Lower East Side to Williamsburg. The former mansion became the Young Israel Association in 1922, an orthodox institution that aimed to provide new immigrants with a space to connect with their community and their religious beliefs. The building is now Bais Yaskov of Adas Yereim.