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.

"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.

"Looking toward the twin towers of the World Trade Center from Vinegar Hill, 1978"

The Commandant's House was built in 1806 as the quarters for the commodore of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Rumor has it that Charles Bulfinch, the Federal-era starchitect responsible for the iconic dome of the U.S. Capitol, was behind the design. There is scant evidence to prove Bulfinch's involvement, save for the dubious claim that the proportions of the dining room are exactly the same as those of the Oval Office. In 1841, Captain Matthew C. Perry, commander of all U.S. naval vessels in New York Harbor, moved into what was then called Quarters A of the New York Navy Yard. Perry would go on to convince Japan to open their borders to trade with the U.S., a feat he accomplished by sailing several large naval vessels into Tokyo Bay. The house, which was once painted a "creamy yellow," was home to successive Navy Yard commandants for nearly two centuries. In 1974, eight years after the Navy Yard was decommissioned, the building was designated as a National Historic Landmark. The property's transformation from military quarters to private residence began in 1996, when Charles Gilbert and Jennifer Jones became its first civilian owners. It cannot be cheap to maintain a huge old house that, due to its landmark status, cannot be changed. That is probably why the home is frequently used for TV and movie shoots, most famously as the home for Nucky Thompson in Boardwalk Empire.

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.

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.

"Brooklyn: Little Street - John Street. Little Street, east side, at the end of John Street, showing frame house in front of steel structure of the United States (Brooklyn) Navy Yard."

Commandant's House, 1954. Tucked away behind a large gate in the slice of Brooklyn between Vinegar Hill and the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the Commandant's House or Quarters A is a little-seen architectural gem. Constructed in 1806 for the top officer of the Navy facility, the Federal style mansion was possibly designed by Charles Bulfinch. Bulfinch, considered by many to be America's first professional architect, is best known for the U.S. Capitol Building. (Some suggest this attribution is perhaps 20th-century wishful thinking.) Commodore Matthew Perry was the most famous resident of the house. He lived here while the commanding officer of the naval installation in the 1840s. The house continued to serve as the charming and picturesque residence of the Commandant until the Navy Yard closed in 1964. The government sold the house in 1979, and it has remained a private home since then.

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.

"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.