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.

In 1814, Robert Fulton, inventor of the world’s first successful steamboat, established a steam-powered ferry to traverse the East River between what is now Fulton Street in Brooklyn and Fulton Street in Manhattan. Fulton’s steam ferry sparked an era of rapid growth in Brooklyn. Within less than 50 years, the sleepy village transformed into the third-largest city in America.

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.

Storefronts on Old Fulton Street, ca. 1975. The buildings date to the late 1830s, when they comprised small commercial district near the Fulton Ferry, including manufacturers, grocers, and taverns.

No. 4 Water Street, ca. 1975.

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

Learn more about bridges and build your own using our bridge building workshop! Learn more about transit history by visiting NYTransitMuseum.org

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.

Plate 6: Map bounded by Poplar Street, Henry Street, 1855.

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.

Stable on Everit Street, off of Cadman Plaza West (Fulton Street), ca. 1975.

Long Island Safe Deposit Company building, 1 Front Street.

"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.

1 Old Fulton Street, ca. 1958. The four-story corner building at the intersection of Water and Old Fulton Streets dates to the late 1830s, when it opened as the Franklin House hotel.

Corner of Fulton Street & Front Street, 1958 What a difference a few decades make! Built in 1869, this 1958 photograph of 1 Front Street from nearly a century later shows the aging of its unique cast iron facade. Described by the NY Times as an "eccentric Renaissance palazzo" this building's facade, once green with age now gleams white. Built by the Long Island Safety Deposit Company, it is the oldest surviving bank building in New York and in 1971 had a cameo in the Sophia Loren film "Mortadella."

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."

Tobacco Inspection Warehouse and Brooklyn Bridge, May 22, 1936. The Tobacco Warehouse was best recognized in the later 20th century as a hollow, roofless building. Berenice Abbott captured it here in 1936 prior to its near abandonment. Built in the 1860s the large brick warehouse was originally five stories. It was used as a tobacco storage space and the customs inspection center for tobacco. In the 1890s, 90% of Brooklyn's tobacco trade occurred here. By the mid 20th century the tobacco warehouse was no longer and the building was occupied by a metal reclaiming company. By the 1970s the roof of the, then remaining two stories, was gone and left the building open to the elements. Despite some initial legal issues related to the adjacent Brooklyn Bridge Park, the Tobacco Warehouse underwent a massive and multi-million dollar renovation between 2013-2015. It has been transformed (with new roof added) into a theatre venue for the avant-garde theater group St. Ann's Warehouse. The renovations included constructing a brand new building just inside (like an inch from) the original walls.

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.

The Manhattan Bridge opened to the public on the morning of December 31, 1909. It was the third suspension bridge built to span the East River, joining the Brooklyn and Williamsburg bridges. At the beginning of construction, its name was “Bridge No. 3” but that didn’t stick. In the end, the city opted for something simple, christening the bridge Manhattan

View of the Brooklyn Bridge from the Manhattan Bridge, November 11, 1936.

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."

Part of a fleet, Sludge Vessel Coney Island was built in the late 1930s during an era of wastewater treatment modernization aimed at keeping sewage out of the City’s rivers and harbor and improving public health. Back then, the vessels carried sludge out into the ocean, but since the 1990s they’ve sailed to facilities that turn it into biosolids, which can be composted, added to agricultural soils, or further processed for other beneficial uses. Decommissioned by NYC’s Environmental Protection Administration in 1972, the Coney Island was intentionally sunk off the coast of New Jersey, becoming a Scuba diving and fishing destination as part of the Shark River Reef!

Eagle Warehouse ca. 1907 Built on the site of an old Brooklyn Eagle warehouse, famed Brooklyn architect Frank Freedman was hired to design a new fireproof warehouse on the site. Freedman's design, which Christopher Gray of the New York Times would describe as "a medieval brick fortress,", earned local acclaim upon its completion in 1894 and received a landmark designation in 1977. It would shortly thereafter be converted into condominiums.

5-7 Front Street, ca. 1958. Known to be the oldest surviving office building in New York City, 5-7 Front Street was originally erected in 1827 for the Long Island Insurance Company. Made of granite, brick, and stone, the building is among the district's earliest examples of the Greek Revival style. Today the building houses a restaurant, Gran Electrica, on its ground-floor.

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.

View of Lower Manhattan from the Brooklyn Waterfront, east of the Brooklyn Bridge, ca. 1935.

Squibb Plant After serving as a physician at the Brooklyn Navy Yard’s Medical Station, Edward Robinson Squibb founded his own pharmaceutical manufacturing company, The Squibb Company, in 1858. In 1892, he formed a partnership with his family and changed the name to E.R. Squibb and Sons. During the 1920s, Squibb hired architect Russell G. Cory and associate Walter M. Cory of Turner Construction Company to design and build a new manufacturing plant located at 25-30 Columbia Heights in the Fulton Ferry District of Brooklyn, as seen above. E.R. Squibb and Sons would become one of the largest manufacturers of mineral oil in the world, as well as one of the nation’s largest producers of vitamins. In 1969, as a result of the postwar deindustrialization of the waterfront, several mergers, and a worker’s strike, the Squibb Plant closed its doors and consolidated their operations to nearby Princeton, New Jersey. That same year the building was purchased by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society (the legal entity of the Jehovah’s Witnesses), who were at the time expanding their operations in the area. Over the past fifty years you may have seen the iconic red “watchtower” letters as you walked or drove over the Brooklyn Bridge, illuminating the skyline with the time and temperature. The Jehovah’s Witnesses group decided to move their headquarters to upstate New York and sold the building to developers in 2016 to turn it into a multi-office and retail complex.

My Archive Spring 2019 "The Brooklyn Bridge on its 100th-anniversary celebration. I was there with many friends, some of whom are in the photograph. May 24th, 1983." —Michael Castellano

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.

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.

Manhattan Bridge ca. 1936 The Manhattan Bridge, the first suspension bridge to use flexible steel towers, was built concurrently with the Queensboro Bridge. Gustav Lindenthal's technical innovations for the Manhattan Bridge, and his insistence on incorporating aesthetic elements into the design, were disapproved by Tammany Hall politicians and other powerful figures: Such political resistance prevented Lindenthal from acquiring funds or political backing for his design and eventually he and Hornbostel were replaced by designer Leon Moisseiff and the architectural firm Carrere and Hastings, respectively. Moisseiff altered Lindenthal's plan by substituting conventional wound steel cables for nickel-steel chains and by reducing the proposed size of the structure's tall stiffening trusses. It has been speculated that the real cause of Tammany opposition to Lindenthal's design was that it called for nickel-steel and therefore failed to provide business to the Roebling Company, the only one producing steel cables. Various explanations have been offered was to why the completed bridge could just barely support the necessary weight: that Moisseiff neglected to undertake certain critical calculations (he later designed the Tacoma-Narrows Bridge, Tacoma, Washington, which collapsed shortly after its 1940 opening, taking his career with it) or that inferior materials, inadequate to withstand predicted traffic-load pressures, were used. Whatever the cause, the Manhattan is the most troublesome of New York City's suspension bridge, although it has the greatest traffic capacity of the four East River bridges.

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.

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."