This corner was the location of the Folly Theater which opened on the afternoon of October 14, 1901. The Folly was owned by Richard Hyde who -- according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle -- held a competition to determine the theater’s design. He selected the architectural firm Dodge & Morrison’s design which depicted a building with “numerous and direct exits.” Hyde’s decision might have been influenced by the recent Theater Building Laws that required new theatres to be built with multiple exits and fireproof materials. The Folly Theater was the first theater constructed under the new building laws and included twenty-six exits onto Graham Avenue and Debevoise Street along with four fire escapes. This story can be viewed in its original format here.

Designed by William Mundell, the 47th Regiment Armory was built in 1884 on the site of a former baseball grounds. Containing an armory, club rooms, and later a drill hall, the armory was one of the few funded by the state and not Kings County. While the 47th Regiment left the armory in the 1800s, various Army occupants and the National Guard utilized the space until 2011.

Most Holy Trinity Church, ca. 1920-1940. In the latter half of the 19th century, Williamsburg had a significant German Catholic population. The first Most Holy Trinity church was a wood-frame building at Graham and Montrose Avenues, erected in 1853. A new French Gothic church by architects William Ditmars and William Schickel was built between 1882 and 1885. The massive church includes twin 250-foot steeples and stained glass windows imported from Austria. In 1990, the steeples were deemed structurally unsound and sheathed in lead cladding as a precautionary measure.

Whipple Street east from Throop Avenue to Broadway, showing the south side of the street, 1941.