Fulton Ferry House with horse-drawn trolleys seen at front, date unknown \[likely prior to 1900].

Food has always played an important role in the history of Brooklyn. Not only has food manufacturing occupied Brooklyn factories and employed its citizens, but historic food establishments have become icons: some for their architecture, others for their atmosphere and still others for their delicacies.

Nos. 8-12 Everit Street, ca. 1958. No. 8 (at right) is listed as a "cigar box factory" on an 1887 Sanborn map.

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.

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.

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

View of newly built park deck at Fulton Ferry Landing, ca. 1975. Ferry service operated at this crossing as early as 1642, but the Fulton Ferry takes its name from Robert Fulton’s revolutionary steam ferry service, which made its debut in 1814. The construction of the East River bridges contributed to declining ferry ridership, and Fulton Ferry service ceased in 1924.

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.

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.

Watchtower Bible and Tract Society walkway and the Brooklyn Bridge, ca. 1975.

Today, Fulton Mall is a bustling shopping district in Downtown Brooklyn. During the late-Victorian / early-Edwardian eras (think 1880-1910), it was the preeminent thoroughfare for fashionable shopping in Brooklyn. With monumental department stores like Abraham & Straus and impeccable restaurants like Gage & Tollner, shoppers and window shoppers alike teamed Fulton Street to see everything from the latest wedding trousseau to mourning veils, and penny candy to soft clam bellies in Duxbury stew. While most of these businesses no longer exist, many of their architectural remains can be found behind and above their modern facades.

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

The trio of wood-frames seen here (nos. 38 and 40 front the street, no. 38A is reached by walking through the shared alley) were all built as early as 1830. The Joseph Bennett House (no. 38 in the middle with dark shingles) was originally three stories, but had an addition at some point during the 19th century. Joseph Bennett, the original owner, was listed in the 1830 Brooklyn directory as a packer.

Long Island Safe Deposit Company building, 1 Front Street.

We are standing at one of the greatest seaports on the East Coast. In 1646, when the Dutch first settled here, this was part of the town of Breukelen, now Brooklyn. This busy area hosted ships carrying imported goods and exporting produce and other commodities to neighboring New Amsterdam (now Lower Manhattan), other colonies in the Americas, and Europe. Now look across the river at the sailing ships at the South Street Seaport and imagine them unloading their cargo. That was the bustling town of New Amsterdam—the commercial and financial center of Dutch and later English colonial operations. Ferries carried goods and people back and forth. It was a busy, noisy place, strange and frightening to many of the enslaved people arriving here. By the end of the American Revolution, in 1783, Brooklyn stretched from the DUMBO area up the hill to present–day Brooklyn Heights. The Fulton Landing lay at the heart of the town of Brooklyn. Businesses, then houses, spread outward from here, as streets were laid, shops, taverns, and churches built. Fulton’s steam ferry, which travelled between Brooklyn and Manhattan, began running in 1814. It decreased commuting times and made Brooklyn a desirable place to live for those who worked in Manhattan. This site is where the story of the emerging city of Brooklyn begins. (text from the Brooklyn Historical Society exhibition "In Pursuit of Freedom")

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."

Brooklyn City Railroad Company Building ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: c. 1861 STYLE: French Second Empire Erected in 1860-61, this handsome building is a dignified commercial example of the French Second Empire style of the Civil War period. It was built as an office for the Brooklyn City Railroad Company, which had been incorporated in 1853 and had replaced the old stage lines which once provided transportation to Fulton Ferry. This building, at the intersection of Fulton and Furman Streets, stands on the site of William Furman’s house, seen on a map of the Old Ferry District in 1816.

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."

Ferries have made a bit of a comeback lately with the East River Ferry, Governor’s Island Ferry, and even a ferry to Ikea in Brooklyn. The first ferry route between Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, however, was established in the 1630s, just a few years after the settling of New York by the Dutch. While Cornelius Dircksen Hoagland may have been the first to run a ferry between the two boroughs, Robert Fulton and his brother-in-law William Cutting popularized it in more modern times.

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.

Located in the Fulton Ferry Historic District in Brooklyn, the Fulton Ferry Fireboat House was built in 1926 on the former site of the old Fulton Ferry Terminal. Two years’ prior, Brooklyn’s Union Ferry Company had terminated service from this location due to the declining number of ferry commuters. This occurred in part because the early 1900s saw a rise in alternate means of available transportation including automobiles and newly constructed bridges spanning the East River between Brooklyn and Manhattan. The Brooklyn Bridge opened in 1883, followed by the Williamsburg Bridge in 1903, and the Manhattan Bridge in 1912. On October 8, 1925, the Fulton Ferry Terminal was destroyed in a massive two alarm fire. The fireboat house was built the following year. During the 1930s, the house was occupied by Fireboat Engine 77, the tower used to dry out the wet firehoses. In 1959, the station changed to Marine Company 7 and remained in operation until 1970. Subsequently, the largely abandoned industrial waterfront began a long process of revitalization. From 1976 to 1982 the boathouse served as headquarters to the Fulton Ferry Museum and National Maritime Historical Society. Today it is home to Ample Hills Creamery.

"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."

"Fulton Ferry in Horse Car Days. Street view of the Fulton Ferry Landing, including horse-drawn streetcars, several pedestrians, and the entrance to Franklin House Billard Palor, circa 1890." The Fulton Ferry Terminal (seen here) was built in 1865 at the foot of Fulton Street. Commercial ferry service had been active since 1814 (and functioning in someway since the 1630s), but in the years following the construction of the Ferry Terminal in the mid 1860s, the popularity of the ferry were called into question by severe overcrowding, massive delays, unsafe conditions, and in the winter of 1866, the stoppage of all service when the East River froze. With the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883 the vitality of the ferries and the nearby commercial hub waned somewhat. The ferry would survive for forty more years, ceasing service in 1924, and the Ferry Building would be torn down two years later.

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.

Located in the Fulton Ferry Historic District in Brooklyn, the Fulton Ferry Fireboat House was built in 1926 on the former site of the old Fulton Ferry Terminal.

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

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.

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.

Fulton Ferry Fireboat House newly painted, circa 1975. Originally called the Marine Fire Boat Station, this wood-frame building and attached tower was built in 1926 for the New York City Fire Department’s Marine Company 7. It was used to hang and dry fire hoses. By the 1960s the Fire Department no longer had use for the building. It was empty and derelict for a number of years until the National Maritime Museum moved in, in 1976. They would move out six years later under pressure from Brooklyn government officials who wanted to open up the building to commercial use. Today it houses Ample Hills.

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.

Written By Deborah Tint This story examines the Fulton Ferry House that once stood where Old Fulton Street met the water’s edge in Brooklyn Heights, one in a series of ferry buildings on that site. This story can be read in its original format here.

"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."