Drug store at the northwest corner of Marcy Avenue and Division Street, January 18, 1959.

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.

Eastern District Brooklyn High School, 1907 This high school was proposed in 1894 as a facility for the Eastern District (Williamsburg and Bushwick) of the city of Brooklyn. It welcomed its first students in 1900, two years after Brooklyn became a borough of the Greater New York City. Originally housed in the former Eastern District Library and two annex spaces, the new Eastern District High School was completed in 1907. Designed by the BOE Superintendent of Buildings, C.B.J. Snyder, the Gothic style, H-shaped building is clad in gray brick, limestone, and terracotta. The school suffered in the 1960s and 1970s from overcrowding, student unrest, and violence. Eastern District moved into a new building on Grand Street in 1981. (The school in its new location would eventually close after the 1995/1996 school year, reopening later in 1996 as the Grand Street Campus, housing several small high schools under one roof.) Today the 1907 building on Keap Street and Marcy Avenue serves as a girl's yeshiva called Bais Ruchel d'Satmar.

ca. 1975 George Washington at Valley Forge is the name of the sculpture by Henry Shrady that stands in Brooklyn near the approach to the Williamsburg Bridge. It commemorates the months Washington and his army spent in a camp northwest of Philadelphia over the course of a deadly winter. Washington did, of course, also spend some time in Brooklyn during the Revolutionary War, although Shrady opted, perhaps understandably, not to memorialize Washington escaping capture following his defeat in the Battle of Brooklyn. Although it might not have seemed like a statue-worthy moment, that escape, made possible by dense fog and strong winds over the East River, is what allowed Washington to continue to lead the Continental Army to eventual victory.

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.

Building at the northwest corner of South 9th and Havemeyer Streets, South Williamsburg; January 18, 1959.

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.

Williamsburg Branch, ca. 1905. The Williamsburg Library, completed between 1903 and 1905, was the first Carnegie Library begun in Brooklyn. The cornerstone was laid in November of 1903, at a well-attended event. A time capsule of documents including a copy of the Carnegie contract was laid in the cornerstone. The large Y-shaped building sits on a raised, grassy triangular plot. Its floorplan meant to evoke an open book, with two wings radiating from a center bay. The building, designed by Richard A. Walker, was designated an individual landmark in 2006 and still functions as branch of the Brooklyn Public Library.

“George Washington at Valley Forge,” at Continental Army Plaza at the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge. The plaza has been decorated by the Mayor’s Committee to Welcome the British and French War Commissions. May 1, 1917. The bronze statue by Henry Mervin Shrady was cast at Roman Bronze Works in Greenpoint, Brooklyn and installed ahead of the park’s opening in 1906.

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.