New housing developments constructed under the Federal Housing Act. July 23, 1937. The nearest building at left is 185 Scholes Street. The 2003 Landmarks Preservation Commission Designation Report notes that the Williamsburg Houses (formerly the Ten Eyck Houses) “are notable as one of the earliest housing developments in the United States to reflect the ideas of the modern movement in architecture.” In April, 1937, the former Bauhaus director Walter Gropius observed “\[the plan] seems to have solved the problem of space and light very successfully and economically.” Development began in 1935 and would require the demolition of some 568 buildings and the relocation of 5,400 neighborhood residents. In September, 1937, residents moved into the first of 1,620 low-rent units. History has been kind to the Williamsburg Houses’ modernist design; in 2000, the American Institute of Architects Guide to New York called the development “the best public housing project ever built in New York.”

Lithuanian restaurant at Union Avenue and Stagg Street. September 24, 1941. In the early 20th century, Eastern European immigrants began to settle in Williamsburg, including a significant Lithuanian community (today, the Church of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary continues to provide services in Lithuanian). Across Union Avenue from the restaurant is Lithuanian Square (then Lituanica Square), a small gore park with a monument to two Lithuanian aviators who perished in a 1933 attempt to complete a transatlantic flight from Brooklyn to Kaunas, Lithuania.

106 Powers Street, 1937. Situated among attached vernacular residential buildings, this unassuming structure on Powers Street played a major role in the religious history of New York City. The simple peaked roof building was constructed in 1885 by architect O. H. Doolittle for a Methodist Episcopal Church. The Methodists vacated the building by the turn of the century and it was soon after occupied the Powers Street Gospel Mission Church. In 1913 the building became the clubhouse and assembly hall of the local Democratic party. In 1931 the church and its parish house neighbor were sold to the American Mohammedan Society, and became the first mosque in New York City. While Muslims had worshiped in various informal venues in the city, this was the first long-surviving dedicated mosque. (Alexander Russell Webb, an early American Muslim convert had established a mosque on Broadway in 1895, but it was extremely short-lived.) Founded in 1907, Society was established by a group of Eastern European Muslim Tatars who settled in Williamsburg. While various buildings around the city have switched from church to synagogue and visa versa, this was a new kind of religious conversion: from church to mosque. And while most later purpose-built mosques in the city follow a specific and particular architectural style (onion domes, minarets, and decorative tile), this church building would have looked like the perfect venue for the Muslim Tatars. In their homeland, they would have worshiped in simple wood-frame mosques. The society added a tiny wooden minaret on the roof and a crescent moon on the facade, and for the next half-century worshiped here as a tight-knit community. In 1962, Joseph Mitchell, noted journalist and poetic explorer of New York's historic locales, wrote of the mosque, " It is a steep-roofed, clapboard-sided, two-story building with tall wooden doors and tall, colored-glass windows. Except for one appendage, it closely resembles a New England town hall." The community that once worshiped here has dispersed; there is no longer a Tatar population in Williamsburg. Today the building houses the Brooklyn Moslem Mosque, which, though well kept, is largely unused except for religious festivals like Eid and Ramadan.

151-157 Maujer Street was designed by Henry C. Pelton in the Art Deco style. The first cornerstone was laid in 1935 and the building opened in 1937. Its facade bears the words "Department of Health New York," and the entryway is covered in low-reliefs depicting medical scenes. The facility was opened as the "Williamsburg-Greenpoint Health Center," and was the fourth of eight of such facilities to open in working-class neighborhoods across the city. The health center offered a wide array of services, including maternity care, infant care, dental and oral health facilities, TB and venereal disease clinics, a space for visiting nurses, and an auditorium. Designed as part of the WPA's push towards providing greater access to healthcare, the project was funded, in part, by the federal government. At its opening, Mayor Fiorella LaGuardia said to a crowd: "If you can’t afford your own doctor, this will aid you." The Williamsburg-Greenpoint Health Center was strategically placed adjacent to the Williamsburg Houses, a brand new low-income housing development (though one of the more expensive ones at the time), and a new high school. Children and teenager's health was considered of utmost importance, and the clinic provided working-class families with the medical attention they needed. La Guardia called the intersection “one of the greatest social projects anywhere."

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.

(Former) Colored School No. 3, later Public School 69 ARCHITECT: Samuel B. Leonard DATE: 1879-81 STYLE: Romanesque Revival Built in 1879-81, the former Colored School No. 3 schoolhouse was designed by architect Samuel B. Leonard, the Superintendent of Buildings and Repairs for the Brooklyn Board of Education. The only known “colored” school building remaining in Brooklyn, Colored School No. 3 as an institution evolved from the town of Williamsburgh’s original African Free School, which had been founded prior to 1841. The school was taken over by the Board of Education of the City of Brooklyn in 1855, when it was given the name “Colored School No. 3.” It was renamed P.S. 69 in 1887, and was later absorbed by the school system of the City of New York after the consolidation of 1898. Romanesque Revival in style, the school building has arched window openings and a prominent entrance with large keystones, a raised central section with a gable and blind arcade, corbelled brickwork, and dentil courses.

Muslims make up approximately 9% of New York City's population. In the early 20th century, a portion of lower Manhattan was known as "Little Syria," where the New York Sun reported a "Turkish Chapel" on Rector Street, while in Brooklyn, a group of Eastern European Muslims converted a church into a place for them to worship. In more recent years, Muslims from all over have moved to the city to made it their home.

Congress Brewing Company Building, 1916. The complex of the Congress Brewing Company included a brewery and ice plant and encompassed 75,000 square feet of floor space. Established as the Williamsburgh Brewing Company before 1881, the beer purveyors legally changed their name to the Congress Brewing Company in 1895. Little can be discovered about Congress Brewery or why it closed circa 1916.