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.

Metropolitan Avenue in Williamsburg Brooklyn, photographed from the roof of No. 590 Metropolitan, March 26, 1917. The view is eastward toward Leonard street; No. 605 Metropolitan is the first stoop visible at bottom left.

Looking north along Lorimer Street, Brooklyn, New York, showing the construction of the BMT Carnarsie Line. A drugstore is situated on the northeast corner, 1920.

View west toward the intersection Metropolitan Avenue and Lorimer Street, prior to construction of the BMT Canarsie Line, June 16, 1916. The building at right with the large tobacco advertisement is No. 593 Metropolitan Avenue.

The Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project (WPA/FAP), part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal to stimulate the economy and create jobs during the Great Depression, employed thousands of artists between 1935 and 1943 to create artworks for public spaces. This groundbreaking democratic experiment celebrated and supported American art and artists by providing a source of income, enhancing public buildings, and enriching the lives of Americans in the throes of the Great Depression. The Art Commission reviewed hundreds of Federal Art Project commissions during this period, including murals, sculpture and mosaics. A significant portion of the WPA/FAP commissions in our collection were installed in public health and hospital facilities. There is a noticeable shift in theme and tone depending on the location of murals. Murals in children's wards often focused on nursery rhymes and fanciful themes, while those in nurses' recreation rooms were "relaxing" and focused on familial scenes. Murals in doctors' recreation rooms focused on the history and progress of medicine, while those in psychiatric wards sought to provide therapy for mental distress.

Shops on Graham Avenue at Grand Street: Price & Quality Malt Extract; Shoe Shine & Hat Cleaning Parlor; Sam Aronoff Shoes. September 11, 1930. Graham Avenue has long been a commercial thoroughfare in Williamsburg. The malt extract storefront at No. 282 Graham is a symptom of Prohibition: many beer producers shifted to production of nonalcoholic malt extract while beer sales were banned. The building was sold at auction in 1880 and later became a meeting place for Thirteenth Assembly District Democrats. Today, the building’s frame remains intact but its brick exterior has been painted over.

Free Lawn Sporting Club, 600 Lorimer Street, Brooklyn. September 22, 1942.

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."

St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church, viewed from the site cleared for the construction of the Williamsburg Houses. December 22, 1935. The St. John’s congregation was founded in 1844, as a coalition of German Protestant worshipers. In 1853, the church adopted a Lutheran doctrine and continued to grow as a fixture of Williamsburg’s German community, with members worshipping at a church at nearby Wyckoff Street (now Ten Eyck Street). Construction on a new Gothic church began in 1883 to accommodate the congregation’s growth. In the early 20th century, German immigrants were arriving in Williamsburg in smaller numbers, leading St. John’s parishioners to establish a satellite mission in Glendale, Queens. From mid-1930s on, the continued demographic changes in the neighborhood and the construction of the adjacent Williamsburg Houses led to the decline of the original Williamsburg Church. In 1953, the original congregation shifted to the Glendale mission. At the same time, The Lutheran Church of St. John the Evangelist, a new congregation, was established among local worshippers. Today, the church continues to conduct Lutheran services and shares its facilities with Kingsland Ward a performing arts organization best known for its immersive theater project “Then She Fell.”

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.

Metropolitan Avenue and Lorimer Street Station, ca 1941. A crew of workers pumps water from a flooded IND Crosstown Line Station. This photo was taken before the IND Crosstown Line (G) was connected to the Canarsie Line (L).

Graham and Metropolitan Avenues, Williamsburg, Brooklyn; shot by Berenice Abbott. June 1, 1937. The corner building includes intricate cornice work with raised panel, dated 1893, topped with a lute sculpture, and a hipped pyramidal tower. Today, the wooden clapboards have been replaced by vinyl siding and the facade has been stripped of any ornamentation. At lower left is the entrance to the Graham Street Station of the BMT Canarsie Line (today’s L train).