While much of this view had changed (namely the disappearance of the wood-frame structures at right), two large buildings in this circa 1915 view remain. They are the four-story wood-frame at left (no. 688) and the ornate brick and terra cotta five-story building (no. 680) next door. While the plots at right are now home to more modern buildings, just down the block at 702-708 Manhattan Avenue, one can see surviving building much like those lost here.

533 Leonard Street, formerly Public School No. 59, taken on May 19, 1931.

607 Humboldt Street 1903–04 This Gothic Revival church, with a capacity of 1,250 worshippers, houses the largest Polish Catholic congregation in Brooklyn. In fact, the flanking stretches of Humboldt Street and Driggs Avenue were renamed Pope John Paul II Square and Lech Walesa Place, who each made visits to the parish. The church’s most marked feature is its spires that stand tall over the neighborhood. They are asymmetrical to one another, octagonal in shape and richly ornate.

No matter where you grew up, whether it was an instructor taking you through a course in a parking lot or a family member guiding you around the neighborhood, you probably experienced some sort of Drivers Ed. In 1953, the Automotive High School in Brooklyn had a new way to teach its students.

St. Stanislaus Kostka Roman Catholic Church, ca. 1900. In 1896, Fr. Leon Wysiecki of St. Casimir’s in Fort Greene purchased 10 contiguous lots in Greenpoint, where he built a new Polish-language church. The present Gothic Revival church was completed in 1904 and quickly became a center of North Brooklyn’s growing Polish community. St. Stanislaus continues to hold mass in Polish, seven days a week.

This building once had a lovely corner entrance to the ground floor commercial space. That retail location is long gone, and the first-floor facade shows the obvious and clumsy infill.

The future site of McCarren Park Pool, viewed from the corner of Bayard and Leonard Streets. September 10, 1935. In 1909, Greenpoint Park was renamed McCarren Park, after the 19th century New York State Assemblyman and Senator Patrick Henry McCarren. This photo shows the construction of the McCarren Park Pool, one of eleven public pools built during the LaGuardia Mayoral administration. The pool opened in the summer of 1936.

The Greenpoint War Memorial, dedicated in 1923, is a monument to the over one-hundred residents of Greenpoint who lost their lives fighting in World War I. The Greenpoint Memorial Association commissioned the statue. The group was spearheaded by Peter McGuiness, a famous local for whom McGuiness Boulevard is named. The statue, which stands at 17 feet tall, depicts a bronze winged Victory holding two symbols of peace, a laurel and palm frond. The granite pedestal the allegorical figure is perched atop is inscribed with French battle sites. The front of the pedestal bears the inscription: TO THE LIVING AND THE DEAD HEROES OF GREENPOINT WHO FOUGHT IN THE WORLD WAR BECAUSE THEY LOVED AMERICA REVERED ITS IDEALS UNDER GOD AND SUPPORTED ITS INSTITUTIONS AND GAVE THEIR ALL THAT OUR GOVERNMENT SHALL NOT PERISH FROM THE EARTH Poor lady Victory underwent fairly significant damage over the years. The statue was resurfaced and reset first in 1937. In 1962, an unfortunate accident left the statue scorched during the holiday season after a ring of Christmas Trees around the memorial caught ablaze, know only as the "Christmas Tree Fire." The memorial's palm frond was stolen in 1975, and vandals toppled the winged woman the following year. Luckily, the monument was repaired and reset immediately after her fall. The palm leaf and laurel were replaced and the lady Victory received surface patina, cleaning, and conservation work in 2000.

Automotive Vocational School for the City of New York, under construction, 1937. The school’s McCarren Park campus was completed that year. This view is from the corner of Bedford Avenue and North Twelfth Street.

P.S. 34, Oliver H. Perry, Brooklyn P.S. 34, located in the Greenpoint neighborhood was designed by Samuel B. Leonard, who served as the Superintendent of Buildings for the Board of Education of the City of Brooklyn. Built between 1867 and 1870 in an impressive Rundbogenstil (German round-arched neo-Romanesque) Style and named for Oliver H. Perry, a hero of the War of 1812, P.S. 34 is the oldest school still in use today. It was designated as a New York City Landmark in 1983.

This triangular lot at the northern edge of McCarren Park is named for Father Jerzy Popieluszko (1947-1984), a priest, martyr, and champion of the Polish Solidarity Movement. The square, though divided by Bedford Avenue, was originally part of McCarren Park. It was built in 1930 on land purchased by the city between 1903 and 1905 and named for Father Popieluszko in 1985. Jerzy Popieluszko was a Polish nationalist who spoke openly against the Soviet-controlled government in Poland from his small church, Saint Stanislav Kosta, in North Warsaw. His messages were amplified to the masses via Radio Free Europe where he encouraged "peaceful resistance to Communism," and utilized his position in the Catholic church to speak out openly during a time when the country was under martial law. Authorities arrested Popieluszko several times for opposing the communist regime. He later took part in the Solidarity Worker's strike in Warsaw on March 27, 1981, the largest strike in the Soviet Bloc. Reportedly, the priest crossed police lines to deliver communion to steelworkers on strike. Father Popieluszko couldn't speak so openly for very long. He was quickly considered one of the most dangerous enemies of the government. After dodging various assassination attempts, Popieluszko was kidnapped by Służba Bezpieczeństwa (Security Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs) in 1984 and murdered. The priest's death caused a massive uproar throughout the country. Solidarity leader and friend of Popieluszko Lech Walesa said: "The worst has happened. Someone wanted to kill and he killed not only a man, not a Pole, not only a priest. Someone wanted to kill the hope that it is possible to avoid violence in Polish political life." Over 25,000 people attended Popieluszko's funeral and, after public pressure, President General Wojciech Jaruzelski arrested those directly responsible for his killing. Monuments in Chicago, Illinois; Trenton, New Jersey; Hartford, Connecticut; Rome, Italy; Budapest, Hungary; and Beziers, France commemorate his legacy. Father Popieluszko Square was dedicated in 1985. The square features both a bust of Father Popieluszko and a sculpture of Bound Hands Rising, a symbol of Poland's struggle for freedom.

“Exterior view of Manhattan Furrier, a family-owned business located at 685 Manhattan Avenue in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn. The business opened in 1916 and closed permanently in 2011. This photograph is part of an ongoing project by photographers James and Karla Murray to document storefronts in Brooklyn and New York City.”

This red brick schoolhouse (though painted in this 1935 photograph) is, in fact, the oldest continually used school building in New York! While a rumor persists that the building served as a hospital during the Civil War, more solid sources reflect that the school was constructed in 1867. Designed by then Superintendent of School Buildings (of the independent city of Brooklyn) Samuel Leonard, the Romanesque Revival style structure was built in sections over the next few decades. Today the schoolhouse is named for Oliver H. Perry, a naval hero of the War of 1812. In 2015 the school became the first public school in the city to offer dual-language Polish-English education, owing to the considerable Polish community in Greenpoint (60% of the children come from a Polish background).

Public School 34 ARCHITECT: Samuel B. Leonard DATE: 1867, 1870, 1887-88 STYLE: Romanesque Revival One of the oldest schools in continuous use in New York City, P.S. 34 is known as the Oliver H. Perry School, in honor of the hero of the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812. The school was built in 1867 to accommodate the needs of the expanding schools system in Greenpoint. Brick with stone trim, the school was designed in the Romanesque Revival style with Italianate ornamental motifs.

McCarren Play Center, September 22, 1941. McCarren Pool was the eighth of eleven WPA pools to open in the summer of 1936. The pool had a capacity of 6800 swimmers. The pool and adjacent building (seen here) was designed by Aymar Embury II, who was also involved in some capacity with the other 11 pools. The play center was rendered in the same simple Art Moderne style of most of the other WPA pool buildings, here with massive, high arched entryway and ticket booth. The McCarren Pool has a unique later history. While many of the other pools underwent renovations in the early 1980s, this pool closed in 1984. A planned renovation never came to be and the pool deteriorated for the next few decades. In 2005 a local choreographer was granted permission to create a site-specific dance piece at the pool. For the next few years the space was used as a popular music venue. In 2008 the venue was closed in preparation for the reactivation of the pool. The pool and play center reopened in 2012 after a $50 million restoration.