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.

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.

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.

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.

GREENPOINT SAVINGS BANK HQ 807 Manhattan Avenue Helmle & Huberty, 1906–08 The Greenpoint Savings Bank, established in 1868, was housed in four different buildings in the neighborhood prior to commissioning this grand structure. Designed by the same firm responsible for the Shelter Pavilion in Monsignor McGolrick Park, this neo-Classical, Roman-style limestone bank features a granite base, a recessed portico with four Doric columns topped with a triangular pediment, a large dome, and patterned slate shingles.

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).

They were built over the first half of the 20th century. They dotted (some might say dominated) the landscape from Alphabet City to Harlem, Greenpoint to Elmhurst to Coney Island. Most were more than 200 feet in diameter and more than 200 feet tall. The ones on Maspeth Avenue in Greenpoint were more than 400 feet tall. They most often came in pairs. Sometimes you could catch a glimpse of them in movies filmed in New York. The natural gas tanks of New York City were the large storage facilities for local utility companies, including the massive Brooklyn Union Gas Company, Consolidated Edison, and a number of smaller companies. In the very late 19th and early 20th century these utility companies began building facilities all over the city, some in areas already densely populated, others on land surrounded by potato fields. Generally speaking each tank or "holder" was constructed of riveted steel plates that inside looked like five face-down cups or levels. The levels telescoped up as natural gas was pumped in by engine-driven compressors. The bottom of the tank was a shallow pool of water, which, is some cases, was used to float a small rowboat for internal inspections. The holders provided constant pressure in residential gas lines during high demand. In 1992 the entire Brooklyn Union Gas system used 906 million cubic feet of gas on its busiest day. The few holders that remained functioning at that time (all in Brooklyn or Queens) were able to hold less than one percent of that total. They had outlived their usefulness. Most of the holders in more densely populated neighborhoods had been dismantled in the previous decades, but a few remained. They were decommissioned and then deconstructed piece by piece. The final two tanks, the twin, red-and-white checkered, 400-foot-tall ones, in Greenpoint along the Newtown Creek, had quite a different send off. On the morning of July 8, 2001, a Sunday, at 7:00 A.M., with the nearby Brooklyn-Queens Expressway closed down, the towers were imploded and in less than 10 seconds came crumbling down, with tens of thousands of New Yorkers watching.

106-112 Noble Street, September 1, 1936. This photo shows two synagogues: Beth El (at left) and Ahawath Israel, now known as Greenpoint Shul (at right). The Greenpoint Shul is the only remaining synagogue in the neighborhood. According to public records, the building was originally a Congregationalist Church that dates back to 1871. In the late 1880s, it became a German-Jewish Reform synagogue, Temple Beth El. The congregation that worships at Greenpoint Shul today (2018) is the result of a merger of three of five synagogues that have served Greenpoint since the late 19th century.

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.

Formerly Public School 126.