Church of the Ascension, 1935. Designed in Early English Gothic style by noted church architect Henry Dudley, the Church of the Ascension hosted its first mass in 1866. Funding for the church was donated by two notable parishioners: J.W. Valentine and Thomas Fitch Rowland, the owner of Greenpoint’s Continental Iron Works. Following the devastation of 2012's Hurricane Sandy, the church became the logistical base in North Brooklyn for the 'Occupy Sandy' relief efforts.

The Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company's Clubhouse was located on Manhattan Avenue in Clay Street. The Electric Railway Review of 1903 reported of its opening on Tuesday, July 7th. The building cost a sum of $40,000 and included the headquarters for the BRT's Benefit Association, who at the time had over three thousand members. The clubhouse portion of the facility provided access for any employee of the train company to 200 lockers, four pool tables, four bowling lanes, and a sizeable library. For the two dollars a year, employees could also be instructed on a variety of subjects. Evening courses ranged from foundational classes such as penmanship, literature, music, and arithmetic, or on topics closely related to their trade like electricity and mechanical drawing. Students of these classes had additional admission to the clubhouse gym and bathing facilities. Companies at the turn of the century would provide amenities of this sort to keep their workforces happy.

Shadowed by a wastewater treatment plant, this corner of Greenpoint was once a bronze foundry so famous it is rumored to have been visited by President Theodore Roosevelt. The Roman Bronze Works specialized in the lost-wax casting technique, which allowed artists to produce masterfully detailed sculptures.

What happens when two Urban Archive staff members are practically neighbors? They go on a walk capturing as many then-and-now pictures as they can! If you’re in North Brooklyn sometime soon, see if you can take some of your own!

St. Elias Catholic Church 149 Kent Street Church: William B. Ditmars, 1869–70 School: W. Wheeler Smith, 1879 St. Elias Greek Rite Catholic Church, formerly the Reformed Dutch Church of Greenpoint (bottom), combines elements of the Romanesque Revival and Victorian Gothic styles, both popular in the post-Civil War period. Its brick and stone façades have round-arch openings, polychromatic ornament and a columned portico entrance. Its polygonal Sunday school building mimics a medieval Italian baptistery, but another Victorian touch can be found in the handsome wooden porch on its east end.

BRT Depot/ Clubhouse, 1906.

The contract to upgrade the Newtown Creek wastewater treatment plant, which began in 1998, included construction of a community nature walk through the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs Percent for Art program. Artist George Trakas’s design revived the long-inaccessible industrial shorelines of Newtown Creek and Whale Creek and provided the first public access to the waterfront in decades.

The Roman Catholic Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius, October 19, 1958. This Roman Catholic parish was founded by members of Greenpoint's Polish Community in 1916, with the church itself completed the following year. In the 1958 photo, black bunting appears over the entrance, commemorating the mourning of Pope Pius XII, who had died 10 days earlier.

St. Elias Catholic Church, October 29, 1958. Built in “Ruskinian Gothic” style with alternating white and brownstone arches, the Reformed Dutch Church of Greenpoint was completed in 1870. A Sunday School building was added in 1879. The church was sold St. Elias, a Greek Catholic congregation, in 1943, when the Reformed Dutch Church moved to a smaller building on nearby Milton Street. The Kent Street church has been abandoned since 2007.

Roman Bronze Works foundry, Green Street, ca. 1910. The Roman foundry, established in 1897, specialized in lost-wax casting and worked with prominent clients, including Tiffany Studios and the sculptor Frederic Remington. In 1927, operations were shifted to the Tiffany factory on 43rd Avenue in Corona, Queens. Today, the former foundry site is occupied by the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant (which includes the large silver onion-shaped Digester Eggs, also known as the Sh\*t Tits).

179 Freeman Street, October 19, 1958.