This warehouse was the roasting plant of the Eppens Smith Co. Coffee Plant. The company was first located on Wall Street among a variety of other merchants in the coffee and tea business. In fact, there was quite a population of dealers and roasters in the caffeine industry in the Financial District, filling their air with the aroma of roasted coffee. Eppens Smith was founded as Pupeke & Reif in 1855. The company had roasting facilities which occupied two addresses on Warren Street, both of which were destroyed by an explosion in 1900. After years of litigation, the company again found success and was able to open locations around the country. Forty years later, Pupeke & Reif, now called Eppens Smith Co., purchased a building formerly occupied by the United Drug Syndicate on Borden Avenue in the industrial neighborhood of Hunter's Point, Queens. Eppens Smith roasted coffee here until the 1950s, when they were purchased by Chock Full 'O Nuts.

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.

Great Lakes Coal and Coke Corporation coal yard and shipping dock at Newtown Creek, 1934.

Vernon Avenue Bridge, 1930. While many of the other Newtown Creek crossings have been replaced over the years with new infrastructure in the same location, there is no longer a bridge where the Vernon Avenue Bridge once stood. The bridge opened in October 1905 and was used for trolley, automobile, and pedestrian traffic. It replaced an 1882 swing bridge. The bridge connected the main thoroughfares of two communities: Manhattan Avenue in Brooklyn and Vernon Boulevard in Long Island City. While early on the bridge saw heavy use (in 1918 it had 2,241,465 vehicular crossings and 168,630 trolley trips), eventually it became inadequate for the city's needs. It often broke down, was up for the passage of ships, and the constant traffic was hard on the roadways. In addition, it was rammed by a 10,000-ton ship carrying coal in 1949. In the mid-1950s the bridge was razed and replaced with the nearby Pulaski Bridge.

The Chelsea Fiber Mills at 1155 Manhattan Avenue was a part of North Brooklyn's rope industry, which grew due to its proximity to Newtown Creek, then an industrial waterway. The rope industry began supplying nearby shipyards but outlived the shipbuilding industry and survived well into the 20th century. The complex is now the Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Corporation (GMDC). What started as a few low brick buildings on the waterfront in the late 19th century soon grew to an eight-building complex by 1903. The facilities housed 366,000 square feet of manufacturing space. The president of the company, George Pratt lead the company through this time of growth. Pratt was also the son of Charles Pratt, the president of Astral Oil which was located just blocks away. The Chelsea Fiber Mill manufactured marine rope from sisal, manila, jute, and hemp. This mill and another North Brooklyn rope producer, the American Manufacturing Company, employed around 4,000 people according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Many of the employees lived in the neighborhood of Greenpoint or across the creek in Queens. Employees of the Fiber Mill would walk across the Vernon Avenue bridge whose landing was adjacent to the complex. Also nearby, the Manhattan Avenue Trolley line carried employees right to the mill. In fact, the turnaround barn was located just across Manhattan Avenue from the Mill. Builder's drawings of the site indicate that materials and fuel were received via loading bays right on the waterfront. From there, coal was carted on tracks that covered the roofs of the lower buildings, feeding the gargantuan two-story-tall boilers from rooftop chutes. These boilers, which held quantities massive enough to cover an entire baseball diamond, dated 1880 from and remain inside the facility today. Though the Mills flourished during the World Wars, it was not able to survive past the 1950s. The mill closed up shop, and the complex was adapted for use by textile manufacturers and fabric dyers. In 1974, the City of New York seized the property from then-owner Grossen Dye Works for failure to pay taxes. Once seized, the city lacked proper funding to update or even maintain the complex. Commercial tenants rented spaces for low rates and set up studios and workshops, though occupants were expected to perform their own maintenance. By the 1980s, private developers were invited to gauge the marketability of the complex, though no potential buyers stepped forward. Growing tired of the lack of structure the city provided for the former mill, a group of tenants, community members, local businesses, and elected officials devised their own plan to convert the property into art and industrial center. The tenants formed the Woodworking Center Equity Corporation to manage the facilities and handle leases in the building. In 1992, the head of the tenant group and David Sweeny, the director of economic development at the North Brooklyn Development Corporation, worked together to incorporate the Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center (GMDC). The non-profit GMDC was able to purchase the building from the city for $1 with an additional pledge of one million dollars from the city for renovations. The corporation kept rents low and encouraged light industry by accepting small and medium-sized manufacturing businesses in the building. Currently, 76 artists and small businesses work out of the space. Additionally, GMDC employs around 360 people from adjacent communities, rooting the liveliness of the building in the neighborhood, keeping with the spirit of the original Chelsea Fiber Mill.

BRT Depot/ Clubhouse, 1906.

New York City Live Poultry Terminal, 1941. During the 1930s, the live poultry trade in New York City was the largest in the world and the prices set in New York were the benchmark for the sale of poultry nationally. The poultry market was also well known as one of the oldest mafia "rackets." From a 1910 case in which 87 poultry dealers plead guilty to running a poultry cartel to a 1953 investigation into a market inspector receiving graft from the dealers, the chicken business was rife with unethical, illegal, and dishonest dealings.

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.

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.