Muspratt Mansion, 1931.

Narrows Coffee Shop (right), June 23, 1963. In 2017, the coffee shop is still operating at the same location.

Bennet/Farrell/Feldmann House, ca. 1939. Built for Joseph S. Bennet, this house was one of three constructed in the 1840s for the Bennet family, who lived in the area since the mid 18th century. From 1890 to 1912, the house was occupied by James F. Farrell, a Tammany Hall politician and wool merchant. The structure was originally located on Shore Road but was moved to its present location when it was purchased by Francis C. Feldmann in 1913. The frame structure features a Tuscan-columned porch and green shutters. It is the oldest house in Bay Ridge and one of the oldest free-standing Greek Revival houses in Brooklyn.

"Shore Road, east side, north of 86th Street, showing No. 8391 at the right, 1928" The address numbers on Shore Road were reorganized at some point in the 20th century , as this house seen in this photograph is now listed as no. 8525.

The Gingerbread House, ca. 1939 The house that would become widely became known as "The Gingerbread House" was built in the early 1900s and designed by architect J. Sarsfield Kennedy. The home's distinctive Arts and Crafts style set it apart from many of the surrounding estates. Kennedy had designed the nearby boathouse of the prestigious Crescent Club. Perhaps it was the architect's design of that building that convinced Howard E. Jones, the wealthy president of the shipping firm James Ewell and Co, to commission him for a private home. Work on the Gingerbread House began in 1917. The house that sprung forth on the ample grounds purchased by Jones was made of natural material, its uncut stone and thatched roof evoking a fairy tale home in a European forest rather than a Bay Ridge estate. However, this rambling style wasn't the silly whim of the architect; the organic design is nuanced, adding order and subtle charm throughout the building. The Gingerbread House remains the most architecturally distinctive building in Bay Ridge.

Purchased by the Dutch East India Company from the Nyack Native Americans in 1652, this area was originally called Yellow Hook after the yellow clay found in the soil. Recurring yellow fever epidemics in the mid 19th century caused the name to lose favor and it was changed to Bay Ridge in 1853—a nod to its location by the bay and the terminal moraine created by receding glaciers thousands of years ago along what is now Ridge Boulevard. During the Revolutionary War, British troops utilized Bay Ridge’s Denyse Ferry Wharf for their landing on August 22, 1776 to fight the Battle of Brooklyn a few days later, and for their evacuation at the end of the war in 1783. Built by a Dutch landowner who ran a ferry to Staten Island, remnants of the landing still stand today just south of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge overpass. After the Civil War, the magnificent views overlooking the bay inspired the construction of extravagant mansions, which transformed the neighborhood into one of Brooklyn’s wealthiest suburbs by the end of the 19th century. Shore Road, which makes up the westernmost point of Brooklyn and profits from the best views, was particularly exclusive. On the current site of Fort Hamilton High School stood the Crescent Athletic Club, the center of Brooklyn’s fashionable society at the turn of the century. Completed in 1892, it featured athletic fields, tennis courts, a golf course, boathouse and magnificent Shingle Style clubhouse with a glass-enclosed dining room overlooking the bay. Visitors included Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, and aviators Wilbur and Orville Wright. Due to the arrival of the 4th Avenue subway in 1916, the population of Bay Ridge doubled between 1910 and 1924. To accommodate this growth, many of the mansions were replaced with apartment houses and blocks of rowhouses. Commercial thoroughfares on 86th Street, 3rd Avenue, 4th Avenue and 5th Avenue transformed the neighborhood into a thriving urban community. In the early 19th century, the population was largely made up of Scandinavians and Italians. Over the years, Bay Ridge has also become home to Irish, Greek, Arab, Chinese and Russian communities, as well, rendering it a fantastic example of a neighborhood that thrives on different cultures living in close proximity to one another—a hallmark of the New York City experience. Today, the richly varied architecture of Bay Ridge tells its story. The neighborhood is made up of vibrant commercial districts, uniform rowhouse blocks, historic wood frame farmhouses, Victorian mansions, magnificent places of worship, pre-war apartment buildings and quaint cul-de-sacs. It also benefits from several scenic parks, including Owl’s Head Park at the northwestern tip of the neighborhood, which commands views of the Bay. At the opposite end of Bay Ridge, on its southeast corner, lies Fort Hamilton, New York City’s only active military base. Named after Alexander Hamilton, the Fort functions as a military induction center and is home to more than 1,500 military personnel. In 1990, the Bay Ridge Conservancy was established to preserve, protect, and enhance the built and natural environments of the area. Their recent work includes the beautification of Third Avenue, one of Bay Ridge’s four commercial thoroughfares, as well as seeking landmark designations for a variety of public buildings, State & National Register of Historic Places listings for its cul-de-sac blocks, a National Scenic Byways designation for Shore Road, and advocating for the responsible renovation of the Belt Parkway, constructed in 1940.

John Paul Jones Park ca. 1963 Dover Patrol Monument: Sir Aston Webb, 1931 This site is steeped in military history, beginning in 1776 when it served as the launching point for the British when they mounted their Battle of Brooklyn campaign, which is commemorated on a plaque in the park. A few decades later, Fort Lewis was constructed here to protect the city during the War of 1812. In 1825–31, Fort Lewis was replaced with Fort Hamilton, which played a significant role in quelling the Civil War draft riots of 1863 and was a major embarkation point for troops going to fight in both World Wars. Fort Hamilton still exists today, and though this park was once part of the fort, its boundaries are just east of here. Today the site is named for Revolutionary War hero John Paul Jones, but is also referred to as Cannonball Park after the Rodman gun displayed here. The Rodman gun, a 116,000-pound cannon designed for Civil War use, was tested at Fort Hamilton but proved unsuitable and has remained a fixture here ever since. Also in the park is the Dover Patrol Monument, a granite obelisk commemorating U.S. Navy service in World War I.

My Archive Spring 2019 "Me and my brother. I always loved visiting my grandparents in Brooklyn. It also meant exploring the most amazing city ever, crumb cake from Ebinger's bakery, limpa bread from the Swedish bakery, museums and shopping downtown, Coney Island, and the obligatory visit to Bay Ridge Methodist Church to check out my grandfather's gardening skills on the meticulously maintained grounds there. The playground down the hill from my grandparent's apartment was unlike anything I'd seen before. Like the city itself, the place was larger than life. Seemingly big enough for hundreds of kids to play at once, it had enormous sandboxes, impossibly tall slides, towering swings and the huge jungle gyms we're climbing in this picture. Reaching the top was quite an accomplishment, and insanely dangerous by today's standards of playground equipment, hence our triumphant poses. Taken by my father around 1963 and discovered in my father's boxes of old slides. The Verrazano-Narrows bridge was still under construction. Incredible memories will always be a huge part of my life long love of New York City." —Paul Carlson

View from the foot of 72nd Street, Bay Ridge, overlooking the Shore Parkway at the Staten Island Ferry landing at the 69th Street Pier; May 30, 1958. While the words "Staten Island Ferry" are today synonymous with iconic orange ferryboats trundling across Upper New York Bay, the present-day service's 19th century antecedents include a variety of independent operators and defunct routes. Pre-Civil War, independent ferry operators offered service from launches across Staten Island's eastern shore. In 1853, three such operators were consolidated, as Cornelius Vanderbilt allowed his Richmond Turnpike Company to be bought out. After the Civil War — during which time some ferryboats were requisitioned and retrofitted as gunships — Staten Island ferry service was largely controlled by regional railroad companies, including the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. When the newly-consolidated City of New York began the process of taking over Staten Island ferry service in the opening years of the 1900s, the Sinking Fund Commission authorized the introduction of new ferry routes, including service to certain Hudson River piers and Sunset Park, Brooklyn at 39th Street. On July 4, 1912, a new route was introduced by the private Brooklyn & Richmond Ferry Company, providing service between St. George and Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, at the foot of Bay Ridge Avenue (69th Street). After 52 years of variable ridership and service quality, the 69th Street ferry route was discontinued on 1964, following the opening of the Verrazano—Narrows Bridge. Since May 2017, the 69th pier has served as the southern terminus of the NYC Ferry's South Brooklyn Line.

VISITATION ACADEMY 8902 Ridge Boulevard, 1913 This private girls’ school was designed in the Italian neo-Renaissance style. The beige brick chapel features circular windows on its upper stories, triangular gables, a square tower with an arcaded belfry and decorative cruciform brickwork on its south façade. The entire complex is surrounded by a 20-foot stone and concrete wall. The site was previously home to the Kings County Inebriate Asylum and a natural glacier lake exists on the grounds.

7119 Shore Road, May 30, 1958. In the early 20th century Shore Road was lined with old 19th century mansions, dilapidated smaller homes, and vacant lots. In 1928 the street was rezoned between 77th and 101st Streets to allow for the construction of new apartment houses for the burgeoning neighborhood. No. 7119 (at the corner of 72nd Street) was one of the first buildings to be erected in the fall of 1931. The six-story, Art Deco apartment house was designed by M. Rothstein, who also created a lovely Deco apartment house in Forest Hills and single family, vernacular homes in other parts of Brooklyn. When opened the building offered a roof garden, a recreation room in the basement, concealed radiators, and fireplaces in the living rooms, along with its sweeping views of the Narrows. The owners of the building also arranged for a private bus to ferry tenants to and from the 59th Street Station of the BMT Fourth Avenue line (today's N and R).

The American Veterans Memorial Pier is formerly known as the 69th Street Pier. Originally, a modest wooden pier drew fishermen from all over to try their luck at the Bay Ridge Anchorage. Today, the area is still a popular fishing spot, boasting views of the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline. The pier was rebuilt in concrete in the 1970s and updated again in the 1990s. Ferries have been a quintessential part of the pier's livelihood, toting Brooklynites to Staten Island (prior to the construction of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge) and Lower Manhattan.

Barkaloo Cemetery, 1966. The Barkaloo Cemetery is Brooklyn's smallest burial ground. The Barkaloo family were early Dutch settlers of the area and established their private graveyard in 1725. According to a marker (placed in the mid 20th century), the land is the final resting place of at least 21 people, including Revolutionary War soldiers Simon Cortelyou and Harmans Barkaloo. Its most recent burial dates to 1848! Helpfully perhaps, the tiny graveyard seemed to be mostly forgotten for decades around the turn of the 20th century. While Bay Ridge grew around it, the plot remained, though losing headstones to theft and deterioration. It was surveyed in 1916, and a 1923 article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle noted its shrinkage: "As the years went by…it grew smaller. By dead of night sometimes, sometimes by noonday’s glare, laborers came and emptied the graves of their ashes and then closed in the plot by making its circumferential fence a bit smaller." In 1923 the Daughters of the American Revolution got involved, cleaning out the plot and placing markers for the two Revolutionary War veterans. (Research suggests that the DAR actually re-creating the graveyard on nearby available space, not necessarily the historical outline of the plot.) Today the small plot remains well kept behind an iron fence, tucked up to the back side of the large Xaverian High School.

"42-87th Street, south side, east of Narrows Avenue, showing the home of May Drunas in 1925."

"Shore Road, west side, opposite 83rd Street, showing the Crescent Athletic Club's boat-house, which was destroyed by fire in April 1933. This organization has its origin in a football club, organized in 1884 by William H. Ford, and was on leased grounds located at the corner of 9th Ave and 9th Street, Brooklyn. The club which was incorporated in Feb. 1888, took over in the spring of 1889 the land and boat-house of the Nereid Boat Club. In the same year they purchased from the Van Brunt and Bergen estates of Bay Ridge a tract of land extending from 83rd to 85th Streets, and from Shore Road to Colonial Road. On Decoration Day 1892, the club house which cost $80,000 was opened to the members, 1922."

Sandhogs are urban miners and underground construction workers who’ve been tunneling through sand, mud, and bedrock for well over a century. They dug New York’s subway, traffic, sewer, and water tunnels, as well as foundations for structures like the Woolworth Building. The term “sand hogs” originated with workers digging the sandy bottom of the East River inside caissons to build the Brooklyn Bridge. Over time, the term expanded to describe any laborer working underground in the City, and became specifically tied to the Local 147 Sandhogs Union. NYC built three deep pressure tunnels through bedrock to carry water throughout the five boroughs. Placing them hundreds of feet underground kept the water supply safely below any utility and subway tunnels, and the depth required laborers who could work under often grueling and dangerous conditions.

7535 and 7539 Shore Road are a pair of connected homes set back from the street, behind a short stone wall and a cluster of large old trees. The homes have a beautiful unobstructed view of the bay. The Brooklyn Eagle and the New York Times reported in some early/mid-20th-century articles that the houses date to either the turn of the 19th century or earlier (the NYT note a build date of 1764). Construction dates are notoriously unreliable, in newspaper articles and government records. In any case, the homes certainly date to before the 20th century, much earlier than when the rest of Bay Ridge was primarily developed. The land they stand on once belonged to Teunis G. Bergen. The Bergens were one of Brooklyn's founding families and Teunis was a surveyor, politician, and local historian. The homes have been on and off the market over the last few years (initial asking price in 2017 was $2.75 million) but have not been sold.

Johnson House/Shell Mansion/Fontbonne Hall ca. 1914 Designed by the Road McNally Brothers, ca. 1890. Originally the home of Tom L. Johnson, a three term mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, the property is rumored to have belonged to actress Lillian Russell and “Diamond Jim” Brady in the 1920s. During Prohibition, the house was also rumored to have been used as a casino and speakeasy. Purchased by the Sisters of St. Joseph in 1937, it became Fontbonne Hall Academy, a private girls’ Catholic school.

Once lined with grand homes complete with stunning waterfront vistas, today Shore Road is dense with apartment buildings constructed to support a booming Bay Ridge population in the 1940s. These are a few of those lost houses (and a couple that remain)!

Over the years, as I’ve photographed the city, I’ve amassed a collection of loose typologies—those omnipresent features like storefront churches, split houses, and dead ends that create a throughline across the different neighborhoods and boroughs of New York. One of the first subjects I began to document somewhat systematically was handball walls. These large concrete monoliths, pockmarked, peeling, and painted-over slabs, preside over playgrounds like oversized Rorschach tests. A standard wall is 16’ by 20’, mirroring the proportions of the 8x10 camera I was working with. They are everywhere.