In this excerpt from the Brooklyn Historical Society's audio tour, host Nelson George and historian Francis Morrone discuss the communities and architecture of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, Brooklyn — including interviews with longtime neighborhood residents.

In the closing decades of the 19th century, New York underwent a profound physical and cultural transformation. Fueled by the wealth of the exploding financial and manufacturing sectors, the city rapidly evolved into a world-class metropolis. The bold ambitions of civic and business leaders, architects, and engineers of the era manifested in landmarks such as the vast Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the stately U.S. Custom House, the towering Municipal Building, and the original terminus of New York City’s first official subway line—the ornate City Hall stop. The sweeping interior spaces common to all of these structures, and hundreds of others, depended upon a venerable Mediterranean building technology adapted to contemporary American construction: arched tile ceilings—or vaults—that were not only self-supporting but could also bear the weight of floors or roofs above them. These vaults were designed and built by a single New York firm, founded by Spanish immigrant Rafael Guastavino (1842-1908) and later headed by his son Rafael Jr. (1872-1950). The Guastavinos’ patented system for building domes and vaults involved multiple layers of thin ceramic tiles bonded with quick-drying mortar. The resulting structures were not only exceptionally strong, but also lightweight, easy to build, and inherently beautiful, thanks to intricate patterns of exposed tile that formed finished, decorative surfaces. Guastavino vaults figured prominently in more than 1,000 projects across the nation, including 200 in Manhattan alone. During its 73-year history, the Guastavino Company helped build some of the most impressive interior spaces in America—veritable palaces for the people. This list based on MCNY's exhibition Palaces for the People, contains many of Guastavino's masterpieces in the five boroughs, both those that remain and those that have been lost to the wrecking ball.

For this story, we'd like to share our personal picks from our combined collections, that represent what this time of year means to us, and to introduce the team of Librarians, Archivists, Collection Managers, Educators and Administrators, who make up the fantastic staff at the Center for Brooklyn History.

Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument, undated postcard. During the Revolutionary War, more than 11,500 prisoners of war died aboard British ships anchored in nearby Wallabout Bay. The prisoners died of overcrowding, contaminated water, starvation, and disease, and either had their bodies thrown overboard or were hastily (and poorly) buried at the shoreline. Because of this callousness, thousands of body parts and bones washed up on Brooklyn’s waterfront for years to come. In 1808 the remains were first entombed in a crypt on Jackson Street (now Hudson Avenue), near the Brooklyn Navy Yard. In 1873 the prison ship martyrs remains were moved from their location to a vault in the park that was created at the site of a former Revolutionary War fort (then Washington Park, today Fort Greene Park). In the late 19th century various constituencies advocated for a permanent memorial. In 1905 McKim, Mead and White created the design for a new entrance to the crypt, including a wide staircase leading to a plaza from which a massive Doric column rose. The Stanford White-designed monument was 149-foot-tall and crowned with a bronze lantern, created by sculptor Alexander Weinmann (who also designed four bronze eagles for the base). It was dedicated in 1908 with the President-elect William Howard Taft in attendance. Between 1937 and 1948 an elevator allowed visitors to ascend the column. Over the last century, the monument has undergone a series of vandalization and restorations. The eagles were removed in the 1960s due to continual defacement. After smaller restoration efforts in the 1940s and 1970s, a major effort was undertaken to repair, clean and conserve the monument, the crypt, and the surrounding plaza. The newly restored plaza (with modern lighting and two original and two replica eagles) was unveiled in 2008, a century after its original dedication.