The 19th century saw Fort Greene develop from farmland held by a few families to a residential neighborhood, populated by a mix of Brooklyn’s working, merchant, and upper classes. Today, much of the neighborhood has been well preserved, including several blocks of brownstone and rowhouse architecture, churches, parkland, and civic institutions dating to the 19th century. Even in areas transformed by postwar urban renewal and commercial development traces of an earlier era remain.

“St. Edwards Street, north from Auburn Place toward the Brooklyn Navy Yard. On the left, where Leo Place meets St. Edwards Street, is the Lattemen shoe factory. On the right is Public School No. 67. The dwellings preceding the school were later razed and an annex added to the school.” Out of frame to the left is the Church of St. Michael and St. Edward, 1927.

📚In 1901 after selling his corporation for $500 million, steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie announced a $5.2 million donation to the City of New York for the construction of public library buildings. With this gift, 67 branch libraries were constructed in the five boroughs between 1903 and 1929. 📚

“St. Edwards Street, at the northeast corner of Auburn Place, showing the City Park branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. In the background is Cumberland Hospital; on the left Public School No. 67, 1940.” The predecessor to Walt Whitman Library (called the City Park Branch before 1943) opened in a storefront on Nassau and Bridge Streets in 1900. Eight years later, a beautiful new library, funded by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, built in the Classical Revival style, and designed by Rudolph L. Daus, opened on St. Edwards Street in Fort Greene. The library was named for Whitman on the125th anniversary of his birth in 1943.