Exploring foodways in Brooklyn, historic and contemporary, offers up a unique cross-section of considerations around why we eat what we eat, where it comes from, and what that means. What Brooklyn consumes is defined by its plurality and variety. The borough’s access to waterfront shipping ports and proximity to upstate farmlands adds an additional layer to the near-endless number of restaurants, bodegas, grocery stores, delivery options, food trucks, farm stands, and home-cooked meals we enjoy today. Looking back over Brooklyn's peak industrial period in the 19th and 20th centuries, we can also see how businesses such as sugar refineries, breweries, and poultry farms shaped the social and cultural landscape⁠—and indeed, the landscape itself⁠—of Kings County.

Storefront signage is a ubiquitous feature on New York City streets. Today, signs can barely seem worth noticing, the well-known fonts and logos blending into the scenery. But when the streets of New York were lined with mom and pop shops, the design of signs (through fonts, images, and use of space) often allowed these individual stores to stand out. The diversity of signage is especially eye-catching in historical photographs.

Women in Brooklyn have been leaders of social change on every conceivable political front, from the fight for racial justice and the right to vote, to equality around labor and reproductive rights. Women have also been at the forefront of protest efforts against the Vietnam War and for environmental justice. In this story, the Center for Brooklyn History highlights Brooklyn women with powerful activist legacies, from ordinary women joining the workforce during World War II to the formation of a barmaids union to icons like Lena Horne.

John D. Morrell was a photographer who shot thousands of documentary photographs across Brooklyn between 1957-1974. Take a quick walk along Montague Street with Morrell from Cadman Plaza to the Promenade:

The Pam-Pam restaurant at the corner of Montague and Henry Streets, October 12, 1959.

🍰🍪🍰🍪 In 1898 George and Catherine Ebinger opened their Ebinger's Bakery on Flatbush Avenue near Cortelyou Street. Specializing in German sweets and pastries, their best-known confection was the Brooklyn Blackout Cake, a chocolate layer cake with chocolate fudge layers, and chocolate frosting covered with chocolate cake crumbs. Though likely produced in the early 20th century, the cake got its famous name during World War II when the city experienced blackout drills. Brooklyn became obsessed with Ebinger's Bakery, and the business expanded to more than 50 outlets in Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau County. The business thrived through the early mid-century but came under fire for discriminatory hiring practices in the 1960s, and in the same decade, many of their longtime customers moved out of the city. The company declared bankruptcy and closed in 1972, though rumor has it that Entenmann's purchased their recipes.