Tenements and wood-frame dwellings on Garrison Street, a single block between Front and York Streets in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, ca. 1938.

Arnold Eagle’s photo is part of his “One Third of a Nation” series, shot with David Robbins. The project document the living conditions in poverty-stricken New York City neighborhoods, and shared its name with a 1938 “living newspaper” production by the Federal Theatre Project dramatizing similar themes.

Garrison is named for John Garrison, an early 19th century judge who also served as president of the Village of Brooklyn. At right in the middle ground, is Mercein Street, a single-block street named for Andrew Mercein, a political figure of the same era who lived on nearby Sands Street.

Both streets were eliminated in the early 1950s to make room a westbound exit ramp from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Today, a parking lot entrance roughly lines up with the former path of Garrison Street.