The Brooklyn Historical Society Blog

Post written by Mark Daly, Reference Intern, May 2013

My reference internship at the Othmer Library has been a highlight of my library school education. I have enjoyed the opportunity to pick up new skills, meet researchers of all types, and — not least — learn more about my home borough.  One subject I wish I’d spent more time investigating is the history of commercial enterprise in Brooklyn. When I see stories in the news about the borough’s funky tech start-ups and co-working spaces, I begin to wonder what the library’s collections can tell us about the businesses of yesteryear.

As part of my internship, I compiled a list of printed resources to add to the library’s Coney Island and Gravesend research subject guide. I discovered many good books on the shelves that told a fascinating story — of the rise, decline and recent revival of the leisure industry at Coney Island. Coney Island’s history as a summer destination goes back earlier, to when some of the country’s earliest resort hotels were built near the beach, and some of Kings County’s first light rail lines were extended to the peninsula.

The library has resources that cover each of these earlier eras. One book, Good Old Coney Island, by Edo McCullough, delights in recounting the colorful stories of the early Coney Island entrepreneurs, and the business and political machinations they resorted to in pursuing their grand dreams. It’s a natural subject for the author, a nephew of George C. Tilyou, the legendary Coney Island showman. The book’s subtitle describes its subject better than I ever could: “The Most Rambunctious, Scandalous, Rapscallion, Splendiferous, Pugnacious, Spectacular, Illustrious, Prodigious, Frolicsome Island on Earth.”

At the other end of Brooklyn is downtown’s Fulton Mall, an outdoor commercial center with its own unique style. One longtime anchor of the district is the Macy’s department store at 422 Fulton Street. Longtime residents of the borough will recall that the cast-iron building is the former home of Abraham and Straus department store, known as A&S. Co-founded by Abraham Abraham just after the Civil War, Abraham and Straus was a Brooklyn institution for 130 years, until its rebranding by Macy’s parent company in 1995. The Othmer Library has an archival collection of Abraham and Straus materials from the company’s centennial celebration in February 1965.

While researching a reference question recently, I came across an old A&S press release in the collection that recounted a critical moment in the history of the business — and ultimately of Brooklyn. The February 16, 1965 press release, titled “Moments of Courage: The A&S Moves Toward Greatness” dramatizes a day in 1883 when Mr. Abraham was pondering his options for expanding his dry-goods store from its location near the bustling ferry to Manhattan. The Brooklyn Bridge was about to open, and he saw that it would forever change things:

Accurately, he foresaw that easy transportation over the bridge, independent of weather which often made the ferries unreliable, should bring more people to live in Brooklyn. Ferry traffic should diminish. He walked half a mile up Fulton Street, past Borough Hall, to what was then the outskirts of town and studied the big-ironed structure at 422. It was too big for its time, and had degenerated into tenancy by small cheap shops. Fulton Street beyond it to Flatbush “looked like a western mining town and beyond Flatbush was country.

A separate press release notes that “contrary to all advice,” Abraham bought 422 Fulton. At 145,000 square feet of space, it was fully six times bigger than his current store. Luckily for Abraham, his gamble paid off; the larger store allowed the business to expand its inventory. It also began to show off the larger space with grand window displays, elegant showrooms, in-store restaurants, and other elements of showmanship (not that different from Coney Island, in a way). Abraham & Straus became a destination for shoppers from either side of the Brooklyn Bridge, and the company remains a fond memory for many Brooklynites today.

The story of A&S, and of Coney Island, shows that the dreams of Brooklyn’s business builders can profoundly shape the lives of its residents. It’s a history that deserves to be told. How many other entrepreneurs have walked in Abraham Abraham’s footsteps, faced such challenges, felt such inspiration, made such fateful decisions? Who, on the streets of Williamsburg or Coney Island, is taking such walks today?

 

 

 

Post written by Jeff Edelstein, Reference Intern, May 2013

As my internship at the Brooklyn Historical Society’s Othmer Library approaches its end, I have been looking over the dozens of queries that I have responded to since my arrival at the beginning of the academic school year in September, and I am struck by the number of times when at least some information to seemingly impossible questions was available using resources readily available in the library. Two such resources that I consulted frequently are the Brooklyn & Long Island Scrapbooks collection of newspaper clippings and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle Almanac. Both are available for public use during regular library hours; no appointment is necessary.

Scrapbook Collection

Compiled by library staff, the Brooklyn & Long Island Scrapbooks collection is a rich trove of articles, dating roughly from the 1860s to the 1960s, clipped from a number of local newspapers about Brooklyn’s past, including many articles about daily life; it includes many nostalgia pieces from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in the 1950s that recall old traditions and neighborhoods. The collection is available for viewing on microfiche and searchable via the sort of old-fashioned card catalog subject index that those of us over a certain age will recall fondly.

One question I fielded early in my internship made reference to the June Walk of 1914. What was the June Walk? Given my inexperience at the time, it didn’t seem as if I could possibly find something to say in reply. I gave the Scrapbook Collection a try, just in case, but there was nothing in the card catalog under “June Walk.” So I took a step back, searching generally online, where I learned that the June Walks were held on Anniversary Day, a unique Brooklyn holiday created by the Brooklyn Sunday School Union to commemorate the founding of Sunday schools in Brooklyn. I found this initial information in a 2012 blog post on a site called The New York World. The Gothamist site provides further information in a 2007 post called Anniversary Day and the Kids Are Out of School.

Dating back to the 1830s, Anniversary Day celebrations included a parade, but it was not until 1905 that the date was fixed as a school holiday on the first Thursday in June. In 1959 the holiday was renamed Brooklyn-Queens Day in order to decouple the school holiday from the religious origins of the event; by 2005 the school closure was extended to all five New York City boroughs. Kids may still enjoy the day off, but for teachers, it is now officially Chancellor’s Conference Day.

OK, now that I was armed with some basic information, I could go back to the card catalog. Under “Anniversary Day,” I was directed to “Brooklyn Sunday School Union.” There I found easily a dozen articles, many with photographs, some from as far back as 100 years ago and others as recent as the 1960s. The oldest item, shown below, was a large photograph with an extended caption from the June 20, 1874, issue of Harper’s Weekly Illustrated.

The library’s digital image database, also available for on-site searching, yielded a number of photographs of Anniversary Day observances across the years. The photographs accompanying this post are a few examples, with one from around 1915, close to the date noted in the original query. For another early image and related post, see BHS Photography Archivist Julie May’s Photo of the Week post from May 1, 2013.

Eagle Almanac

Another source I have found invaluable in responding to queries is the Brooklyn Daily Eagle Almanac. Volumes in the library’s collection range from 1886 to 1929, although it is not a complete run. Digitized versions of some volumes are available online via Google books. I have used the almanacs to find information about ferry schedules, locations of schools, names of ministers of churches in particular years, and information about local political clubs.

 

 

One recent query that sent me looking in the almanac was related to family history research. An ancestor of the person who sent in the question had been active in a Jewish benevolent association, or landsmanshaft; these were social and charitable assistance organizations that formed based on immigrants’ towns of origin. Checking volumes of the almanac for the period in question, I found that although this club’s address was on the Lower East Side in Manhattan, the secretary had the rather unusual surname I was looking for, and gave a home address in Coney Island. The Eagle Almanac had come through for me again.

It was curious that this question about a Jewish organization came in when it did, as I was at that time preparing a new subject guide as part of my internship focused on collections of Jewish interest here at the Brooklyn Historical Society.