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May 20th, 2011

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Racing across Brooklyn

In honor of the Brooklyn Half Marathon, we’ve uploaded a portion of a film from the BHS collections, entitled Walking Race: Heel and Toe Artists Hoof it to Coney Island. It shows a group of men race walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, as well as the arrival of the winner in Coney Island. The silent film is from a 16mm reel that was made around 1930 and found at a garage sale in the 1990s. The reel also contains a series of similar (but not Brooklyn-related) newsreel-style clips, all of which were recently conserved and digitized with a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation.

Enjoy the clip, and good luck in the race tomorrow!

Walking Race: Heel and Toe Artists Hoof it to Coney Island from Brooklyn Historical Society on Vimeo.

Brooklyn by any other name …

Recently, I was speaking with Julie Golia, our public historian, who wanted to know if we had early maps that showed different spellings of the name Brooklyn. As I was looking through the collection to identify the most interesting spellings, I was surprised by the variations in nomenclature for our area. But I think I speak for most Brooklynites when I say that whether it’s the Dutch “Breuckelen” or the anglicized “Brookland,” we just call it home.

Detail from: Pas caerte van Nieu Nederlandt en de Engelsche Virginies van Cabo Cod tot Cabo Canrick. Pieter Goos. 1666. Brooklyn Historical Society Map Collection.

Detail from: Pas caerte van Nieu Nederlandt en de Engelsche Virginies van Cabo Cod tot Cabo Canrick. Pieter Goos. 1666. Brooklyn Historical Society Map Collection.

Detail from: Map of the progress of His Majesty's armies in New York during the late campaign. 1776? Brooklyn Historical Society Map Collection.

Detail from: Map of the progress of His Majesty's armies in New York during the late campaign. 1776? Brooklyn Historical Society Map Collection.

Detail from: Plan of New York Island and part of Long Island, showing the position of the American & British armies before, at & after the Engagement on the Heights. 1776? Broklyn Historical Society Map Collection.

Detail from: Plan of New York Island and part of Long Island, showing the position of the American & British armies before, at & after the Engagement on the Heights. 1776? Brooklyn Historical Society Map Collection.

Detail from: A map of the province of New York. Claude Joseph Sauthier. 1776. Brooklyn Historical Society Map Collection.

Detail from: A map of the province of New York. Claude Joseph Sauthier. 1776. Brooklyn Historical Society Map Collection.