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Brooklyn History Photo of the Week: Memorial Day Parade, May 26, 1899

Written by Michael Satalof on May 23rd, 2012

Parade, May 26, 1899, 2010.023.35; 141 Quincy Street photograph album, 2010.023; Brooklyn Historical Society.

This photograph from the 141 Quincy Street photography album documents the furnishings, architectural features, and home life of a Bedford-Stuyvesant family in the late 1890s. This photograph captures a parade through the neighborhood on Memorial Day weekend in 1899. It includes a marching band, church group, and civic associations. Other photographs in the album show banners for The International Order of The King’s Daughters and Sons, a religious philanthropic organization, and the Nostrand Avenue Methodist Church Sunday School.

The album was donated to the Brooklyn Historical Society by the third owners of 141 Quincy Street, still standing and in almost its original condition between Bedford and Franklin Avenues. More pages from this album can be seen in Say Cheese! Portraits to Pics, BHS’s new exhibition which opens on June 6. Join us at the exhibition opening Wednesday, June 6, 5:30-7:30 p.m.

Interested in seeing more photos from BHS’s collection? Visit our online image gallery, which includes a selection of our images. To search our entire collection of images visit BHS’s Othmer Library Wed-Fri, 1:00-5:00 p.m.

Posted in Brooklyn Past & Present, Hidden Collections, Library & Archives | No Responses »
Tags: Brooklyn, Memorial Day, parade, Photo of the Week, Photographs, photography, Photography Collection

Brooklyn History Photo of the Week: Music Pavilion, ca.1880

Written by Emily Reynolds on May 16th, 2012

Music Pavilion, ca.1880, v1972.1.545; Photography Collection, ARC.201; Brooklyn Historical Society.

This stereoscopic photograph shows a crowd watching a performance at an outdoor stage in Brighton Beach. The various resorts on Coney Island were home to many musical performances and other amusements. Anton Seidl conducted at this venue fourteen times per week. Unfortunately, this building was “seriously menaced” by a storm in 1896 and Seidl never conducted there again. But the next time you go to a concert in Prospect Park or on the Williamsburg waterfront, remember that you are part of a long tradition of Brooklynites enjoying music outdoors.

The records of the Seidl Society, a group which sponsored Seidl’s performances at Brighton Beach and elsewhere, are available for researchers in BHS’s Othmer Library. Read more about those material here, and make an appointment if you would like to access the collection.

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Tags: Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, Photo of the Week, Photographs, photography, Photography Collection

Brooklyn History Photo of the Week: Ladies Cycling, ca. 1915

Written by Julie May on May 9th, 2012

Riding a Ladies’ Safety, ca.1915, v1988.468.28; Michael Shellens family collection, ARC.094; Brooklyn Historical Society.

From the desk of Julie May, Photo Archivist: For the past couple years, I have commandeered a May blog post or Photo of the Week to exhibit my love of bicycles – both as an activity and as an interesting graphic among Brooklyn Historical Society’s photography collection in acknowledgement of National Bike Month. Unfortunately, I have not discovered any new bicycle photographs in the past year to share and so I am recycling the one above from the Michael Shellens family collection. The two young ladies photographed are likely the daughters of Michael Shellens, Ruth and Hazel, taken in one of the family’s homes in Sunset Park. Ruth is about to leave her sister behind in a ladies’ safety bicycle, a development for cycling that made it easier for ladies to ride while wearing dresses.

Hopefully this picture will entice half the population to throw on a sundress and get out on a bike and the other half to ride along. If you don’t know where to go or who to go with, there are a ton of events listed at a new website here. If you don’t have a bike, New York City is about to embark on another development in cycling – bike share! Coming this July, people wearing all sorts of garments will be able to participate in the joys, without some of the pains, of cycling through Citi Bike – 10,000 bikes at 600 stations.

So by all means, ride any kind of bike over to Brooklyn Historical Society to check out our other photographs, exhibits, and programs — we’re a Bike Friendly Business so you get $1 off admission if you arrive by bike. Happy, safe, and polite riding everyone!

Posted in Brooklyn Past & Present, Hidden Collections, Library & Archives | No Responses »
Tags: bicycling, Brooklyn, Photo of the Week, Photographs, photography, Photography Collection

Brooklyn History Photo of the Week: Concert Grove Lagoon, Prospect Park

Written by Susan Gamble on May 2nd, 2012

Concert Grove Lagoon, Prospect Park, 1897, v1973.2.365; The Brooklyn oversize 19th century collection, v1973.002; Brooklyn Historical Society.

As the days get warmer and the nights get shorter there’s nothing like an outdoor picnic to celebrate the early days of summer. This photo of picnickers in Concert Grove Lagoon depicts a picturesque scene of Brooklynites enjoying the mid-day sun at Prospect Park in 1897. At the turn of the twentieth century, as Brooklyn’s population continued to diversify, members of different social classes mixed more and more in public spaces such as parks and theatres – even as class and race divisions continued to stratify. The photograph also depicts a fleet of bicycles for cycling, a leisure activity fast gaining popularity in 1897.

Posted in Brooklyn Past & Present, Hidden Collections, Library & Archives | No Responses »
Tags: Photo of the Week, Photographs, photography, Photography Collection, Prospect Park

Map of the Month – May 2012

Written by Carolyn on May 1st, 2012

This month’s featured map is from the Gazzettiere Americano, an atlas published in Livorno, Italy in 1763. The map shows New York Harbor and surrounding areas, and includes a number of Brooklyn references. If you look closely, you will see the following names on the Brooklyn area of the map: Bushwick, Brockland, Redhook, Flatland, Flatbush, Gravesend, Utrecht, and Coney Isola. The small numbers on the map are called soundings and they represent water depths. Soundings were commonly featured on early nautical charts and maps and are still used today in navigation.

Porti della Nuova York e Perthamboy. Giuseppe Maria Terreni. ca. 1763. Brooklyn Historical Society Map Collection.

(Click on the image to see more detail)

Interested in seeing more maps? You can view the BHS map collection anytime during the library’s open hours, Wed.-Fri., from 1-5 p.m. No appointment is necessary to view most maps. Our cataloged maps can be searched through BobCat and our map inventories through Emma.

Map of the Month is part of a project to catalog our map holdings, funded through the Council on Library and Information Resources Hidden Collections program. If you would like to help us do more of this kind of work with our exciting map holdings, donate here.

Posted in Brooklyn Past & Present, Hidden Collections, Library & Archives | 1 Response »
Tags: Map of the Month, maps

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