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Brooklyn History Photo of the Week: Isidore Aschner Cabinet Card

Written by Keara Duggan on April 18th, 2012

Isidore Aschner cabinet card, ca. 1890, v1992.40.12; Fred Hoyt family research collection; Brooklyn Historical Society.

This image is of Isidore Aschner, one of Abraham and Jeannette Aschner’s six children. The Aschners were German natives who immigrated to New York around 1870. The family lived at 67 Pineapple Street in Brooklyn Heights and owned cigar emporiums around Manhattan and Brooklyn. This cabinet card was donated to BHS in 1990 by Fred Hoyt in as part of the Fred Hoyt family research collection. Isidore, the gentleman featured in the image above, was Fred Hoyt’s great uncle (brother of Fred’s grandmother Ernestine Aschner).

The Hoyt collection features papers and photographs, dating from 1850 to 1974. Mr. Hoyt collected many of these materials while conducting genealogical research. The collection includes correspondence, genealogy notes, school papers, commencement programs, a deed, calling cards, religious writings, obituaries, wills, birth certificates, death certificates, marriage certificates, and citizenship papers.

This image was taken by Samuel Bowne Duryea at his studio located at 253 Fulton Street, Brooklyn. Duryea was a well-known portrait studio in Brooklyn. BHS has images from Duryea and a number of other Brooklyn studios as part of our Brooklyn studio portrait collection, which includes primarily cabinet cards of individual men, women, and children, circa 1875 to 1899. Cabinet cards were an extremely popular style of portraiture in the 1870s and 1880s before being replaced by snapshot and personal photography in the 1890s.

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, cabinet card, Isidore Aschner, Photo of the Week, Photographs, photography, Photography Collection

Brooklyn History Photo of the Week: Louis and Rose Lebman, ca.1950

Written by Keara Duggan on April 11th, 2012

Louis and Rose Lebman, ca.1950, v1986.2.3; Photograph collection; Brooklyn Historical Society.

This photograph, circa 1950, features Louis and Rose Lebman, husband and wife. Louis Lebman owned the Wellmade Glove shop in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Lebman was a Polish immigrant who worked as a glovemaking apprentice before opening his own shop in Brooklyn, specializing in fine gloves produced from fabric and goatskin. Lebman and his wife Rose lived with their daughter Maria in the same building that housed the Wellmade Glove shop. This photograph was taken at the rear of the shop at 480 Seventh Avenue, Brooklyn.

BHS’s archive holds the Wellmade Glove records, which includes extensive information about the shop, the glovemaking business, and the Lebman family.

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Tags: Brooklyn, Park Slope, Photo of the Week, Photographs, photography, Photography Collection, Well Made Glove Shop

Brooklyn History Photo of the Week: Bay Ridge Mystery

Written by Cassie Mey on April 4th, 2012

Michael Bergen House Bay Ridge Shore Front, ca.1910, v1981.15.99; Ralph Irving Lloyd lantern slides; Brooklyn Historical Society.

From the desk of Cassie Mey, Project CHART intern: While scanning parts of BHS’s Photography Collection, I have come across images that are difficult to historically verify, and this one in particular remains an unsolved mystery. This image from the Ralph Irving Lloyd Lantern Slides shows a house roof that clearly reads, “Steins Hotel and Bathing Pavilion [sic].” Yet the handwritten information on the undated slide (ca. 1910) names this as the “Michael Bergen House,” on the “Bay Ridge Shore Front.”

While searching for the Stein Hotel, I found the name of a Bay Ridge hotel proprietor, John P. Stein, through his obituary on June 6, 1902 in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle online. Further searching for the “Steins Hotel and Bathing Pavilion” in the Eagle did not retrieve any results for that particular name, but did lead me to a hotel listed by the name: Brooklyn Beach Park Hotel and Bathing Pavilion [sic]. A June 18, 1899 ad credits, “John P. Stein, Proprietor, Foot of 58^th street, on New York Bay, Brooklyn.”

As the “only summer resort on New York Bay,” this hotel promised such turn of the century decadences as, “1000 bath houses, 1000 feet sandy bathing beach, springboards, floats, showerbaths, alcohol, perfume, salt and oil rubbing, bathing at night by electric light; excursions in launches from Stein’s South Pier around the Bay in fast Naphtha Launches.”

I also found a Michael Bergen Estate lot map [1889?] in the Bay Ridge area, but this didn’t show specific evidence that Michael Bergen owned the shoreline house property between 58^th street and 59^th street. Adding these clues together, I can’t confirm the exact relationships between the Michael Bergen House in the lantern slide, the Steins Hotel and Bathing Pavilion [sic], and the Brooklyn Beach Park Hotel, but a connection seems to be there. Even though this historic mystery is not resolved, along the way it was fascinating to discover this turn of the century “New York Bay” summer resort in Bay Ridge.

Posted in Brooklyn Past & Present, Hidden Collections, Library & Archives | 2 Responses »
Tags: Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, Hotel, Photo of the Week, Photographs, photography, Photography Collection

Map of the Month – April 2012

Written by Carolyn on April 3rd, 2012

This month’s featured map dates from 1828 and features the “country thirty miles round the city of New York,” including all five boroughs as well as portions of New Jersey, Long Island, and Connecticut. Drawn by J.H. Eddy of New York, this map is a new edition with edits by William Hooker and E. Blunt. While the map shows traditional elements such as roads, topography, and names of landowners (including the Lefferts, Cortelyou, and Vanderveer families in Brooklyn), it also shows more unusual things like taverns. The map appears to have been dedicated to Dewitt Clinton, Governor of New York, who died the same year the map was published.

Map of the country thirty miles round the city of New York. John H. Eddy. 1828. Brooklyn Historical Society Map Collection.

Click here to see detail of the Brooklyn section of the map.

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.

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Tags: Map of the Month, maps

Brooklyn History Photo of the Week: Apothecary Shop

Written by Susan Gamble on March 28th, 2012

Apothecary Shop owned by Case & Terry, ca. 1923, v1974.1.261; Eugene L. Armbruster photographs and scrapbooks, V1974.001, Brooklyn Historical Society.

This photograph was taken by Eugene Armbruster circa 1923. Armbruster was born in Baden-Baden Germany in 1865. In 1882 he immigrated to New York City and lived in Bushwick, Brooklyn until his death in 1943. Around the time of his retirement from the H. Henkel Cigar Box Manufacturing Company in 1920, Armbruster became an amateur photographer and local historian writing for the “Old-Timer” column of the Brooklyn Eagle and publishing pamphlets about local history. Armbruster illustrated these pamphlets with his personal line drawings, photographs, and copy photographs. In 1940, Armbruster developed cataracts which forced him to give up his favorite hobby and on September 21, 1943 he died at age seventy-eight.

This photograph is one example from the many in the Eugene L. Armbruster photographs and scrapbooks housed at Brooklyn Historical Society. The collection contains over 4,000 black-and-white photographic prints taken by Armbruster. The photographs document elements of many Brooklyn neighborhoods, circa 1920 to 1930, including views of streets, ferry terminals, church buildings, schools, wooden-frame houses, and elevated train track and stations.

According to a note written by Armbruster on the verso of this photograph, this image shows an apothecary shop that was located on the southside of Church Avenue. The shop was once the rear extension of the Old Waldron House before it was converted into a grocery store in 1873. The store was turned it into an apothecary/ tinsmith shop in 1920. The building was torn down in February 1925.

Posted in Brooklyn Past & Present, Hidden Collections, Library & Archives | 2 Responses »
Tags: Brooklyn, Eugene L. Armbruster, Photo of the Week, Photographs, photography, Photography Collection

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