Collections
Browse all the images from each partner:
Brooklyn Historical Society (all) | Brooklyn Museum (all) | Brooklyn Public Library Images (all)
View images contained within each collection (listed alphabetically by collection name):
1977 Blackout Slide collection
These images were captured in the months after the July 13th Blackout of 1977. They were taken by two unknown photographers and cover various locations in the neighborhood of Bushwick. They are predominantly photographs of burned-out houses, apartments and stores. For more information on this collection please see the finding aid.
A collection of photographs and plates from books
.jpg "Fulton Street between State Street and Ashland Place. A collection of photographs and plates from books.")
This collection contains 36 loose and mounted prints and photographs of homes, buildings, businesses, streetscapes, churches and historic sites in Brooklyn.
A collection of pictures of Brooklyn
This collection includes 13 photographs and postcards, dated 1878 to approximately 1930 featuring the Colony Inn, Flatbush Avenue, Flatbush, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Bridge, Prospect Park, Sunset Park, street scenes, Coney Island and public school children.
Adrian Vanderveer Martense collection
The Adrian Vanderveer Martense collection spans the dates 1872 to 1889 and measures 2.83 linear feet. The collection contains lantern slides and photographs taken by Martense documenting Brooklyn during the last quarter of the 19th century, in particular Flatbush, Brooklyn and the Blizzard of 1888, as well as other images of Brooklyn. For more information on this collection please see the finding aid.
Interior views of the Italianate mansion at 2 Pierrepont Place in Brooklyn Heights, built in 1857 by the architect Frederick A. Peterson. This was the boyhood home of Alfred Tredway White, a famous Brooklyn housing reformer and philanthropist, and was later the home of Miss Harriet White.
Anders Goldfarb has been capturing scenes of Brooklyn life and decay in starkly beautiful black-and-white photographs since the late 1970s. Although he travels all over the borough and the city for his work, this collection is centered particularly around the residential and industrial areas of Greenpoint and Williamsburg that Goldfarb calls home. Our collection of his photography spans the late 1970s to the early 2000s.
Anders Goldfarb photographs of Coney Island
.jpg "Three boys in a car, 1983. Anders Goldfarb photographs of Coney Island")
In this Anders Goldfarb photograph collection, the images depict a more dilapidated Coney Island in the early 1980s. Candid shots of people in the area, and local establishments such as, Ruby's Bar and Grill are also included.
Anthony Costanzo Brooklyn Navy Yard collection
The Anthony Costanzo Brooklyn Navy Yard Collection contains materials documenting the years just prior to the decommissioning of the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1966. The photographs show images of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, worker protests against the Navy Yard's decommissioning, and photographs of Robert F. Kennedy's visit to the Brooklyn Navy Yard in the 1960s.
The hulking, vaguely medieval fortresses that are Brooklyn’s armories still incongruously dot the urban landscape, and this collection shows them in active use from the 1930s through ‘50s. Interesting subsets within the collection show National Guardsmen from Brooklyn conducting field training at the Fort Drum military camp in upstate New York and serving in the 955th Battalion in the Korean War.
“Dem Bums” were the pride and joy of Brooklyn, competing in 7 World Series (always against their local rival the New York Yankees) before packing off to Los Angeles in 1957 and breaking the heart of every baseball fan in the borough. The collection has 1,200 images of the team from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper, including dozens of pictures of iconic players like Pee Wee Reese, Gil Hodges, Roy Campanello, Duke Snider, and Jackie Robinson.
Brooklyn Prohibition collection
.jpg "Prohibition party candidates, 1890. Brooklyn Prohibition Collection")
Prohibition Collection contains temperance periodicals, publications, correspondence, photographs, lecture invitations, campaign material, and newspaper clippings, 1893-1942, relating to the Prohibition movement in the U.S. and in New York State and City in particular. This material provides a look at this American political movement from the local level in New York and Kings Counties. The bulk of the material was donated in 1932 by George B. Hilliard, who was involved in the Prohibition movement for decades and was a county organizer and executive committee member for the Prohibition County Committee of New York. Some of the items date from 1933 to 1942 and their provenance cannot be established. For more information on this collection please see the finding aid.
Brooklyn views : a series of postcards
A series of 7 photographic images on postcards including views of the St. George Hotel, Towers Hotel, Manhattan Bridge and the Cafe, Luna Park, Coney Island.
Brooklyn's garden : views of picturesque Flatbush
The Brooklyn’s Garden: Views of Picturesque Flatbush consists of images of the Brooklyn neighborhood of Flatbush. This volume was written and published in 1908 by local historian and Brooklyn resident, Charles A. Ditmas (1887-1938), and contains images of Prospect Park and residential streets in the Flatbush neighborhood, as well as churches, historic houses, and other buildings.
Clippings on historic Brooklyn houses
Newspaper and magazine clippings of historic Brooklyn houses including the Old Dutch house, on Long Island (Old Stone House or Vechte-Cortelyou House]), the Tomb of the Martyrs, the main stairway in the Lefferts House, a wooden mantel in the Snedeker House, the Old Van Pelt Manor House, the Cortelyou House, crayon studies 470 Cortelyou House, and the summer view of Brooklyn Village in 1820 from the original painting by Francis Guy.
Brooklyn has long been a social- and civic-minded borough, and our collection of over 500 images from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle documents the many clubs and associations that shaped public life in the 20th century. The series runs the gamut from professional associations like the Affiliated Laundry Owners Club, to service clubs like the United Youth Improvement Association of Bedford-Stuyvesant, to the venerable Grand Army of the Republic veterans association, and whimsical groups like the Coney Island Polar Bear Club and the Amaranth Banjo and Guitar Club.
Photographs of Brooklyn's playground, Coney Island, are one of our most requested collections. These images are largely culled from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle photo files, and depict the various amusements of the boardwalk in its heyday, including George C. Tilyou's Steeplechase Park, the Wonder Wheel and Parachute Drop, and the summer crowds that flocked to Coney Island's beaches.
A city as large as Brooklyn is bound to have a criminal underbelly. This collection from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle depicts a range of ne’er-do-wells from the 1940s and ‘50s, from low-level teenage gangsters to big-time fur thieves and gambling racketeers. Nora Almeida, a first-year CHART intern, wrote a blog post based on research in this collection, describing a Long Island University basketball team embroiled in a point-shaving scandal.
The Department Store collection holds a surprising array of images of Brooklyn’s downtown shopping hubs – the big, all-encompassing stores like Abraham & Straus, Loeser & Company, and May’s. More than just snapshots of retail displays and dressed-up mannequins, the collection includes photographs of community events like the Junior Angler’s Fishing Contest put on annually by Abraham & Strauss, along with harder news items like union picket lines outside Oppenheim Collins.
Donald L. Nowlan Brooklyn collection
.jpg "Blossoms, 1975. Donald L. Nowlan Collection")
Donald L. Nowlan (b. circa 1921) is a Brooklyn resident who attended Brooklyn schools from elementary school through university. Nowlan attended Brooklyn College, located in the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn. He graduated in 1948 with a BA in Romance Languages. Nowlan grew up in Park Slope and lived at 470 3rd Street. For more information on this collection please see the finding aid.
DUMBO, Brooklyn Waterfront photographs and slides
.jpg "View of Manhattan skyline from pier at Fulton Ferry Landing, 1975. DUMBO, Brooklyn Waterfront photographs and slides")
The DUMBO, Brooklyn waterfront photographs and slides is comprised of 70 color slides, taken by Joseph Maraio of areas along the Brooklyn waterfront in the DUMBO neighborhood Brooklyn, circa 1975. The collection includes many views of the Brooklyn Bridge, views of buildings along the Brooklyn waterfront located near the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge, views of people at or near the Brooklyn waterfront, views of the Brooklyn waterfront looking across the East River from lower Manhattan, and views of the lower Manhattan cityscape looking across the East River from the Brooklyn waterfront. For more information on this collection please see the finding aid.
Eberhard Faber Pencil Company collection
The collection consists of materials relating to the Eberhard Faber Pencil Company, the oldest pencil manufacturing company in the United States. The collection, dating from 1924 to 1988 and measuring 1.5 linear feet, includes product catalogues, promotional materials, a company account ledger, an employee sales manual, photographs, and a publication describing the activities and history of the Eberhard Faber Pencil Company. For more information on this collection please see the finding aid.
E. E. Rutter was the official photographer for the borough of Brooklyn in the early years of the 20th century, and both the Brooklyn Public Library and Brooklyn Historical Society possess collections of his work. The Pigtown photographs featured here show a portion of Flatbush that was infamous for pigs (of course), rough characters, and general squalor in the closing years of the 19th century. Pigtown was cleaned up in the 1920s. Read more about its colorful past at our Brooklynology blog.
Emmanuel House lantern slide collection
Emmanuel House was located at 131 Steuben Street in the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn. As a civic center and place of outreach run by the Young Men's League of the Emmanuel Baptist Church, the Emmanuel House offered Sunday school, Kindergarten and recreational classes to children of the church and neighborhood. For more information on this collection please see the finding aid.
Frank J. Trezza Seatrain Shipbuilding collection
.jpg "Seatrain workers and the supervisor, \"Frenchie\" on the deck, 1977. Frank J. Trezza Seatrain Shipbuilding Collection")
The Frank J. Trezza Seatrain Shipbuilding Collection documents shipbuilding activities at the Brooklyn Navy Yard from its closing by the Department of Defense in the mid-1960s through its rebirth and eventual demise under the management of the Seatrain Shipbuilding Corp. Frank J. Trezza was hired by Seatrain Shipbuilding as a Mechanic Helper at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1973 and eventually worked his way up to the position of First Class Marine Electrician. Though the dates of the collection span from 1861 to 1988, the bulk of the records span the period 1973-1978, when Frank J. Trezza was an employee of Seatrain Shipbuilding. For more information on this collection please see the finding aid.
The Brooklyn Botanic Garden is an oasis of natural beauty in the heart of Brooklyn, and photographs of its annual Cherry Blossom Festival and May Queen coronation through the 1940s and ‘50s make up a large portion of this collection. Also included are several images of victory gardens throughout the borough that sprouted up in support of the war effort in the 1940s.
In addition to providing useful documentation of Brooklyn’s many and varied government buildings (some of them now gone), the Government photographs from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle also show the role that city, county, and state government played in the lives of everyday Brooklynites in the 20th century. A large part of the collection includes architectural renderings for planned municipal buildings as well, some of which never came to fruition.
Contained within this rare 19th century publication entitled Greenwood Cemetery are images of the famous memorial park in Brooklyn.
The Gregg Chapel was the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church's mission to the Italians of Gowanus in the early years of the 20th century. Located at 190 4th Avenue, the chapel provided English classes for children and adults trying to adapt to life in America while also strengthening the community bonds among immigrant families. In our collections, interior shots from the early 20th century are rare, so these photographs provide invaluable documentation of a population in the process of becoming American.
This large collection of images gathers together all the hospital-related photographs from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle archive. This includes not only pictures of the hospital buildings themselves but also images of hospital staff, nursing schools, and hospital-sponsored programs and events.
Pulled from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle photo files, the Housing collection documents the boom in public housing construction after World War II, including floor plans, models, job sites, and the finished projects built under the auspices of the New York City Housing Authority.
Jamel Shabazz is an internationally renowned photographer whose on-the-street approach to shooting has allowed him to capture the heart and soul of Brooklyn and the greater New York City area since the 1970s. His books of photography, including "Back in the Days" and "A Time Before Crack", document the fashion and culture of the then-emerging hip-hop scene of the 1980s as spread on the streets and sidewalks of New York City’s neighborhoods.
John D. Morrell, assistant librarian at the Brooklyn Historical Society donated over 2,000 black and white and color negatives and prints to the Photography Collection. The images are indexed at the item level by address, street names, and/or neighborhood sometimes including proper names of businesses or institutions. For more information on this collection please see the finding aid.
.jpg "Views: U.S., Brooklyn. Brooklyn, Prospect Park, 1898-1900. Lantern Slide Collection")
The Brooklyn Museum's lantern slide collection was started by the Museum's Curator of Fine Arts, William Henry Goodyear, in the late 19th century. Within this collection are over 350 historic images of Brooklyn, including street scenes, Civil War monuments, buildings, photographic portraits of prominent and noteworthy Brooklyn residents and community leaders, churches and synagogues, institutions such as Adelphi College, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, Packer Collegiate Institute, Pratt Institute, and Prospect Park.
Lay house, 11 Cranberry Street
.jpg "Front view. Lay House, 11 Cranberry Street, Brooklyn, N.Y., 1939-1943. Lay house, 11 Cranberry Street Collection")
Interior views and architectural details of a 19th century, three-story brick house at 11 Cranberry Street in Brooklyn, which was built by the Bedell family and was later the home of Charles Downing Lay.
Otto Dreschmeyer Brooklyn slides
The Otto Dreschmeyer Brooklyn slides date from 1965 to 1968 and contain 157 items. The collection is composed entirely of color slides taken by Dreschmeyer in Brooklyn, likely using a Hasselblad camera. Slides dated 1965 document the annual Brooklyn Memorial Day parade. Parade images center around Grand Army Plaza, showing the crowds near the Brooklyn Public Library main branch and Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial Arch, along with parade marchers on Eastern Parkway. Several slides show the John F. Kennedy Memorial at Grand Army Plaza around the time of its unveiling. Slides of the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens are also included. For more information on this collection please see the finding aid.
Photographs of the Weil-Worgelt apartment
This series of photographs of The Weil-Worgelt present other rooms of the Park Avenue (New York) apartment of Mr. and Mrs. Milton Weil. The Weil-Worgelt study is a period room on view at the Brooklyn Museum.
A series of postcards featuring Brighton Beach Park, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Pratt Institute and Park, Prospect Park, Shore Road, Bay Ridge, and the Soldiers and Sailors Arch at Grand Army Plaza.
Postcard views of Prospect Park and Greenwood Cemetery
This collection of hand-tinted, embossed postcards includes images of the Defenders Arch, Prospect Park, the Memorial Arch, and the entrance to Greenwood Cemetery. The postcards are annotated with handwritten notes.
Ralph Irving Lloyd lantern slides
The Ralph Irving Lloyd lantern slides, spans the period circa 1890 to 1920. The collection consists of (roughly) 400 black-and-white lantern slides, created by Lloyd, that depict 17th, 18th, and 19th century historic houses, homesteads, churches, storefronts, cemeteries and sepulchral monuments (gravestones), and schools in Brooklyn.
Ramus family papers and photographs
The Ramus family papers span between 1836 to 1917 and contain citizenship papers, estate documents, wills, land and property documents, correspondence and ephemera, and genealogical notes. Photographs are of immediate and extended Ramus Family members and span between 1848 and 1910.
.jpg "Brooklynites by adoption, 1949. Schools Collection.")
The more than 1,600 images in this collection from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle document education in the borough from the early 1900s through the 1950s.
The Social Welfare collection of images from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper documents a wealth of philanthropic activity in the borough, from settlement houses to orphanages to animal shelters. The Borough of Churches was also, by extension, a borough of charity organizations, and the collection includes photographs from such faith-based welfare groups as the Salvation Army, the Young Men's Christian Association, and the Brooklyn Hebrew Home and Hospital for the Aged. Youth organizations like the Brownsville Boys Club are also represented in the collection.
These photographs capture the circus performers at Coney Island’s Steeplechase Park, home of the famous Steeplechase Horse Race, for the 1936-1937 season. While we do not know the “Ed” or “Eddie” to whom these photographs are dedicated, we can only speculate about this man who enjoyed the acts. Perhaps they are dedicated to Edward Tilyou, the eldest son of Steeplechase Park’s founder, George C. Tilyou, who became president after his father’s death or maybe someone less glamorous, just some fun seeker named Eddie. Either way, we are thrilled to have this rare collection of images that document, with detail, the amusements of days long past.
.jpg "Eastern Parkway w. of Washington Ave., 1918. Subway Construction collection")
These 303 photographs, both cyanotypes and silver-gelatin prints and from such agencies as the Public Service Commission and the Rapid Transit Railroad Commissioners, show construction of subway lines in downtown Brooklyn, along 4th Avenue, and along the Sea Beach (or N) Line from roughly 1905 - 1918.
These collections of illustrated trade cards from the late 19th and early 20th century are fanciful yet well-designed cards used to promote a wide variety of local products and services. The trade cards represent many Brooklyn firms located on Fulton Street in Downtown Brooklyn such as Lang and Nau Furniture and Upholstery Warehouse, B.M. Cowperthwait & Co. furnishings, Henry Bristow sewing supplies, and Edwin C. Burt & Co.
A collection of 21 photographs of commercial, residential and government buildings, churches, Greenwood Cemetery and one postcard featuring the Brighton Beach Hotel in Coney Island.
William Koch glass plate negatives
![[Two hunters with their game], ca. 1900. William Koch glass plate negatives](sites/default/files/images/koch.jpg "[Two hunters with their game], ca. 1900. William Koch glass plate negatives")
All negatives in the collection are the work of William "Billy" Koch and are presumably set in Brooklyn, N.Y. Images show houses, farms, and street scenes, as well as portraits of groups and individuals outdoors.
