Dances were a way for young people to meet, and included outdoor events in gardens and taverns, called “germans” or cotillions, when held in private homes. In the 1880s organized dances called Junior Assemblies, Cinderella Balls and Bachelors Balls were held. Clubs often sponsored these events, and Dr. Charles Shephard’s Turkish Bath, America’s first, on Cranberry and […]
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BHS Features Death Tonight, Beer Tomorrow
This evening (Wednesday, June 22), starting at 6:30, the Brooklyn Historical Society, 128 Pierrepont Street (corner of Clinton), will present a panel discussion on “Brooklyn Cemeteries: Past and Present”, featuring the presidents of Green-Wood and Evergreens cemeteries and the authors of books about the histories of these two significant burial grounds. Admission is free with […]
Brooklyn Heights History: Baseball 1840-1958
As part of urban renewal, the Mechanics Bank Building on the northwest corner of Fulton and Montague Streets, which had housed the Brooklyn Dodgers’ front office, was razed in 1958. History was made in that building with the signing of Jackie Robinson by General Manager Branch Rickey in 1947. The bank itself had been absorbed […]
Mr. J’s Tribute to Nabeguy
Karl takes his cam to the residence of Phillip Wilentz, known to all of us as “nabeguy” (and to Homer as our uber-poster) who, with his wife and daughter, will soon be moving to the further reaches of Long Island. Along with nabeguy’s reflections on his 54 years of life in Brooklyn Heights, and some […]
Brooklyn Heights History: Slavery and Abolition
The Heights was farms until the early nineteenth century, and the Dutch and British owners used slave labor there, as they did throughout Kings County. This is indicated by the fact that of the county’s population of 4,500 in the first U.S. census of 1790, one-third, or 1,500, were slaves. Bondage ended in Brooklyn in 1825, two […]
Brooklyn Heights History: Clubs
Another feature of wealthy nineteenth century areas was club life. It was de rigueur for men to join at least one as a home away from home. Most are now gone. The only one surviving in the Heights, the Heights Casino, still functions because it is a sports club. The first was the Long Island […]
Brooklyn Heights History: Phillip Livingston
Philip Livingston was a Manhattan lawyer, businessman and slave trader and his house on the Heights was his “farm” or country house from 1765 until his exile and death. He had purchased the land in 1750 from the Remsens. Livingston headed the “Low Church Party” in America and his Manhattan mansion was a patriot headquarters. […]
Brooklyn Heights History: The Glass Works
One of the largest employers in the Heights was photographic equipment manufacturer F. Wesel Manufacturing. The magazine the Inland Printer and Lithographer reported in 1901 that the business was founded by German immigrant Ferdinand Wesel in Manhattan in 1880.
Heights History: Gladys Darwin James
An associate of Mayor Low’s was Darwin R. James (Figure 183), father-in-law of Underwood Typewriter heiress Gladys Darwin James who advocated for the construction of the Brooklyn Heights Esplanade in the 1940s and endowed local uplift efforts. He helped organize the Brooklyn Bureau of Charities, the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor and […]
Heights History: Alfred T. White
During the Victorian era many wealthy people felt a religious obligation to aid the poor through privately organized uplift projects. Alfred Tredway White (1846-1921), a cousin of Seth Low the Younger, was the Heights’ greatest philanthropist and community activist. In 1880 he moved out of his father Alexander’s house at 2 Pierrepont Place into 40 […]
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