[Image courtesy of New York Public Library] This is identified simply as “Brooklyn Winter Scene, 1817-1820.” It doesn’t identify any neighborhood and there are not any landmarks that can be identified except that it appears to be a little hilly.

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[Photo courtesy of New York Public Library] Here’s an aerial view of Greenpoint in 1929, looking south toward Williamsburg.

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[Image courtesy New York Public Library] This is a view of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenue, circa 1916, from Hanson Place. The building on the left would be the old railroad station.

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[Photo courtesy of the New York Public Library] Court and Montague Streets circa 1927.

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[Image Courtesy of New York Public Library] This is 33 Flatbush Avenue on September 8, 1936.

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The caption on the photo says: “George Howard Lockwood & Mary Werrbach – Thanksgiving in Brooklyn, 1945.”

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[Photo courtesy of New York Pubic Library] This is Fulton Street during a snow on January 21, 1978 in the good, old pre-tourismo days.

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[Photo courtesy of New York Public Library] This is the Gowanus Canal and Smith-9th Street Station on January 21, 1978 with a bit of snow on the ground.

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[Photos courtesy of New York Public Library] These are photos of what is described as a “squatters colony” in Gowanus in and around our favorite canal taken during the 1920s and 1930s according to the photos. An interesting little bit of local historical background for sure.

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[Photo courtesy of New York Public Library] You know the sort of scary-looking grain terminal in Red Hook on Gowanus Bay? This is what it used to look like back when it was in operation. The photo is undated, so it’s unclear when this was.

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[Photo courtesy of New York Public Library] This is a photo showing “social conditions” in Red Hook via the state of some of the housing stock in the 1930s. We could swear we recognize one or two of those buildings.

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[Photo courtesy of New York Public Library] This is Brighton Beach Avenue at Hoff Street back in the Roaring Twenties, specifically 1927.

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[Photo courtesy NY Public Library] Oh, Coney Island, which has been through so many changes and incarnations. Here’s a view of Surf Avenue circa 1917.

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[Photo courtesy of New York Public Library] This is Metropolitan and Graham Avenues in Williamsburg as they looked in 1937. A little different than now, no?

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[Photo courtesy New York Public Library] We return to our long dormant Brooklyn Back in the Day series of pics of our borough way back when with this 1909 shot of the Williamsburg Bridge Plaza. There are one or two recognizable landmarks.

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[Photo courtesy Brooklyn Botanic Garden] This is, per the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s photo archive the “Gowanus Canal Children’s Garden, 1920, supervised by BBG graduate, A. J. Boylan of 1914 class.” We take no credit for locating this. That goes to Brenda Becker, who produces the always engaging and wonderful A Year in the Park blog. […]

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Here’s what Downtown Brooklyn looked like fifty years ago, as we’re feeling in an historic mood today.

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This is the Williamsburg waterfront fifty years ago, captured by photographer Jerry Dantzic in 1958. These were local kids making a raft under the Williamsburg Bridge. The photo comes from the Jerry Dantzic Archives.

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This is the corner of Bedford Avenue and N. 9 Street in Williamsburg and the business that was once there. This postcard came from an older gentleman who has purchased it and who walked up to the corner to compare it with the current view (below).

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[Photo courtesy of galvarez51/GL Flickr Pool] Today, this is a Nathan’s outpost and Cha Cha’s. Shoot the Freak would be to the right. Old timers still look at the building on the Coney Boardwalk and call it The Atlantis.

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[Photo courtesy of galvarez51/GL Flickr Pool] There are many pics around of the Thunderbolt, which sat in a glorious state of decay in Coney Island for many years (until demolition crews dispatched by the Giuliani Administration showed up to tear it down without warning). We are always fascinated when we come across them and this […]

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[AP Photo courtesy of Coney Island History Project] We return to our Brooklyn Back in the Day series of historic Brooklyn photos with one that is entirely appropriate to July 4. This is a photo from the Coney Island History Project–whose website is worth checking out and whose facility on Surf Avenue under the Cylcone […]

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We’ve seen this image of a bucolic Gowanus Bay before, but we’re taken by it when we clicked over to the Ephemeral New York post courtesy of a Brownstoner link yesterday evening. ENY says it’s “An 1851 oil painting by Australian artist Henry Gritten. The full title is ‘Sun Set at Gowanus Bay in the […]

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We bring back our old Brooklyn Back in the Day series for this cool, cool photo of the Coney Island Boardwalk and Childs Restaurant a long time ago. The full size photo is worth looking at and it was uploaded to flickr by blackoutny. It’s especially fascinating to see some of the buildings that once […]

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There is nothing like a faded, old Fallout Shelter sign to bring back memories of the optimistic days in the 1950s when the government encouraged people to think they could survive thermo nuclear war by hiding in a basement on Bergen Street near Fifth Avenue, eating food without expiration dates and drinking from barrels of […]

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