History
The Wildest Arbor Day for 100 Years
The New York Public Library's Digital Gallery brings all the joys of browsing the Mid-Manhattan picture collection right to your screen, without the subway ride or shelves of un-hyperlinked manila folders.
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Thirteen NY Films Ridgewood Reservoir
It's been a while since we enjoyed the woodsy seclusion of Ridgewood Reservoir, and it's easy to forget that it's right up there on the hill... -
Stone Fights and Typhoid in Old Ridgewood
In 1959 the Ridgewood Times (now the Times Newsweekly) marked its 50th anniversary with a series of nostalgic columns by the paper's 77-year-old founder... -
Old Farmer Onderdonk's Agrarian Ridgewood
Two acres of the early Bushwick-Newtown frontier does survive between the 99¢ warehouses of Flushing Av, and with it the Dutch Onderdonk House. -
Old Postcard Unveils Bushwick's Fit Heyday
The intersection of Bushwick and Gates Ave. is home to a pair of large prewar apartment houses, a monstrous Verizon facility, and, among these giants, a mysterious little nub of an old building that appears so awkwardly out of place...
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In the 60s, Girls Taught Hot Gets the Job
In 1969, Bushwick girls were taught that beauty is the only way a woman can succeed. In an unearthed news clip, the girls work on wigs at La Ritz Beauty Salon at 1245 Broadway... -
From Glaciers to Floods: Touring South Bushwick
Tour-goers walk past old beer brewer’s tombs in the Evergreens Cemetery during a history walk through South Bushwick. -- Photos by Diego Cupolo Early last Saturday morning, a small crowd of people with red noses gathered at Broadway Junction. Each person came prepared, wrapped in heavy layers to fend off the early winter winds, but they still sniffled ... -
South Bushwick, Cemetery Tour This Saturday
Local historian Adam Schwartz is wrapping up his seasonal hat trick of Bushwick walking tours on Saturday and this time he’ll be reaching further back into time than ever before... -
Touring Bushwick's Charred Core
Firemen walk through the remains of a knitting factory on Knickerbocker Avenue after fighting the "All Hands Fire," New York City's biggest fire until Sept. 11, 2001. Though his first attempt got rained out, local historian Adam Schwartz was bestowed with the finest fall conditions imaginable during his second effort to lead a walking tour of central Bushwick this ... -
Central Bushwick Walking Tour this Saturday
He’s at it again! Local historian Adam Schwartz will lead a walking tour through central Bushwick this Saturday, Oct. 17 at 11 a.m. and he invites everyone to come along for a journey back into the days when trolleys rumbled down our streets. -
Capturing the Last Days of a Forgotten Rail Line
A BMT train map from 1925 shows the Myrtle Avenue El running from Metropolitan Avenue to the Brooklyn Bridge. Before the G train, buses and frustrating loops through Manhattan, Bushwick residents got to downtown Brooklyn in rickety wooden carts on the Myrtle Avenue El. Originally built in 1888, the completed line connected Metropolitan ... -
The Explosion That Rocked Bushwick Avenue
Here’s a good throwback article from the Brooklyn Eagle about a factory explosion that killed one man on Bushwick Avenue. Originally published on July, 19 1866... -
Digging Up Remnants of Bushwick's Past
Local Historian Adam Schwartz (in the baseball cap) begins a history tour of Northwest Bushwick in front Life Café on Flushing Avenue. -- Photos by Diego Cupolo From humble Dutch settlers to the roaring fires of the 1970s, Adam Schwartz has been fascinated by Bushwick's turbulent history ever since he started teaching at a local school. He is best ... -
38 Wilson 'at Home in the Neighborhood'
I know many readers hyperventilate at the thought of new condos -- no Bushwicker could possibly afford $250K for an apartment! unfair! -- but the Observer begs to differ... -
Thirty Years Later, Looking Back at 'The Cigar'
Mugshot of Carmine "The Cigar" Galante from 1943. The air was thick and the temperature had already shot up to the upper eighties by noon on Thursday, July 12th, 1979. It was another hot summer day in Brooklyn, as old Italian men played bocce in Bushwick Park and paid little attention to the ... -
