Brooklyn Museum Flickr

Prospect Park, Brooklyn, December 1880

The Brooklyn Museum has an amazing collection of photos from the late 1800s and early 1900s on their Flickr. I've been spending at least an hour looking through all of them. It's really amazing to think about Brooklyn (and New York City in general) as farmland with dirt roads and sheep roaming Prospect Park, but that's the way it was.

I'm currently reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which takes place during the first two decades of the 1900s. I like looking at some of these photos and knowing that it's probably what Francie Nolan saw while growing up in Williamsburg. By the way, if you live in Brooklyn then you MUST read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. It's amazing and so great to read about street names and neighborhoods that I've lived and walked in. Williamsburg, Greenpoint and Bushwick (which I think used to be part of Williamsburg back then) are so different now, but the fact that Graham Ave. was always Graham Ave. and that McCarren Park is still around really brings you into the book. I only have 100 pages left, and I will be sad when it ends.

Anyway, here are a few of my favorites. I especially love the ones of Coney Island back in it's hay-day.

Blizzard of March 1888, Brooklyn, ca. 1888

Sheep, Prospect Park, Brooklyn, ca. 1872-1887

Buffalo (Mike), Prospect Park, Brooklyn, ca. 1899-1909

Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn, ca. 1872-1887

[Untitled], ca. 1888

Elephant, Coney Island, Brooklyn, ca. 1885

Beach at Coney Island, Brooklyn, ca. 1888

Luna Park, 1906

Ferris Wheel, Coney Island, 1910

Dreamland, 1908

Cables and Iron Cow, Coney Island, Brooklyn, ca. 1872-1887

Luna Park and Surf Avenue, Coney Island, 1912

Luna Park, 1908

Neck Road at Conover's near Avenue V, Gravesend, Brooklyn, October 1899

Hunt's Lane, Ralph and Marshall, Rustic Gable, Foot 62nd Street, Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, ca. 1899-1909

Brooklyn Museum, Prospect Park, Brooklyn, ca. 1903-1910

Brooklyn Bridge, Looking East, New York City Side, July 7, 1899