"Historic Photos Of Brooklyn": A Must Have For Brooklyn Lovers

Grand Army Plaza in the early 1900's sans library and houses.
Brooklyn Museum is in the distance

Brooklyn Heights Promenade in the 1950's

Looking North on Court Street in 1942

There are three things Ms. Pardon Me is passionate about: history, photographs and Brooklyn. Combine the three, and this blogger is in heaven.
"Historic Photos Of Brooklyn" is a wonderful new book by John B. Manbeck, who was the Brooklyn Borough Historian between 1993 and 2002. He writes the "Historically Speaking" column for the Brooklyn Eagle and served as a consultant for the PBS production on Coney Island.
Compiling the most wonderful historical photos from several archives including the Library of Congress' and the Brooklyn Public library's, Manbeck delves into Brooklyn's past from 1852 through 1982. The photographs tell the story of how Brooklyn grew and matured. Manbeck's captions provide wonderful details and background information. Yes, the book includes great shots of landmarks and streetscapes, but included are also amazing photos of factory workers, school children and visitors to Coney Island. Most are very touching and truly beautiful. The book is published by Turner Publishing. Here is the book's description on their site.

Brooklyn, a magical name, both fantasy and enigma. Yet despite its reputation, Brooklyn consists of provincial, suburban neighborhoods, a small town. For over 300 years, Brooklyn suffered growing pains; but throughout, it offered hospitality, jobs, and recreation, as the photographs in this volume show. So millions crossed the East River and worked hard to build a city.

Brooklyn’s image grew and took hold: the sounds of the streets and factories, the heroism, the loyalty, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Brooklyn Dodgers. Historic Photos of Brooklyn shows how Brooklyn’s pride has traveled from decade to decade, and with this continuity, how Brooklyn has matured, building farmhouses, frame houses, skyscrapers, classrooms, brownstones, libraries, mom and pop stores, department stores, restaurants, theaters, ships, elevated trains, airplanes. Today’s residents carry on a tradition started centuries ago and highlighted in Historic Photos of Brooklyn.

I have spent a few hours already enjoying the book. So get yourself a copy. If you love Brooklyn, this one should be part of your library.

You can buy it directly from Turner Publishing here.

For Home Page, click Pardon Me For Asking

Read More

Forgotten Brooklyn Literary Masterpiece: "Tough Kid From Brooklyn"

From 1956, may I present: "Tough Kid From Brooklyn ( Spit And The Stars)" by author Robert Mende?
Surely, a book with such an attractive title just begs to be read!

How could anyone resist the intense Brooklyn drama of tough guy Gregg and his dame Dinah?

"No One On Banner Street Could Break the Stranglehold That Bound Them To Poverty And Vice. Gregg Watched The Guy drop then turned. Another mug was beating a gal who had no face, just blood- it was Dinah, his Dinah! Gregg had to win, had to lift himself and his girl out of the brutality and degradation around them before it was too late..."

There are still some rare copies floating around on the internet... If you are lucky to own one of them, could I please borrow it? I simply must find out if Gregg and Dinah ever broke free of the poverty and vice and moved to a split level house on Long Island!



For Home Page, click Pardon Me For Asking

Read More

A Delightfully Old Fashioned Law Office On Smith

107 Smith Street

Now I know that you have passed this law office many a time, right?
Me too!
Have you ever taken a close look at the cool little drawings in the windows?
Faded ink caricatures on yellowed paper, propped up on little wooden easels.
How long do you suppose they have been adorning the window?

For Home Page, click Pardon Me For Asking

Read More

A Blogger Girl's Wish For 2008

Believe me, that was a happy age, before the days of architects,
before the days of builders
Seneca


Awaiting Its fate: The 360 Smith Street Site

Soon to change forever: 340 Court Street

The Hunchback of 333 Carroll Street

Still Visible: Big sky over the Public Place site

What will 2008 bring to Carroll Gardens? Change! And lots of it. One may argue that change is good. No doubt! But to bring change about without improving what it is you are changing is a wasted opportunity. For 2008, I wish that developers and architects planning to build in this lovely neighborhood realize that they are not creating in a vacuum, but rather in a context.
Their egos and their profits should have to take a back seat to what is good for the neighborhood.
A Blogger girl can dream, can't she?

It is not the houses. It is the spaces between the houses. It is not the streets that exist. It is the streets that no longer exist. - James Fenton


The job of buildings is to improve human relations: architecture must ease them, not make them worse. Ralph Erskine

For Home Page, click Pardon Me For Asking

Read More

Great Brooklyn Read: Hard-Boiled Brooklyn

My friend Lois gave me a copy of "Hard Boiled In Brooklyn," a collection of short stories about what else? Brooklyn.
Edited by Reed Farrel Coleman, these vignettes about the borough, its people and its unique culture are incredible gems and I have had a blast reading them. The common thread in the stories is of course that they are all taking place in this borough. But as Farrel writes in his intro, there is more to it. There is a rawness, a toughness about these characters that is unique to Brooklynites. As Reed Farrel Coleman writes:
"The very soul of Brooklynites is hard-boiled. You may be born soft or move to the borough soft,but you don't stay soft for long. Brooklyn is like a third parent, the tough-love one, the one who gives you the truth about how things really are, and not the way they should be. You don't adopt Brooklyn, Brooklyn adopts you. You can't live in the place very long and remain unchanged. Sorry, it just don't work that way. You can crack our shells, but nthing runs out. See, that's what I am saying."

Read More

John Irving On The Subway

Back and forth, back and forth to Manhattan to work on that little studio apartment. Of course it is taking much longer than I thought. I am kind of under the gun because College Daugher is finished with her finals tomorrow and has to move out of her dorm by the end of the week. We could just move her back here to Brooklyn for a few days of course. But nah! I don't relish the idea of bringing her stuff here just to schlepp it back to Manhattan.
What does all of this have to do with John Irving? I have been catching up on my reading on the subway. John Irving's " Widow For A Day" has me wishing that my ride would take longer. It's that good. Great literature? Well, no. But so moving that I am sitting on the train fighting back tears.
Years ago, when I was a teenager, my mother gave me Irving's "The World According To Garp" to read. It had just come out and it was on the bestseller list at the time. I loved it. It is still one of my favorite books. "Widow" is almost as good. Some passages are simply heartbreaking. The subject of loss, of regrets, of growing up...the choices we make which define our lives...Irving is a master at story telling. Insignificant details on one page are woven in so subtly that they take the reader by surprise when they reappear pages later to become a turning point in the novel. Maybe Irving just plays off my own deep rooted fear that the small things are the catalysts that change one's life forever. (Yes, I do sweat the small stuff, compulsively)
I am already regretting the fac that this book has to end.

Read More

The Great Teacher!

pictured: Mary Gordon

Below is an interview by N.P.R's Leonard Lopate with the three finalists of the Story Prize, a prize handed out for best story writing.
Rick Bass, Mary Gordon, and George Saunders talk with Lopate about their work and the craft of short story writing.
Mary Gordon is my daughter's creative writing professor at college. After listening to her speak in this interview, I know why, as a young writer herself, C. is so tremendously inspired by Gordon. Incidentally, Gordon was the winner of the Story Prize.

Read More

Recent Great Reads

Before the March 9th opening of the movie "The Namesake" which is based on Jhumpa Lahiri's book of the same name, I urge everyone to read the original.
Yes, I may be partial to Lahiri . Not only is she a fellow Brooklyn resident, she is also an active opponent of the Atlantic Yards project (see below) and a Barnard Graduate. Most importantly, her writing is achingly beautiful. " The Namesake" is the story of two generations of the Ganguli family and their transition from Calcutta to Cambridge, Massachusetts. It's the classic story of immigration and assimilation.
Though this story is about an Indian family, it is my story too. Elegantly written, ever so restrained, Lahiri perfectly invokes the sense of loss the newcomer feels, the desperate attempt to hold on to one's culture and customs and what happens to the next generation which tries so hard to be American, just to realize that it will forever be a blend of two cultures.
I don't know how good the movie is. I am not even sure I want to see it for fear that it will rob me of the image I made myself of the characters. I can only suggest that you read this little gem yourself.
To read a passage of the book, follow this link:
http://hinduism.about.com/library/weekly/extra/bl-namesake.htm

Read More