This portrait depicts Eliza J. Lefferts (1831-1867), a member of one of Kings County’s oldest and most powerful families. Eliza was born in Bedford Corners (part of present-day Bedford Stuyvesant). At the age of twenty, she moved a mile south to Flatbush when she married her cousin John Lefferts (1826-1895), heir to the Lefferts family homestead. Eliza spent much of her adult life pregnant: she gave birth to six children between 1852 and 1860. In 1867, after a short illness, Eliza passed away. Her death was particularly difficult for her sister-in-law, Gertrude Lefferts Vanderbilt, who lived across the street and who had lost her mother only two years earlier. In a family history she composed for Eliza’s children, Gertrude wrote, “Every effort to renew her strength proved unavailing, and she died in 1867, greatly beloved and lamented.”
This month’s featured map depicts the New York City subway system in 1955. Published by the Union Dime Savings Bank, the map shows various subway lines, stations, and sites of free transfer. Another interesting feature of the map is that it advertises banking by mail, calling it “the quickest and easiest way to open an account.”
You can view the BHS map collection anytime during the library’s open hours, Wed.-Fri., from 1-5 p.m. No appointment is necessary to view most maps.
Some photographic exploration this afternoon involved shooting breaking bottles and a water-filled Brooklyn Brown made it into the mix. Just thought you’d like to see. Forthcoming bottle sessions to be much more refined and legit.
The end of November also marks the beginning of the holiday window displays in New York. This photograph captures an elaborate window display, which appears to be made entirely out of handkerchiefs, at Abraham & Straus department store. The ornate building, located at 422 Fulton Street, became the flagship location of A&S in 1885, and is now a Macy’s store. The three-story arch that once formed the entrance to the building has since been filled in, but other original art deco details are still visible.
In addition to this photograph, BHS has an archival collection about Abraham & Straus from 1865 to 1995. The majority of the items date from 1964 and 1965 and were compiled by Abraham & Straus employee Juli Daves in preparation for the store’s centennial celebration. These items include newsletters, a history of Abraham & Straus, news clippings, and correspondence between Juli Daves and Mrs. Kenn Stryker-Rodda, Archivist at the Long Island Historical Society (later the Brooklyn Historical Society), regarding research for the centennial. Other materials in the collection include store directories, souvenir shopping bags, employee newsletters, various printed ephemera, and a catalog dating from 1886, when the store was known as Wechsler & Abraham.
This image showing a Thanksgiving spread at Emmanuel House is one of eighty-seven lantern slides in BHS’s Emmanuel House lantern slide collection, circa 1910-1914. Emmanuel House was located at 131 Steuben Street, near Pratt Institute in the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn. According to the 1897 Brooklyn Daily Eagle Almanac, “it was maintained by the Young Men’s League of Emmanuel Baptist Church [and] has reading rooms, game rooms, a gymnasium, and bowling alleys for boys; and free sewing school and kindergarten classes for girls.”
“I did not expect Brooklyn to have so nice beer,” said Saskia Bosch, the gorgeous blonde sitting beside me, IPA in hand. It’s true, I thought, bringing beer to Germany makes about as much sense as bringing sand to the beach. But yet, somehow, Marc Rauschmann of Die Internationale Brau-Manufacturen importers managed to bring a dimpled smile to Saskia and about 200 other Berliner’s faces last Thursday evening with generous helpings of India Pale Ale and Local 1 & 2.
The occasion for all of this beer-drinking was Slideluck Potshow’s fourth installment in Berlin. The show was produced by photographer Britney Anne Majure and it took place at .HBC which was the former Hungarian Cultural Center and sits across the street from Alexanderplatz and the iconic TV tower.
The next time you drive on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway (BQE) through Brooklyn Heights, imagine what it looked like before there was a BQE. This photograph was taken by John Jay Pierrepont, son of Henry Evelyn and Anna Maria Pierrepont. John and his brother (Henry Evelyn II) lived in Brooklyn Heights and took over Pierrepont Stores, the family’s shipping storage business along the Brooklyn waterfront. In 1879 when this photograph was taken, it would have been very convenient for the brothers to descend the stairs from the backyard of 1 Pierrepont Place, where John resided, toward the offices of the Pierrepont Stores.
Many of the properties along Pierrepont Place enjoyed this aesthetically pleasing and direct route to the water until the BQE was built at the proposal of Robert Moses. After a grueling, public debate, the twentieth-century residents of Brooklyn Heights were able to strike a compromise that eliminated the backyards on Pierrepont Place and installed the Brooklyn Heights Promenade to accommodate the BQE running below instead of criss-crossing the historic neighborhood.
Incidentally, John Jay was also an amateur photographer who chronicled the progress being made on the Brooklyn Bridge and many other waterfront scenes. He was the treasurer for the Long Island Historical Society (now the Brooklyn Historical Society) and a member of the Committee on Brooklyn History.
The next time you drive on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway (BQE) through Brooklyn Heights, imagine what it looked like before there was a BQE. This photograph was taken by John Jay Pierrepont, son of Henry Evelyn and Anna Maria Pierrepont. John and his brother (Henry Evelyn II) lived in Brooklyn Heights and took over Pierrepont Stores, the family’s shipping storage business along the Brooklyn waterfront. In 1879 when this photograph was taken, it would have been very convenient for the brothers to descend the stairs from the backyard of 1 Pierrepont Place, where John resided, toward the offices of the Pierrepont Stores.
Many of the properties along Pierrepont Place enjoyed this aesthetically pleasing and direct route to the water until the BQE was built at the proposal of Robert Moses. After a grueling, public debate, the twentieth-century residents of Brooklyn Heights were able to strike a compromise that eliminated the backyards on Pierrepont Place and installed the Brooklyn Heights Promenade to accommodate the BQE running below instead of criss-crossing the historic neighborhood.
Incidentally, John Jay was also an amateur photographer who chronicled the progress being made on the Brooklyn Bridge and many other waterfront scenes. He was the treasurer for the Long Island Historical Society (now the Brooklyn Historical Society) and a member of the Committee on Brooklyn History.
Slideluck Potshow put its best foot forward Wednesday night with the 2nd Annual SLIDELUCK Fundraiser & Auction. Monday last we returned to Chinatown after a great success at FotoWeek DC, and in a few short days and near-sleepless nights, the NYC Slideluck Team rallied to transform Sandbox Studios into a compelling gallery space, and was prepared to put DC back in its place as a cultural runner-up.
For the second year in a row, Ryan Jones worked tirelessly to produce the fundraiser. After all the labor she put into Slideluck, Ryan went into another kind of labor last Friday – this year, Ryan not only produced SLIDELUCK, but also, a human being. Five days before the auction (and more than a week early) Ryan brought Scarlet Jones Ouvaroff into the world – we were personally hoping she’d name her firstborn Slideluck, but we’ll settle for her hard work and dedication. Like a true partner, Ryan’s husband, Caspar Ouvaroff, stepped up to curate and install all 60 pieces in the show with yours truly, and with his massive, 6’7” frame, made an appearance at the event large enough for both his lovely bride and newborn child. A huge thank you and congratulations goes out to the growing Ouvaroff clan.
Guests arrived for the VIP reception and sipped on some of Brooklyn’s finest brews – the Local 1 and 2 – while having a first taste of Co-Host Rikrit Tiravanija’s Thai curry pizza – a preview of the curry lunches he will be serving at MoMA as part of an installation beginning next week. Morton, the WhistlePig Rye Whiskey brand ambassador, a house-trained potbelly pig, stole the first part of the show. He demonstrated the virtues that earn potbelly pigs a top-five slot in animal intelligence. As I sat at my desk on Thursday morning, preparing to make an argument for purchasing a floor pig for my office, I learned some fun facts, namely: that pigs can have their feelings hurt. This confirmed my suspicion that only Morton truly grasped the irony of partygoers tossing him dog treats, while munching on crostini with braised Mini Mac Farm pork shoulder, Alstede Farms Winesap apple and local shallot chutney.
Early in the evening, I had the delight of meeting the Co-Host, Jessica Craig-Martin, an esteemed events-turned-art photographer. When prompted by the event’s producer and her former student, Carly Planker, to comment on my attempted mustache, Ms. Craig-Martin replied, “I am a person who generally has a complaint about everything, and I have no complaint about that moustache.” Take that, Mom.
Ms. Craig-Martin used the silent auction as an opportunity to collect some beautiful work. One piece, a photograph by Dolly Faibyshev, featured a detail of a woman and her hound from their least flattering angle, as though Ms. Craig Martin had been asked to cover the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show herself. The second piece she purchased was a photograph by Ruben Natal-San Miguel featuring a woman of questionable employ on the street in Harlem with bedazzled “$” earrings – no less ostentatious than her usual upper-crust subjects.
As the evening progressed, a powerful speech from SLPS Founder and Director Casey Kelbaugh, followed by an uplifting video, brought everyone back to the roots of Slideluck Potshow – an idea idea that began in Casey’s Seattle backyard 11 years ago. A short film about the Slideluck Youth Initiative, one of evening’s primary beneficiaries, concluded with Casey issuing a challenge for the organization to “change the world through photography”. The candor in Casey’s voice gave the audience the impression that they were either with him or against him, and I knew where I fell if I expected another sweet, sweet Brooklyn Lager.
Following an exhilarating live auction of works by Spencer Tunick, Ines Esnal, Barton Lidice Benes and others presented by Sotheby’s Courtney Booth, attendees cautiously guarded their favorite pieces by artists such as Shepard Fairey, Joseph La Piana, Jen Davis and Julie Blackmon in the ongoing silent auction – providing no shortage of micro-narratives fueled by bidding wars. I watched on as two such silent showdowns unfold on pieces book-ending a wall of larger works. The pieces happened to compliment each other quite well, both in watercolor, one a mustache, the other a series of, well, upskirts. Artist John Gordon Gauld contributed the mustache piece from a collection of work done for Bergdorf’s, the upskirts were done by Rosalie Stone Morris – both of whom left arm-in-arm before bidding closed, weary of the melodrama, for some late night karaoke. Thanks guys.
With no shortage of chocolate bark covered in inventive toppings to munch on, prepared by Dave Gould at the Highlands Supper Club, the silent auction wrapped. Men in suits left with art in boxes. Women in cocktail dresses left with men in suits. And the rest of us? Well, we stayed and swilled the remaining Pennant Ale in true Slideluck fashion, until Carly kicked us out. Next stop? Berlin. Dare we bring some Chocolate Stout to the land of Bier? I hope so.
“I just wanted to share this picture of a wedding cake I created with Brooklyn Brewery beer labels. Some of my friends are huge fans of your beer and they encouraged me (I own a wedding cake business) to do a DIY wedding cake that involved Brooklyn Brewery beer for my blog. There’s also a video tutorial for the cake on my blog.”
Eliza J. Lefferts, circa 1850s-1860s; Lefferts family papers, ARC.145, box 5, folder 8; Brooklyn Historical Society.
Map of the New York City subway system. 1955. Brooklyn Historical Society Map Collection. Click 
- Facebook
- Twitter
Sign Up for OurNewsletter