Brooklyn Heights Before the BQE
After a hiatus earlier in the year, blogger Transfer has been cranking away these last couple of weeks. We were interested to see this photo of Brooklyn Heights from 1896–before the BQE ripped through the nabe–that Transfer scanned from Clay Lancaster’s classic book Old Brooklyn Heights. Pre-BQE Heights [Transfer]
After a hiatus earlier in the year, blogger Transfer has been cranking away these last couple of weeks. We were interested to see this photo of Brooklyn Heights from 1896–before the BQE ripped through the nabe–that Transfer scanned from Clay Lancaster’s classic book Old Brooklyn Heights.
Pre-BQE Heights [Transfer]
The tall buildings in the backgroubd are most likely the Hotel Margaret, Columbia Heights and Orange St, which was destroyed by fire in Feb 1980.
By the way, I just found another historic Brooklyn photos site, organized by neighborhood or feature (bridges, trolleys etc).
Brooklyn Heights:
http://brooklynpix.com/catalog5.php?locality_no=1067
“Cobble Hill”:
(which is old gorgeous photos of Smith Street in its prior heyday, despite the area actually being a part of Boerum Hill or Carroll Gardens)
http://brooklynpix.com/catalog4.php?locality_no=1110
Go ahead. Find yer own.
Babs, my guess would be that those tall buildins in the background would be where LICH currently sits, at Atlantic Avenue and Hicks.
The caption reads “A view of Heights from Brooklyn Bridge,” and states that the building on the right is the Fulton Ferry treminal, so it would make sense for the big building to be Eagle Warehouse, I think. And if those tall buildings in the background aren’t actually lower Manhattan, where are they?
Correction:
The pics linked above not the 180-degree opposite view, more like just the very north-west boundary of the Heights, from a bit further up what is now Old Fulton Street back at the bridge and across to Manhattan.
I am guessing that the panoramic photo may have been taken from the roof of the Eagle Warehouse, given the height and angle.
The big building with the sharply-sloped mansard roof tower that occupies the lower right quadrant of the picture is the old Fulton Ferry Terminal house, a gorgeous victorian structure that was later (obviously) torn down.
That’s where you’d go to catch the ferry across to Manhattan, and all the horse carts and light rail started there and fanned out elsewhere into other neighborhoods (the Heights, Fort Greene, Prospect Park etc.)
The building and opening of the Brooklyn Bridge completely changed the nature of commuter and delivery traffic, effectively killing the Fulton Ferry, and so the Fulton Ferry Terminal house ultimately fell into disrepair and was torn down.
Here is the exact opposite view, back across the Heights toward Brooklyn Bridge:
http://www.angelfire.com/fl/mainframeconsole/brooklyn.jpg
an illustrated rendering:
http://iii.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/articles/10072981.1081/1.JPEG
hth
BTW, The Eagle Warhouse is co-ops. I remember when people were marketing it as Brooklyn Heights and others were sniffing that it wasn’t — now they market it as DUMBO and I sniff that it’s not! Of course, DUMBO hadn’t been invented back then.
I’m trying to figure this out too — the view is shot from the Brooklyn Bridge, so it would make sense for that big buiding to be the Eagle Warehouse. But doesn’t the BQE come out above the Eagle Warehouse (meaning further east)? So the BQE would actually kind of swoop through the middle of the picture and out to the left of the Eagle Warehouse (although not really seen, because it does go under the promenade and then around, so all you’d really see is a hole where there are brownstones in the picture)? I think those big buildings in the background are actually Manhattan.
It looks to us like the big building on the left is the old storage warehouse on Old Fulton Street that is now condos. Therefore, we’d bet that the BQE would now be in the foreground of this picture.