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FASCINATING: 1940 Census Data Reveals Who Lived In Your Digs

By on April 5, 2012 in Census data, Cobble Hill, History, Uncategorized

Ever wondered who was cooking pot roast on your antique stove in 1940? Who hid that stamp beneath the floorboards when you were gutting your Pacific Street coop bedroom? How much that Degraw Street apartment cost to rent 70 years ago? Now’s your chance to find out. In partnership with Archives.com, the U.S. National Archives released Census records from 1940 online on April 2—comprising 3.8 million images scanned from some 4,000 rolls of microfilm.

The website offers access to maps and hand-written info about every known address in all 48 states in the Union, allowing you to find census maps and descriptions to locate an enumeration district, browse census images to locate any household interviewed in the 1940 Census and then save and/or download images. Continue Reading →

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Business Insider Offers Exploration Of ‘South Brooklyn’ Neighborhoods

By on March 11, 2012 in Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, History

A long, luxurious article in Business Insider profiles South Brooklyn’s “BoCoCa” neighborhoods lining Brooklyn Heights: Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens.

The piece, headlined “Gentrification Has Made This Old Brooklyn Neighborhood Unrecognizable,” discusses how these nabes have evolved, with a good deal of history on Cobble Hill’s Smith Street. Continue Reading →

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PortSide New York and Mary A. Whalen Need Help

By on February 19, 2012 in Arts and Entertainment, Maritime

PortSide New York, the non-profit, Red Hook based organization that owns and maintains the historic harbor tanker Mary A. Whalen, which has served as a stage for Puccini’s opera Tabarro and floating folk concerts (see photo), hoped to move to new quarters in Atlantic Basin come this June. PortSide has now been told the space will not be available for some time. This puts the organization in a serious bind, as its present location cannot support the activities PortSide has planned. Details on how you can help are at the PortSide website linked above; you can donate by following a link there. There will also be a public meeting at LICH, conference rooms A and B, next Monday, February 27, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., with a gathering afterward across Atlantic Avenue at Montero’s. Video after the jump. Continue Reading →

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Researching Your Home’s History; Cobble Hill Association Starting Wiki

By on October 18, 2011 in History

CHB pal/historian Francis Morrone spoke last night at a Cobble Hill Association event informing residents on how to research their home and their neighborhood’s history.

Residents were also urged to begin contributing to the Cobble Hill wiki site to add their own facts about the area. Continue Reading →

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Francis Morrone Hosts How to Research Your Home’s History

By on October 12, 2011 in History

This just in from the Cobble Hill Association:

Join us for a discussion with Francis Morrone about how to research the history of a house or other building in Brooklyn. Morrone will discuss some of the nuts and bolts of basic building research, as well as the myriad avenues opened up in recent years by the internet. The web has changed the whole game. For the serious researcher it has not replaced the necessity of consulting physical archives, but it has made stay-at-home research rewarding as never before.

Learn the secrets of the trade from a professional historian.

Time: 7:30 P.M.
Date: Monday, October 17, 2011
Place: Long Island College Hospital, Conference Room A
Enter at main entrance 339 Hicks (at Atlantic)

All members of the public are invited. No admission charge.

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Tall Ship Visits Pier 7 This Weekend

By on August 3, 2011 in Events, Maritime, News

The U.S. Coast Guard training ship Eagle will arrive at Pier 7, at the foot of Atlantic Avenue (just south of Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier 6), this Friday, August 5, at about 9:00 a.m. She will welcome visitors on Friday from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m., on Saturday the 6th from 1:00 to 7:00 p.m., and Sunday the 7th from 10:00 a.m to 7:00 p.m. Thanks to PortSide NewYork for the heads-up.

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Cobble Hill Couple and Kids Helped the Gays Get Married at Borough Hall

By on July 25, 2011 in History

The Wall Street Journal reports that yesterday’s inaugural day of nuptials for same sex couples at Brooklyn Borough Hall had a heart warming (and straight) twist:

WSJ:  But the mood outside clerk’s offices was largely celebratory. Julie Irwin and her husband, Steve Landis, brought their twin 4-year-old daughters from Cobble Hill to the Brooklyn Municipal Building. They offered them as flower girls for marrying couples.

Ms. Irwin said she wanted her daughters to see what she called “the civil rights event of our generation,” and the girls decided it would be fun to pitch in.

“The first thing they said this morning was, ‘Is it time to go to the weddings yet?’” she said.

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Tug and Barge Week Starts at Pier 6

By on July 16, 2011 in Brooklyn Bridge Park, Events, Maritime, Photos

The historic tug Pegasus and Lehigh Valley Barge 79 are berthed at Pier 6, Brooklyn Bridge Park (foot of Atlantic Avenue), ready for the activities scheduled for this weekend and the following week. Information about “Tug and Barge Week” is here. More photos and text follow the jump. Continue Reading →

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East River Ferry Service Starts Today; Rides Free Through June 24

By on June 13, 2011 in Maritime, Transportation

Read about it on BHB.

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BQE Focus of Tonight’s Cobble Hill Association Meeting

By on May 23, 2011 in Cobble Hill, Columbia Street Waterfront, History, Transportation

Tonight’s Cobble Hill Association Annual Meeting, to be held at LICH, Conference Room A (enter at the main entrance, 339 Hicks Street, between Atlantic Avenue and Amity Street) starting at 7:30, will feature presentations on the past–distinguished architectural historian Francis Morrone on the construction of “the ditch” that divides Cobble Hill and the Columbia Street Waterfront–present–an update on plans to reconstruct the triple cantilevered roadway that skirts Brooklyn Heights–and possible future–a look at the BQE Enhancement Study which considers ways to “fix the ditch”–of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. The event is free and open to the public.

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