“Historic Photos of Brooklyn” Text and captions by John B. Manbeck,

“Historic Photos of Brooklyn” Text and captions by John B. Manbeck

“Historic Photos of Brooklyn”, with text and captions by John B. Manbeck is an extraordinary piece of historical documentation which will hold Brooklyn aficionados and scholars alike spellbound.

Turner Publishing has issued this important pictorial collection of historical images drawn from the archives of the Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn Public Library-Brooklyn Collection, Kingsborough Historical Society, Library of Congress, New York State Archives, the author’s personal collection of Brooklyn sources as well as a very modern resource, the Internet.

This well chosen collection of photographs draws back the curtains of history onto grand vistas of a rising industrialized modern city with gleaming Victorian architecture, bustling thoroughfares teeming with carriages, trolleys and Brooklynites vigorously engaged in work and play.

Many of the striking images clearly convey an impression of a robust and dynamic city, which was never a place for the faint of heart, yet combined refined gentility with gritty resilience and a knowing sophistication.

With photographs spanning the mid-1850’s to the early 1960’s, ‘Historic Photos of Brooklyn’ is an important piece of visual history that clearly conveys the fast-moving pace of Brooklyn’s development and the character of the people of Brooklyn through changing times.


The Bay Ridge house photographed in the late 1800's stood near Densye Ferry.


Brooklyn pedestrians (possibly South Brooklyn).