Brooklyn Then Now

Putting archive and contemporary photographs of the same landmark side-by-side, Brooklyn Then and Now® provides a visual chronicle of the city's pastBrooklyn possesses a rich history and culture. The Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn Dodgers, and Coney Island are icons as well known as Manhattan's skyline. Home to more than two million people, the borough—one of five that comprise New York City—has had many faces over the course of its fascinating history. Just across the East River from Manhattan, Brooklyn is an 81-one-square-mile peninsula that also borders New York Harbor and the Atlantic Ocean. In 1834, Brooklyn became a city in its own right and in the second half of the 19th century, a major center of industry. Its green coastline sprouted tall ships, towering grain terminals, glass and porcelain factories, and massive sugar and oil refineries—some of the largest in the world. Thousands of immigrants— including those from Ireland, Germany, Norway, Italy, Poland, and Russia—poured into the city to work in the factories and refineries. Fueled by shipbuilding and industrial growth, Brooklyn became the nation's third most populous city by the time of the Civil War. It built civic and cultural showpieces, a stately city hall and art museum, and the 526-acre Prospect Park, which rivaled Manhattan's Central Park. But, Brooklyn's city status did not last the century. In 1898, despite fierce opposition from their political leaders, local residents voted by a slim margin to give up their independence and join the great consolidation of boroughs that formed New York City. The new borough maintained its own identity, however, its residents taking pride in calling themselves "Brooklynites," a special breed of New Yorkers. Descendants of 19th-century immigrants keep up the ethnic traditions that have characterized Brooklyn neighborhoods for generations. Brooklyn Then and Now illustrates this vibrant, ever changing borough's transformations.

Brooklyn has seen exponential change over the past fifteen years, and this book presents the best work of the photographers from all over the world who have been capturing those changes and movements in cityscapes, portraits, vignettes, and process-oriented photography. Brooklyn Photographs Now reflects the avant-garde spirit of the city’s hippest borough, containing previously unpublished work by well-known and emerging contemporary artists. The book presents 250 images by more than seventy-five established and new artists, including Mark Seliger, Jamel Shabazz, Ryan McGinley, Mathieu Bitton, and Michael Eastman, among many others. The book documents the physical and architectural landscape and reflects and explores an off-centered—and therefore a less-seen and more innovative—perspective of how artists view this borough in the twenty-first century. This is the “now” Brooklyn that we have yet to see in pictures: what might seem to be an alternative city but is actually the crux of how it visually functions in the present day. This unique collection of images is the perfect book for the photo lover and sophisticated tourist alike.

Pairing historical black-and-white images of notable locations with specially commissioned photographs of the same scenes as they are today, Thunder Bay Press's Then and Now series reveals the fascinating developments and cultural changes that took place. Available in standard and compact editions, this best-selling series makes an ideal souvenir or gift for travelers and locals alike.

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • A complusively readable riff on the classic detective novel from America's most inventive novelist. "A half-satirical cross between a literary novel and a hard-boiled crime story narrated by an amateur detective with Tourette's syndrome.... The dialogue crackles with caustic hilarity.... Unexpectedly moving." —The Boston Globe Brooklyn's very own self-appointed Human Freakshow, Lionel Essrog is an orphan whose Tourettic impulses drive him to bark, count, and rip apart our language in startling and original ways. Together with three veterans of the St. Vincent's Home for Boys, he works for small-time mobster Frank Minna's limo service cum detective agency. Life without Frank Minna, the charismatic King of Brooklyn, would be unimaginable, so who cares if the tasks he sets them are, well, not exactly legal. But when Frank is fatally stabbed, one of Lionel's colleagues lands in jail, the other two vie for his position, and the victim's widow skips town. Lionel's world is suddenly topsy-turvy, and this outcast who has trouble even conversing attempts to untangle the threads of the case while trying to keep the words straight in his head. Motherless Brooklyn is a brilliantly original, captivating homage to the classic detective novel by one of the most acclaimed writers of his generation.

An injury at birth left Audrey with a wandering eye. Though flawed, the bad eye functions well enough to permit her an idiosyncratic view of the world, one she welcomes in the stifling postwar Brooklyn of the 1950s. During a journey to Manhattan to see a doctor about her sight, she begins to explore the sexual rites of adulthood. But can her romance last? In this beautifully observed novel, Lynne Sharon Schwartz raises themes of innocence and escape while illuminating the rich inner life of a singular girl.

Featured in The New York Times Book Review Only a few decades ago, the Brooklyn stereotype well known to Americans was typified by television programs such as “The Honeymooners” and “Welcome Back, Kotter”—comedies about working-class sensibilities, deprivation, and struggles. Today, the borough across the East River from Manhattan is home to trendsetters, celebrities, and enough “1 percenters” to draw the Occupy Wall Street protests across the Brooklyn Bridge. “Tres Brooklyn,” has become a compliment among gourmands in Parisian restaurants. In The New Brooklyn, Kay Hymowitz chronicles the dramatic transformation of the once crumbling borough. Devoting separate chapters to Park Slope, Williamsburg, Bed Stuy and the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Hymowitz identifies the government policies and young, educated white and black middle class enclaves responsible for creating thousands of new businesses, safe and lively streets, and one of the most desirable urban environments in the world. Exploring Brownsville, the growing Chinatown of Sunset Park, and Caribbean Canarsie, Hymowitz also wrestles with the question of whether the borough’s new wealth can lift up long disadvantaged minorities, and the current generation of immigrants, many of whom will need more skills than their predecessors to thrive in a postindustrial economy. The New Brooklyn’s portraits of dramatic urban transformation, and its sometimes controversial effects, offers prescriptions relevant to “phoenix” cities coming back to life across the United States and beyond its borders.

Experience the old farming days of what was once the agricultural community of Gravesend, Brooklyn and how the town has transformed into the urban neighborhood it is today. Permanently settled in 1645, the farming town of Gravesend, Long Island, was annexed to the city (now borough) of Brooklyn, New York, in 1894. Few reminders from Gravesend's rural days survive around the urban landscape it has become. Even its more recent past is quickly disappearing.

Permanently settled in 1645, the farming town of Gravesend, Long Island, was annexed to the city (now borough) of Brooklyn, New York, in 1894. Few reminders from Gravesend's rural days survive around the urban landscape it has become. Even its more recent past is quickly disappearing.

A photographic look into the world of vinyl record collectors—including Questlove—in the most intimate of environments—their record rooms. Compelling photographic essays from photographer Eilon Paz are paired with in-depth and insightful interviews to illustrate what motivates these collectors to keep digging for more records. The reader gets an up close and personal look at a variety of well-known vinyl champions, including Gilles Peterson and King Britt, as well as a glimpse into the collections of known and unknown DJs, producers, record dealers, and everyday enthusiasts. Driven by his love for vinyl records, Paz takes us on a five-year journey unearthing the very soul of the vinyl community.