Images of America: Fort Greene

Posted on 25. Aug, 2010 by David Sokosh in Hill Top Reviews

There is a wonderful new volume in Arcadia Publishing’s “Images of America” series: “Fort Greene”, written by Howard Pitsch; foreword by Paul Palazzo. All of Fort Greene is here – images of the Academy of Music, the Martyrs Monument, the Navy Yard and more, with captions by the author. Those who have enjoyed Pitsch’s distinctive writing style in “The Hill” will find large helpings of it here. If the reader is unfamiliar with Arcadia, they have published thousands of volumes, filled with historic images of important places across America.

I’ve read quite a bit about the history of our neighborhood, but discovered new material in “Fort Greene.” Most of us know General Fowler as that older man standing in Fowler Square. Now we meet a thirty-something Lieutenant Colonel Fowler. He has a similar stance to his portrait in bronze, but here there is a sense of the piercing blue eyes of a living man. I was familiar with the portrait of George Cuyler in Green-Wood Cemetery, but never connected him with his father, Theodore Ledyard Cuyler, the founding pastor of what became the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church. These are connections that bring the past to life. Cuyler Gore Park is now connected to the Presbyterian Church and an amazing headstone in Green-Wood

BAM upper ballroom in an early photograph.

Sometimes when dealing with collections of old snapshots, portraits and group photos, it is difficult to find photographs of artistic merit. It is a breath of fresh air to see images here that can be appreciated for their aesthetic importance.  A favorite is the photograph of cars and trains on trestles near the Brooklyn Bridge.  Roadways swoop off to the left, but are firmly anchored by vertical elements throughout the image. Another shows St. Felix Street in collapse in 1917. The lower portion of the picture reveals a cavern filled with support timbers, divided from the imperiled buildings above by a firm horizontal line.

Booker T. Washington, who spoke at BAM in 1915.

Often, local histories can repeat the mantra “look what we’ve lost,” but here we see what we’ve retained and how we’ve grown. Compiling all of this into an enjoyable volume is a monumental task and Mr. Pitsch is to be congratulated. Whether you are new to the neighborhood, a casual reader or a longtime student of Brooklyn history, there is something in “Fort Greene” for you. Readers can find “Fort Greene” at booksellers in Brooklyn and beyond, but please support this and future endeavors by getting a copy via HistoricFortGreene.org.

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Howard Pitsch has lived in Fort Greene for several decades. He was the president of the Fort Greene Association for several years. He serves on the board of The Hill.

Paul Palazzo, Chair of the Fort Greene Association, has lived in Fort Greene for many years.

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Marianne Moore with Rev. George Licht Knight at the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in the 1960s.

1917 collapse of a subway tunnel at St. Felix Street and Hanson Place.