76 Van Dyke Street Clay retorts and fire bricks were essential in allowing gas to burn as a light source, a new innovation in the mid-1800s. Prior to gas, candles and oil lamps were the only artificial light sources. Fire bricks are used to line...

John Gladsky is the definition of a colorful old salt.  He is a marine salvor and the principal of Gladsky Marine and has an old-time Long Island accent. His oral history expresses nostalgia for the Todd Shipyard and criticism of public policy that...

Columbia Street, east side, north of Kane Street from No. 105 Columbia St. October 11, 1934. P. L. Sperr.

Street address: Columbia Street & Kane Street, Brooklyn, NY

Columbia Street, west side, north of Verona Street. At the left is seen the American Can Co. on Dwight Street, between Delevan and Verona Streets.

Street address: Columbia Street & Verona Street, Brooklyn, NY

A view of  Bush Street, east from Columbia Street.   On the corner is the Erie Brass Foudry, which which specialized in the making of brass castings for use by local shipyards.  It was owned and operated by William Mulligan from the late...

Street address: Bush Street & Columbia Street, Brooklyn, NY

Wolcott Street (left, foreground ) between Otsego Street (right) and Dwight Street (left). At the right foreground is Lorraine Street. In the background is Dwight Street going off at a tangent. The garage beyond the gas station is on the N.W. corner...

Street address: Wolcott St. & Otsego St., Brooklyn, NY

105-7 Lorraine Street, north side, between Hicks and Henry Streets. In the background are houses on Bush Street.

Street address: Lorraine Street & Hicks Street, Brooklyn, NY

Lorraine Street, east from Henry Street to Hamilton Avenue, showing in the foreground a recently constructed playground by the City of New York. Beyond it is the Sapolin Co. located on Clinton Street.

Street address: Lorraine Street & Henry Street, Brooklyn, NY

Floating grain elevators were used to move grain up, out of the holds of ships and barges and then top load the grain into storage bins on land or on other vessels. According to Henry R. Stiles in A History of the City of Brooklyn , Daniel Richards...

A giant timber raft, 595 feet long and 55 feet wide, containing 22,000 ‘sticks’ (logs) was floated from the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia to the Erie Basin, Brooklyn, in 1888. An experiment in cost savings, it was calculated that if the wood was...