Perhaps no local building combines Greenpoint’s proud industrial past and creative present and future than the Eberhard Pencil factory at 47- 61 Greenpoint Avenue. Like many other local factories the […]
Posts by Author Archives: Geoff Cobb
Geoffrey Cobb is a Brooklyn high school history teacher and writer of the blog historicgreenpoint.wordpress.com. He has lived in Greenpoint for over 20years and is the author of a book on the history of the area, "Greenpoint Brooklyn's Forgotten Past."
Posted inHistorical Greenpoint
The North Brooklyner Who Made Aviation History
A Jewish Greenpointer made aviation history and became the first passenger ever on a transatlantic fight. Today the name Charles A. Levine is largely forgotten, but there was a moment […]
Posted inHistorical Greenpoint
Greenpoint’s Christmas Past: The Great Depression
As Christmas 2016 approaches, Greenpoint is prosperous. Hundreds of people are out in the neighborhood shopping and restaurants and bars are doing a brisk business, yet Christmas was not always […]
Posted inCommunity, News
Greenpointer Named Secretary of the Army
President-Elect Trump has tapped Greenpoint born Vincent Viola to be his head of the Army. In the early 1960’s, few of the kids attending St. Cecelia’s School on Monitor Street […]
Posted inCommunity, Environmental, News
Mayor de Blasio Helps Community Celebrate Bushwick Inlet Park Victory
This past Saturday, December 17th, Mayor de Blasio came to Bushwick Inlet Park to praise the community activists who after ten years of struggle finally prevailed and forced the city […]
Posted inHistorical Greenpoint
A History of Greenpoint in 25 Buildings: The Astral Apartments
Charles Pratt was the richest man in Brooklyn in the 1880s, but his conscience was bothering him. The founder of Astral Oil Works, the first modern oil refinery in the […]
Posted inHistorical Greenpoint
A History of Greenpoint in 25 Buildings: 130 Kent Street, The Neziah Bliss House
Greenpoint honors its heroes in different ways. John Ericsson, the inventor of the monitor warship is honored with a school and a statue. Pete McGuinness, the lovable “first Citizen of […]
Posted inHistorical Greenpoint
The Many Local Legacies of Pete McGuinness
There is a famous quote related to English architect Sir Christopher Wren: “If you seek his monument look around you.” The same could be said in Greenpoint of Peter J. […]
Posted inArt, Culture
Gritty, Rapidly Disappearing Cityscapes by Monte Antrim
A talented local artist and designer, Monte Antrim, is displaying his unique images at South 4th Bar & Cafe (90 South 4th St.) in a show titled “Last World Problems.” The installation, which […]
Posted inHistorical Greenpoint
Bushwick Inlet’s Fascinating History
Bushwick Inlet, the truncated, morose, post-industrial body of water west of Kent Avenue at North 14th Street, hardly seems worthy of the huge controversy for a shoreline park, nor would it […]