Today almost all the local people know about the massive pollution of Newtown Creek and the oil plume that sits under Greenpoint, but it was not always so. One of […]
Category: Historical Greenpoint
Posted inHistorical Greenpoint
Margaret Wise Brown—Greenpoint’s Greatest Writer
Margaret Wise was an amazingly successful writer whose books have sold millions of copies. Brown developed an extraordinary talent to write for small children, perhaps unequaled in literature. Considered by […]
Posted inCulture
Free Film Screening! Kosciuszko: A Man Before His Time
Tomorrow night (March 30th) The Polish Cultural Institute is screening a documentary about Thaddeus Kosciuszko at 7 pm at Nitehawk Cinema (136 Metropolitan Avenue). There’ll be a Q&A session with […]
Posted inHistorical Greenpoint
Olympian Connie Darnowski: Greenpoint’s Greatest Ever Female Athlete
Hurdler Connie Darnowski represented the United States in the 1952 and 1956 Olympic games and is the greatest female athlete our area ever produced. Her success is all the more […]
Posted inHistorical Greenpoint
The Greenpoint Woman Who Ran For President?
Belva Lockwood was an early feminist and one of the first women to ever run for president. She ran twice in 1884 and again in 1888 in the days before […]
Posted inHistorical Greenpoint
Women’s History Month: North Brooklyn’s Great Feminist Classic, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Great literature never grows old or feels dated, and no local novel feels more current to local women than Betty Smith’s enduring 1943 classic A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which […]
Posted inHistorical Greenpoint
Just In Time For St. Patrick’s Day – A History of the Irish in Greenpoint!
On Friday everyone becomes Irish for a day—at least in the local bars, but Greenpoint actually has a long and colorful Irish history. The first Irish came to Greenpoint way […]
Posted inHistorical Greenpoint
Women’s History Month: Mae West, Feminist and Progressive
A lot of people know that movie star Mae West was born in 1893 on Herbert Street and that she became a and one of Hollywood’s first sex symbols, but […]
Posted inHistorical Greenpoint
A History of Greenpoint in 25 Buildings: St. Anthony of Padua Church
For many Greenpointers there is no more iconic local image than the façade of St. Anthony of Padua church on Manhattan Avenue at Milton Street. The 240-foot-high church steeple is […]
Posted inHistorical Greenpoint
The Unlikely Story of The White Greenpoint Woman Who Co-Founded America’s Most Influential Black Political Organization
Sometimes an unexpected event is a turning point in a person’s life. The story of Mary White Ovington’s trip to Prospect Park was just such a turning point. Ovington was […]