Looking around Greenpoint today, it’s hard to imagine that this area of high rises and former factories was ever different, but three hundred and fifty years ago Greenpoint was the […]
Category: Historical Greenpoint
Posted inNews
Greenpoint Loses a Legend: Hugh Reid (1927-2017)
Hugh Reid, who helped bury the dead of Greenpoint for generations, himself finally succumbed to death himself last Thursday, just short of his ninetieth year. I was lucky enough to […]
Posted inHistorical Greenpoint
A Greenpointer who Survived Pearl Harbor
Last year on December 7th marked the seventy-fifth anniversary of one of the most momentous days in American history—the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, in which more than two thousand four hundred […]
Posted inHistorical Greenpoint
North Brooklyn History: Creating McCarren Park
We take the green space that today is McCarren Park for granted, but it was not always a park. Once the ground that the park now occupies had its own […]
Posted inHistorical Greenpoint
Bad Boys of the Past: The Notorious Gangs of North Brooklyn History
Think that North Brooklyn was a safer place back in the good old days? Think again! In the second half of the 19th century, North Brooklyn had many notorious gangs […]
Posted inHistorical Greenpoint
A History of Greenpoint in 25 Buildings: The Eberhard Faber Pencil Factory
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 […]
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 in(Not)Forgotten Greenpoint, Community, Historical Greenpoint, Uncategorized
An Ode to the Manhattan Avenue Holiday Lights
We were inspired to make this video after reading the wonderful story of the Manhattan Avenue businesses’ commitment to reignite the holiday lights this year here on Greenpointers.com (check out the article here). […]
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 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 […]