Thursday, March 17, 2011

Research Your Brooklyn Home's History At BHS Workshop

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BrooklynHistoricalSociety_lrg

Baltic Street Bwn Henry and Clinton

Ever wonder who the original owner of your house was? Would you like to know if anything exciting ever happened in your home before you came along? For all the history buffs out there, the Brooklyn Historical Society is hosting a great workshop on how to research your Brooklyn home's past. Read on:
Discover the amazing history of your Brooklyn house using BHS' images, records and documents. Attendees will be introduced to library collections used in house and building research and will learn to piece together the social history of a Brooklyn home or block. Advanced ticket purchase recommended as the event will fill up. Purchase your ticket here. $30 BHS members/$50 non-members.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
2-4 PM

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I did one of these workshops last year. It can only be described as fascinating. There's a wealth of information which borders on overwhelming. It's a couple of hours well spent, but it only scratches the surface. I found some interesting info on what I believe could be my CG house's history, but it requires further research to put all the pieces together. Unfortunately, the BHS doesn't have the resources to staff its library on weekends, so it's basically a weekday project for those who are able to do it during the week. Nonetheless, I highly recommend it.

jimmymac said...

This does sound pretty fascinating. I used to live in a pre-war building on Washington Ave. across the street from the BBG. I would love to find out some historical information about it.

That being said I'm currently not really in a position to pay for this, do you know of any good online resources so that people can do their own research on old-timey Brooklyn buildings?

Katia said...

Hi James, The best place to start is with the city records, Department of Buildings and Finance Department to see the old tax records. In the late 1920's, early 1930's the city took a photo of every house here in Brooklyn for tax purposes.
I think they are kept at the Municipal Building in Downtown Manhattan.
You can also access the Brooklyn Eagle Newspaper archive at the Brooklyn Public Library. You can do that online as well. Just put in your address and see what comes up. Good luck.