Brooklyn. The word conjures up a host of images The Honeymooners, Ebbets Field, Walt Whitman, Saturday Night Fever and the West Indian Carnival. Guiding us into this historical panorama through five larger-than-life points of entry including The Brooklyn Bridge, The Brooklyn Navy Yard, Coney Island, and the Brooklyn Dodgers Ellen Snyder-Grenier highlights the people, events, and places that have made Brooklyn Brooklyn. Lavishly illustrated with prints, paintings, memorabilia, and objects from The Brooklyn Historical Society's unparalleled collection, "Brooklyn!" will bring every reader closer to the Brooklyn of legend and fact.Formerly Chief Curator at the Brooklyn Historical Society, Ellen M. Snyder-Grenier is Director of Special Projects at the New Jersey Historical Society.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
More than just a history of Brooklyn, this fascinating and comprehensive portrait of one of the most diverse urban areas in the world is a commentary on the growth of America and the immigrant vision. Drawing on the vast resources of the Brooklyn Historical Society, Snyder-Grenier (former chief curator of the Society) has also availed herself of 100 color and 150 b&w photos that neatly compliment the stories told. The book is divided into five parts that prove to be an excellent reflection on the character of Brooklyn: Brooklynites, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Navy Yard, Coney Island and the Dodgers. The first is a peek into the people and personalities that make up the fabric of life in Brooklyn. Each wave of immigrants, from Europeans to Caribbean islanders, has added its own stamp to Brooklyn. How the building of the Brooklyn Bridge and the growth of the subway system contributed to the complex relationship between Brooklyn and Manhattan is explored in the section on the bridge; while "The Navy Yards" examines Brooklyn's past economic success and current aspirations to once again be an industrial hub. Reading about Coney Island brings back images of a bygone era, the taste of cotton candy, the feel of the sea air on your skin and the thrill of the Cyclone, as well as Brooklyn's other recreations like the majestic Prospect Park. Finally, what story on Brooklyn would be complete without a chapter devoted to its beloved Dodgers? This is a commendable effort, one of those unusual hybrids that works as a history and as a gift book.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Snyder-Grenier undertook this successful project for the Brooklyn Historical Society, which she served as chief curator before moving to its New Jersey counterpart. Her work is not a comprehensive history of Brooklyn; she mentions but never examines racial strife or politics after 1850 and scarcely acknowledges the post-Fifties decades in an epilog. Her book does live up to its subtitle, however, averaging nearly one photo per page of text. It is also liberal with maps. Each of five long chapters is based on the particular-to-general model, so that "The Brooklyn Bridge" and "Coney Island" contextualize, respectively, the structure and the place as parts of larger movements involving civic pride and public architecture and the tug between low entertainment and middle-class leisure. "The Dodgers" presents material most familiar to non-Brooklynites, and only the author's research on pre-Dodger baseball a century before Jackie Robinson redeems this section. Snyder-Grenier's bibliography, including an essay, is wide and deep. Recommended for public and academic libraries and absolutely essential for urban studies collections.?Scott H. Silverman, Bryn Mawr Coll. Lib., Pa.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brooklyn History,
This review is from: Brooklyn: An Illustrated History (Critical Perspectives On The P) (Hardcover)
The book "Old Brooklyn in Early Photographs, 1865-1929" arrived in good time and exceeded my expectations in terms of condition of the book, and the content.
I had a great aunt who was born in Brooklyn in 1884 and lived there until the family lost contact with her in 1910. The book provided me with an insight into what a young woman of the time would have seen and experienced while growing up It was a pleasure to do business with the seller
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