Past and Present: Court Street

A Look at Brooklyn, then and now.

In 1906, Court Street was a bustling part of Brooklyn’s civic and business district. Shops lined both sides of Court, banks and insurance companies were concentrated further up the street near Montague, while the offices of lawyers, accountants, architects and other professionals occupied many of the upper stories of the shop buildings. Bachelor’s flats and rooming houses were quite common here as well. In 1901, architect George Morse designed Brooklyn’s tallest building, and first Court Street office tower, the Temple Bar Building, here dominating the view on the left side of the street in the photo on the right. Far back in the distance, in the center of the photo, the tower of the Post Office can just be seen. The other tower with the cupola in front of it is the Brooklyn Daily Eagle Building, also a Morse design, built in 1892. It housed the offices of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, as well as other businesses. George Morse’s own office was in this building. Fast forward, today, as seen in the photo on the left, the only buildings still in existence in this picture are the Temple Bar Building and the Post Office. The buildings on the right side of the street have been replaced by the glass and steel Board of Ed building, and the Municipal Building, which was built in 1927. On the left, the cast iron front and brownstone buildings are long gone, as well. The Brooklyn Eagle Building was lost to Cadman Plaza in 1955.

(1906 postcard)

(Photo: Google Maps)