From Redlining to Predatory Lending: A Secret Economic History of Brooklyn
Throughout much of the 20th century, half of Brooklyn was considered undesirable and too risky for loans and investment.
How to Not Get Your House Stolen: Learn to Avoid Deed Theft at This Expert Panel
Photo by Mary Hautman
To address the rash of property theft and deed fraud marring the Bed Stuy community, the civic group Brownstoners of Bedford-Stuyvesant is uniting homeowners to raise awareness and educate area deed holders on the issue.
Did You Know the Teddy Bear Was Invented in a Bed Stuy Candy Shop?
Everything ends up here eventually, but Made in Brooklyn is a column exploring native, born-and-bred borough creations.
Brooklyn-born sculptor Frederick MacMonnies’ daughters, Betty and Marjorie, alongside their governess and teddy bear, in the early 20th century. Photo via the Brooklyn Public Library
The teddy bear, the inspired creation of Russian Jewish immigrants Rose and Morris Michtom, was born in a Bed Stuy candy shop in 1902.
Remembering Brooklyn’s Civil Rights Activists and the Fight for a Better Bed Stuy
The Bibuld Family pickets for desegregation in Brooklyn in 1962. Photo by Bob Adelman via the Brooklyn Historical Society
In the minds of many, the Civil Rights Movement occurred solely in the deep south, where formal segregation was deeply entrenched after the end of Reconstruction.
Would You Pay $4,500 a Month to Live in One of Bed Stuy’s Best Brownstones?
This two-bedroom duplex is in a distinguished house at 260 Decatur Street, on one of Bed Stuy’s best blocks. Designed by famed 19th century Swedish architect Magnus Dahlander, it’s loaded with nice detail that you don’t find in every rental, including mantels, pier mirrors, inlaid floors, fretwork, pocket doors, and stained and leaded glass.
Brooklyn’s Cooking as Coworking-Style Food Incubator Opens in Old Pfizer Plant
It’s no secret that Brooklyn’s artisanal food scene is booming. The borough’s emerging culinary talents test out their creations via food trucks, Smorgasburg stands and cafeteria-style halls. Now, they have another laboratory for edible experimentation — and it’s affordable.
From Boom to Bootlegging: The Excelsior Brewing Company of Bedford Stuyvesant
Images via the Brooklyn Public Library
The Excelsior Brewing Company of Bed Stuy was not the best, biggest, or most well known of Brooklyn’s historic breweries, but it did have one of the strangest schemes to survive Prohibition. Unfortunately, Excelsior got caught.
Watch This 19th-Century Bed Stuy Mansion Get Demolished Day by Day
511 Lafayette Avenue. Photos by Meredith Ries
When Meredith Ries began photographing the crumbling building across the street, she meant it be a “super-slow time lapse” documenting the passage of season and change. But once demolition permits were filed for 511 Lafayette Avenue in mid-November, the breakneck pace of Brooklyn construction caught up with the disintegrating century-old structure.
Brownstoner reached out to Ries to learn more about the building’s dramatic history and her photo project’s future.
Shirley Chisholm, Robert Kennedy, Bed Stuy and More: 5 Longreads for a Long Weekend
In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we’ve collected the stories of a few remarkable Brooklyn people (and places) who fought for racial justice — from the groundbreaking politician Shirley Chisholm to the rebirth of Bed Stuy, and the role of the Slave Theater in Afro-centric activism.
So grab a nice cup of coffee or tea and settle in to read a few tales to make you Brooklyn proud.
From Do or Die to Do or Dine: How Bed Stuy Got Its Name
Brownstoner takes on Brooklyn history in Nabe Names, a series of briefs on the origins and surprising stories of neighborhood nomenclature.
Bed Stuy’s MacDonough Street block party, circa late 1970s. Photo via New York Magazine
From the Do or Die days captured in Spike Lee’s masterpieces Do the Right Thing and Crooklyn to the recently closed Do or Dine brunch bar, a snarky take on the same hard-living motto, Bedford Stuyvesant — Bed Stuy for short — has seen a great influx and exodus of communities in the last 100 years.
