Backyard and Beyond

Starting out from Brooklyn, an amateur naturalist explores our world.

As John Burroughs said, “The place to observe nature is where you are.”

Borough of Trees? Since When?

The Greek Revival wooden colonnade connecting these four townhouses on Willow Place in Brooklyn Heights is a wonderful window into the au courant style of the 1840s. But this isn’t an architecture blog. What I want to share with you is the trees. When Berenice Abbott took a picture of this row on May 14, 1933, for her Changing New York WPA project, there were no trees in front of this row. In deference to the Furies of copyright, click here to see MoMA’s print of “Willow Place, nos. 43-49, Brooklyn.” We’ve come a long way, baby!

(Douglas Levere has followed Abbott thoroughly in his New York Changing project, although Abbott’s Willow Place shot and his “rephotograph” don’t show up in his slideshow.)

mthew

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5 responses to “Borough of Trees? Since When?”

  1. Roger Latour

    FYI, New York Public Library Flickr has the photograph :
    Willow Place, nos. 43-49, Brooklyn.

    According to them : “Rights Info: No known copyright restrictions; may be subject to third party rights”

    Reply
  2. amy

    Saul Bellow on S. Brooklyn, 1942, from Dangling Man

    “Peeling furniture, peeling walls, posters, bridges, everything is peeling and scaling in South Brooklyn. We moved here to save money, but I’m afraid we’d better start saving ourselves and move out again. It’s the treelessness, as much as anything, that hurts me. The unnatural, too-human deadness.”

    I think there were postwar planting efforts but never really looked into it.

    Reply
    1. mthew

      “It’s the treelessness, as much as anything, that hurts me.” Great quote! There’s still a very strong Tree Line, as I like to call it, between the brownstone neighborhoods of Park Slope, Cobble Hill/Carroll Gardens and neighborhoods to the south, even with the Million Trees project (planted, but no real attention to caring for them.)

      That ghastly man H.P. Lovecraft refers to the “decayed lengths of CLinton and Court Streets” running up to Borough Hall in his 1927 “The Horror at Red Hook.”

      Reply
  3. Denise P. Puchol

    To 2nd Roger — WPA works, by their very nature, are public domain. Museums try to do an end run by claiming rights to reproductions, but the images themselves can not be copyrighted after the fact (clear as mud,eh?).

    Reply
    1. mthew

      Huh! I’m pretty much a “european type socialist” as the GOPers say, and didn’t know this.

      Reply

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