House and Building Research at BHS
House and building history is one of the most popular topics of research at BHS. Our library and archival collections have a great variety of materials useful in piecing together the history of Brooklyn neighborhoods, blocks and buildings.
The f ollowing is a guide to the resources most frequently consulted by those doing research on Brooklyn property and buildings. You can scroll through the entire page, or click on the links below to take you to the description of a particular resource. To download a PDF version of this guide, click here.
Landmark Reports
Historic Atlases
Brooklyn Land Conveyance Collection
Brooklyn Directories
Brooklyn and Long Island Scrapbook Collection
Architecture Books
Real Estate Brochure Collection
Additional House & Building Resources
Landmark Reports
If your building is within a landmarked neighborhood, you will want to consult the report published by the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission. Our library contains most of these and you can search our online catalog to see our holdings. Or you can search the Neighborhood Preservation Center's database of landmark reports-- they have many full reports scanned and available online.
If you are interested in purchasing a copy of your neighborhood's report, you can do so through the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission's website. Landmark reports vary from neighborhood to neighborhood.
Historic Atlases (1855-1929)
Our Historic Atlas collection serves a multitude of purposes and is particularly helpful when trying to determine the age of a building. The atlases are also helpful in determining addresses -- which sometimes changed pre-1900. Most of BHS' atlases are bound fire insurance maps, which show Brooklyn block-by-block. As the atlases advance chronologically, they also advance in technical sophistication. Depending on the level of detail, atlases can include information such as the material content of buildings, houses and block numbers, content and condition of pavement, street status and usability, locations of sewers and water mains, locations of subway and rail lines, plate boundaries, section and ward division lines, and original farm lines, among further information. A full listing of the atlas collection, including years, surveyors and neighborhoods, is available here.
Brooklyn Land Conveyance Collection (1699-1896)
Another helpful resource available at BHS is the Land Conveyances Collection. This collection documents Brooklyn land ownership from the late 17th century to 1896. Organized by block, these abstracts show seller (grantor) and buyer (grantee) information. It is sometimes possible to find out the original owner of a particular plot, which can lead to finding out who and when a particular building was built. These conveyances are also useful when focusing on the social history of a particular property. Further information about the collection is available here.
Brooklyn Directories (1820-1913, 1933)
Our collections hold several different types of Brooklyn directories, which were precursors to the phone book, listing the name and address of people or businesses. We have several types of directories in the library:
City Directories – Organized alphabetically by name, these directories are organized like phone books, however instead of listing phone numbers the books contain addresses. The directories sometimes list other information such as occupation and work address. Our collection of directories is on microform, and spans from 1820 to 1913 (and one bound directory from 1933). Further information on BHS' City Directories is available here.
By Address -- "Elite Directories". Our collection of these directories run from 1873 to 1913. These are particularly helpful when trying to find the social history of a particular building. Once you know all of the addresses a particular place might have had, you can consult the elite directories to find out who was living there. Using these names, you can use the "by name" directories and find out what a particular resident did for a living.
Blue Books -- As suggested by the name of these directories, these are a collection of social directories. However they do have a "by address" search in the back of the book, which is helpful when trying to discover who might have lived at a particular address.
Brooklyn and Long Island Scrapbook Collection
(1860-1960)
This is a collection of newspaper clippings from the 1860s to the 1960s. All of the articles that were originally pasted into scrapbooks have been put onto microfiche and are searchable through a subject card index in the library. While the articles in this collection answer a host of questions, they are also useful when researching a specific address and/or individual(s).
Architecture Books
Our library has a number of useful reference books about architecture in general and about Brooklyn architecture specifically. You can browse the titles in the Othmer Library by searching the online catalog. If you are researching a building within "Brownstone Brooklyn" (i.e. Fort Greene, Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Clinton Hill, etc.) Francis Morrone's An Architectural Guidebook to Brooklyn is a great starting point.
Real Estate Brochure Collection
The real estate brochures contained in this collection are primarily advertisments for new apartment buildings, including materials from the 1920s through the 1950s. The collection is organized by neighborhood; a paper index with exact street addresses of the buildings included in the collection is available.
Guide to further research outside the Brooklyn Historical Society
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