Wednesday was an interesting day. We stepped foot outside our four walled classroom for the first time. There was this gitty type of feel in the air when we were gathered outside as a group. Well at least i felt that way, just like in the grade years, when we would go out to the playground for a few minutes instead of being locked up inside. Anyways, when we stepped outside with Juliet and Robin from the Brooklyn Historical Society, we stepped back in time, to the late 1800s and early 1900s in brooklyn. We went to a now today post office/federal building that use to be a theatre for performing actors. It was a really big hit and everyone would go to it, it wasn’t a very roomy place but it was good enough for reruns of dozens of performances until one unfortunate night when the place caught on fire because of the oil painting as the scenery. The place burned down in about 30 minutes killing almost 100 spectators because of the lack of emergency hazards from back then, they pretty much didn’t exist.
A few steps after the post office, stood a statue of an abolitionist that was famous for his crude manner of showing to the public the heinous act of slavery. Although his statue wouldn’t exactly give that away, since it shows a black woman below his statue, in a very demeaning manner. Everything Mrs. Juliet told us was very detailed and i felt like it actually took me back in time to the era of Brooklyn that i bet not many of us know about. As i was walking home, i wondered what else had happened in the spot that i stood, over a hundred years ago. i know i’ll be visiting the BHS a few times on my own, just to see for myself what else had happened around the streets here a long time ago. i want to know what lurks between every crack and street of Brooklyn.
