Many thanks to Living Lab Third-Year Fellow Jason Montgomery for capturing Friday’s walking tour! Here are just a few of his many fantastic photos from our tour [see more photos]
Photos from Friday’s tour
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Tag Archives: williamsburg
Bushwick Inlet and Astral Oil Works
The Astral Oil Works, at North 12th Street and the East River, refined oil into kerosene, which was the main illuminating oil used in lamps before electric lighting. The company used the slogan “the ho
ly lamps of Tibet are primed with Astral Oil,” suggesting that this product dominated the kerosene market. The facility was devastated by fire in 1873, and suffered serious damage by fire several times thereafter: accounts in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle date from 1880, 1884, and 1887.
The topography of this area has been dramatically altered. Bushwick Creek extended over a mile inland and provided waterwheel power to early industries. It was completely filled in by the turn of the last century. Bushwick Inlet is the site of a proposed waterfront park, created in the 2005 rezoning; only the southernmost part of the park has been built.
Historic maps of Greenpoint and Williamsburg
Fire insurance and other maps from the 19th and early 20th centuries offer great detail about industries and land use in this area. This 1904 map shows the extent of the American Manufacturing Company’s facilities, as well as the location of the Continental Iron Works.
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from NYPL Digital Gallery
The 1899 map of Greenpoint below shows how the northwest Greenpoint waterfront was dominated by timber-related industries at that time. It has been georectified upon the contemporary street grid.
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From NYPL Digital Gallery
This map, published in 1876 but based on surveys completed in 1777, shows “the original high and low grounds, salt marsh and shore lines in the city of Brooklyn.”
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From NYPL Digital Gallery
Tour route
Each stop on our tour:
Tour stops
From Fulton Ferry Landing in DUMBO, we dismbark at the India Street pier and head east on India Street, turning north (left) on West Street to Eagle Street, up Franklin Street, then heading back west on Dupont Street to view the Sludge Tank and the future site of Greenpoint Landing. We return to Franklin Street and head south to #184, the Astral Apartments. We continue south on Franklin and take our third right onto Greenpoint Avenue. At the corner of Greenpoint Avenue and West Street we can observe the buildings that make up the Eberhard Faber Pencil Works and Historic District. Heading south, at the corner of West and Noble Streets we come to the site of the Greenpoint Terminal Market Complex. Heading south on West Street, we come to the site of the Continental Iron Works at the corner of Calyer. We return to Franklin and follow it south to Bushwick Inlet and the site of Astral Oil Works. We wrap up at the East River State Park, entering at Kent and N. 8th Street. [map]
- India Street Pier
- Sludge Tank/future site of Greenpoint Landing
- Astral Apartments
- Eberhard Faber Pencil Works and Historic District
- Greenpoint Terminal Market Complex site
- Continental Iron Works site
- Bushwick Inlet/Astral Oil Works site
- East River State Park
- North Sixth Street Pier
