Flatbush + Main: Brooklyn's Working Waterfront

This episode was originally published on May 24, 2016.

In the past several years, Brooklyn's waterfront has transformed into a high-value, celebrated space lined with bucolic parks and new developments. In Episode 02 of Brooklyn Historical Society's podcast Flatbush + Main, co-hosts Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia travel back in time to a different waterfront: a 19th- and 20th-century site of production, storage, and back-breaking labor for millions of Brooklynites who lived and toiled along its industrial shores. Through stories of people, goods, and work, Julie and Zaheer discuss how Brooklyn's waterfront was a crucible of American capitalism and labor. Julie and Zaheer vividly describe the rise of the commercial waterfront in the early 19th century, back when Brooklyn was dubbed "the Walled City" because of its miles of fortress-like brick warehouses. They sit down with BHS Assistant Public Historian Katy Lasdow to learn how Katy pieced together the story of one dockworker who lived and died at Brooklyn's Empire Stores warehouse. Zaheer and Brett Dion, BHS Oral History Archivist, discuss a clip from BHS's Puerto Rican Oral History Project. Finally, listeners hear from BHS Director of Education Emily Potter-Ndiaye and Teen Council Member Sam Pepere on the amazing work that teens have been doing at BHS this Spring.