Brooklyn Historical Society
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Brooklyn Historical society is an organization located in Brooklyn Heights section of the borough of Brooklyn in New York City that is dedicated to exploring and preserving the heritage of Brooklyn. The current president is Deborah Schwartz.
Contents |
[edit] History
The organization was founded in 1863 as the Long Island Historical Society when Brooklyn was still independent of New York City. The building in which it currently is housed was completed in 1881. It served only as a library throughout most of the 20th century until it was reestablished as a museum and educational center in the 1980s. A renovated ground floor that housed a permanent exhibit was opened in 1989. The building underwent an extensive renovation beginning in 1999 and reopened in 2003 with a large offering of on-site and off-site educational programs.
[edit] Collection
The Brooklyn Historical Society also houses the larges collection of materials related to Brooklyn in the world and its library is recognized by the United States Department of Education as a "major research library," with over 100,000 bound volumes. The photo archive houses over 33,000 images, all of which are available to the public. The collection also includes several thousand paintings and artifacts.
