The Brooklyn History Project

The Brooklyn History Project

The Brooklyn that we live in is changing before our eyes. Streets we walk fill with new people, stores we go to change ownership or disappear, buildings rise in vacant lots and neighbors move away. These trends are part of an urban cycle that has repeated itself many times since this borough was first built, and they have great effects on the people who live here. The work of both artists and historians is to witness the world around them and draw meaning from it. In this course, we will use the methods of both historians and artists to ask: What can the changes in our borough tell us about ourselves and the world we live in now? What can they tell us about our future? Understanding the changes and where we live within them gives us a choice: do we want to impact them or not?

The Brooklyn History Project will engage us in examining these changes, understanding their effects, and documenting the parts of Brooklyn that matter to us. We will be asking what makes up “Our Brooklyn,” and how others perceive where we live. This project will bring us out into Brooklyn and into contact with many people who are actively involved in preserving or changing the character of Brooklyn. Through photography, research, the act of writing and the interview process, we will build our understanding and knowledge of the place that Brooklyn was and the place that it is becoming.