Center for Brooklyn History
The Center for Brooklyn History (CBH, formerly known as the Brooklyn Historical Society) is a museum, library, and educational center founded in 1863 that preserves and encourages the study of Brooklyn's 400-year history. The center's Romanesque Revival building, located at Pierrepont and Clinton Streets in Brooklyn Heights, was designed by George B. Post and built in 1878–1881 by David H. King Jr.,[5] is a National Historic Landmark and part of New York City's Brooklyn Heights Historic District. The CBH houses materials relating to the history of Brooklyn and its people, and hosts exhibitions which draw over 9,000 members a year. In addition to general programming, the CBH serves over 70,000 public school students and teachers annually by providing exhibit tours, educational programs and curricula, and making its professional staff available for instruction and consultation.
Location
Building[edit]
The center's headquarters building, on the corner of Pierrepoint and Clinton Streets, was built in 1878–81 and was designed by George B. Post in the Renaissance revival style. Post was selected as a result of a competition between 14 architects. The building's design utilizes terra cotta ornamentation made by the Perth Amboy Terra Cotta Company,[2] and has architectural sculptures by Olin Levi Warner,[18] including busts of Michelangelo, Beethoven, Gutenberg, Shakespeare, Columbus, Benjamin Franklin, a Viking and a Native American.[7]
The building has been described as "one of the City's great architectural treasures",[18] and the interior as "one of New York's great 19th-century interiors."[2] It is part of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission's Brooklyn Heights Historic District, designated in 1966, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark in 1991.[4][19][20] In October 1999, BHS began a full-scale restoration of the building, supervised by architect Jan Hird Pokorny,[18] and reopened in 2003.[21]