Flashback Friday: 200 Rounds Of Ammo On Ice

A few weeks back we featured a Gowanus Canal photo from 1905. This week, we’ll be fast-forwarding about 40 years later.

Taken in 1946, the photo caption reads: “Nine men at bridge railing looking down on debris on frozen water of Gowanus Canal; bare trees, telepone [sic] wires, and truck in background; retaining walls and patch of weedy vegetation in foreground”

The inscription reads: “Bridge over Gowanus Canal at 3rd Ave., btwn 3rd & 4th Sts. from which two youths today caught sight of four guns (two revolvers and two automatics) and 200 rounds of ammunition on the canal ice.”

Jonathan Letham certainly had it right. In his novel Motherless Brooklyn, the Gowanus Canal is referred to as “the only body of water in the world that is 90 percent guns.”

The image is part of the Brooklyn Collection at the Brooklyn Public Library, and you can find more historic images like this one there or through Brooklyn Visual Heritage. The original source is from The Brooklyn Eagle.

Do you have any interesting old photos of Park Slope? Share them with us at editor@bklyner.com!