History At Home: This Day In The Brooklyn Daily Eagle

As we wander about our modern neighborhood, caught up in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, it’s easy to ignore the long and vibrant history of our community. Let’s remedy that. Every weekend, we’ll take a step back, with the help of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle archives, and explore what was happening around South Slope over a century ago.

On this day in 1898, it was reported that Greenwood Baptist Church, located at 15th Street and 4th Avenue, was debating a move to a larger location on “the Park Slope.” The church is still in existence today, and can be found at 461 6th Street.

You can find the full article here.

One year later, on May 4, 1899, a teacher a Public School 40 was diagnosed with smallpox, causing a bit of a panic among parents in the area, and leading a local superintendent to call for systematic vaccines of Brooklyn schoolchildren.

You can find the full article here.

Public School 40, located on 15th Street between 3rd and 4th Avenue, was closed in 1951. Although we didn’t find a picture of the old school, we did come across one at Brooklyn Visual Heritage from a 1951 farewell banquet that features a former principal and two longtime teachers.

Have an interesting bit of South Slope history to share? Email us at editor@bklyner.com, and we’ll post it in our weekly History at Home segment.