Midweek Photo: Sheepshead From The Sky, Circa 1935

Reader Rich M. sent us this amazing aerial photo of Sheepshead Bay. He doesn’t know much about the photo; he moved away in the 60s, but while visiting his daughter in Park Slope, he found this in a local shop.

He guesses it was taken around 1940, and we can say for sure it was definitely no later than that. The Belt Parkway was completed in 1941, with the stretch between Sheepshead Bay and Marine Park being the last to be done. So, if we had to guess, we’d say this shot was in the early 30s, the same decade the Bay got its bulkheads and was widened.

So what you’re looking at is probably one of the first photos of Sheepshead Bay in the shape and form we’re familiar with. Some things to note? How totally rural Manhattan Beach is, as these were the first years of the community’s residential development; the wide, empty field on the site we currently know as Kingsborough Community College; vegetation on the Emmons Avenue median; Emmons Avenue fades away into a totally sandy, undeveloped Plumb Beach; and, of course, Lundy’s is still there, looking almost exactly as it does today.