Scene at the Ferry Landing

Scene at the Ferry Landing, Brooklyn, by William J. Peirce, 1857. Modern tinting.

Boston-based artist and engraver William J. Peirce created this dynamic composition for an 1857 edition of Ballou’s Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion, which elected to caption the windswept, tumultuous scene (note the capsized mast and the escaping survivors) with the decidedly prosaic, “View of the Fulton Ferry Buildings.” Ah, good old New England reserve.

View of Brooklyn, 1855

View of Brooklyn, from the foot of Wall Street, 1855. Period tinting.

This image has all the iconic elements that make it the quintessential mid-19th century view of Brooklyn before the bridge: the majestic Heights to the west sloping gracefully down to the ferry landing at Fulton street; the cluster of masted sails in Wallabout Bay at the Navy Yard; church steeples sprinkled throughout, and a busy East River thoroughfare of skips and sloops, schooners and a paddlewheel, all surrounding the centerpiece of life between the cities: the ubiquitous ferry boat.

SE Corner Fulton & Prospect

A block of the old Brooklyn Village that remained, more or less, for over 125 years. Modern tinting.

In the time period this image depicts, about 1830, the western terminus of Prospect Street was part of a busy three-way intersection that included Main and Fulton, and marked the split of traffic between the Fulton Ferry and the more eastern Catharine Ferry at the foot of Main Street.

Remarkably, several of these wood-frame buildings remained for over a century.

Fulton Landing, 1830s

View north toward the river on Fulton Street, 1830s. Period tinting.

This image of the Fulton Ferry landing, just a few years before it would be remade into the commercial thoroughfare we can still see today, seems at first glance to be a charming if unremarkable tableau. In fact, it contains at least a couple of elements that make it rather unique.

SE Corner Fulton & Front

1845 view of Brooklyn’s original commercial district. The walkway posts are for awning support.

The corner of Fulton and Front streets was for decades a commercial hub in Brooklyn. Fulton heads south toward City Hall and then turns east to what was then known as Bedford, while Front proceeds east to Vinegar Hill, known for most of its history as Irish Town. In the 1830′s and ’40s, the stretch of Front street here was considered something of a fashionable district with tailors, dressmakers and fancy goods shops tucked in among old residences and a coffee house or two.

Fulton Landing, 1850s

1855 view south on Fulton Street from the ferry. Most of the buildings at left remain standing.

Before bridges, subways and automobiles — not to mention photography, movies, television and the Internet — the iconic image most people had of Brooklyn was this view up Fulton Street, proceeding south from the ferry landing along what was once known only as the Ferry Road.

Brooklyn itself began here in the early 1600s, and remained for over two centuries the primary egress not only for people, but for the endless stream of horse-drawn carts bound for New York City from Long Island farms. Even Brooklyn’s one-time reputation as “the city of churches” would have been encouraged by this perspective from just a block further, as a goodly number of the holy edifices were suitably situated at the top of the elevation just a few blocks on, looming like beacons to those walking or riding the omnibus up the avenue. The two most prominent of these, St. Ann’s and St. John’s, would be demolished for the approach to the Brooklyn Bridge.