This is one of the "Images from America" books they sell at bookstores all over major cities, since the market for old-timey photos of people's current neighborhoods appears to be strong. If you went to a bookstore in Manhattan, the "Images..." display would have your Greenwhich Village or Kips Bay or SoHo editions, all full of awesome period pictures. If you went a little farther uptown, you'll begin to see the Harlem edition.
If you went to bookstores in Brooklyn, you'd see the Brooklyn editions: Flatbush, Bushwick, Brooklyn Heights, Williamsburg, and even Bedford-Stuyvesant, our very own Bed-Stuy.
I remember seeing and looking thought the Williamsburg copy, thinking, the 'Burg is so close to us, and the photos are great...if only...
Right then I noticed the Bed-Stuy copy and realized that I had no choice: I had to have this book.
The picture collection is not quite as awesome as Williamsburg, an established city that was annexed by Brooklyn back in the day and is now a neighborhood of Brooklyn, a place with it's own identity and history. What's today known as Bed-Stuy was a provincial neighborhood first. It became famous more recently for maybe the wrong reasons, like how South Central LA is famous (now they go by South LA). Maybe because it doesn't have it's own town-center like the 'Burg it doesn't have the plethora of photos that were available to the makers. That's not to say there aren't any, there are just less, and of those, it takes a good detective's eye to know where the scene is if there wasn't a label.
In any case, that doesn't mean that Bed-Stuy's history is short. In fact, it predates Williamsburg by maybe a century.
Bedford-Stuyvesant is named for a neighborhood that historically rested between Bedford and Stuyvesant Avenues to the east and west, and Broadway to the north and Atlantic to the south. Bedford and Stuyvesant are a few miles apart, so the swath of houses inside comprises the neighborhood. Nowadays, the western terminus has been moved west a few blocks, to Saratoga, and the eastern a few blocks to Classon, and the neighborhood looks relatively the same, just a a little more muscular.
But, Bedford Avenue took its name from the north-south thoroughfare that ran through a little bedroom community called Bedford Corners. Founded in 1657 by Dutch farming families, the Corners that helped with the name were the north-south Cripplebush Road and the east-west Jamaica Turnpike, both long established native travel routes. The Bedford (originally in Dutch the name was Brevoort) Corners community was able to have both a farming element as well as able to offer services to those travelling from the Indian city of Jamaica to the southern beaches at Rockaway or heading east out along what today we call Long Island.
Cripplebush became, when the British forced their grids on everything, Bedford Ave, and the Jamaica Tpk became Fulton. Fulton is parallel with Atlantic, and this corner is definitely in the Stuy today. That's actually a little bit nicer part of the Stuy than where we lived.
In any case, the book taught me things about Brooklyn and Bed-Stuy, and eeven sent me out looking for things, like Weekeville, the first free-black settlement in the vicinity, founded by Mr. Weekes in 1825 along another Indian route, Hunterfly Road, and like Clove Road. Clove is the only real ancient footpath that is survived the English and their grids, it was set with cobblestones by the Dutch, left alone during the grid hashing, tarred over, and the tarring has since been worked free. It's still there today. You can see it here.
I can't remember at which bookstore I picked it up, it may have been that independent place on Court St, but it may have been the Barnes and Noble, also on Court St.
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