Some of the borough’s bold-faced names came out this week to celebrate, well, themselves — and all the hard work they did to make Brooklyn the hot, happening place it is today.
Of course, it wasn’t always that way for a borough once derided as “Crooklyn.” But after several hardscrabble decades, the County of Kings is now one of the most popular destinations in New York — thanks, some said, to politicians like former Borough President Howard Golden.
“People like … Howard Golden knew that there was something here,” said Marty Markowitz, the current occupant of Borough Hall, at a reception Monday night to kick off the Brooklyn Historical Society’s new exhibition, “The Roots of Modern Brooklyn.”
“Their work,” Markowitz continued, “was an indication to the world that Brooklyn wasn’t out of the game.”
Donald Moore, former president of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, emceed an event that brought out Brooklyn’s elite — from a generation ago, that is.
Golden was there, of course, basking in the polite tributes, along with his wife Aileen.
“It wasn’t always easy,” Golden, who was Beep from 1977 to 2001, said in a speech that mentioned mayors from Beame to Giuliani.
Other speakers credited Golden for some of the borough’s biggest developments, like the building of the MetroTech office campus and revitalizing the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
“He was a significant political force, and played a big role in Brooklyn’s development,” said Historical Society President Deborah Schwartz.
But it wasn’t just the power elite that deserves the credit, historians said.
As the exhibit shows, the 1970s and ’80s saw community groups come together to solve Brooklyn’s problems and bring the middle class back to the city.
Old Brooklyn stalwarts like the late Evelyn Ortner and her husband Everett — the couple credited as the saviors of Park Slope — revived brownstone neighborhoods by not only convincing then-reluctant banks to grant mortgages, but also by convincing their friends to become Brooklyn homesteaders.
“Civic leaders and local politicians really came together to solve crime and sanitation problems,” said Anthony Cucchiara, an archivist at Brooklyn College and one of the exhibit’s coordinators. “All that work led to people coming back to the city and led to businesses wanting to invest here.”
The exhibition, which opened to the public this week, consists of various photographs, documents, and newspaper articles from the mid-’50s to the ’80s, and focusing on everything from the post-World War II decline of Brooklyn — including the closing of the Navy Yard and the loss of the Brooklyn Dodgers — through the immigration boom of the ’70s and the brownstone movement of the ’80s.
“A lot of where we are right now started then,” said Schwartz.
“The Roots of Modern Brooklyn” will be open until May 31 at the Brooklyn Historical Society (128 Pierrepont St., at Clinton Street). It will move to the Brooklyn College library (2900 Bedford Ave., at Campus Road) as part of a two-day conference on April 26 and 27 before returning to the Historical Society. Call (718) 222-4111 for information on all activities.
