Urban Memory Project co-founder and director, Rebecca Krucoff, spent 10 weeks in Spring 2017 with Brooklyn Friends School freshmen to document the school’s illustrious 150 years for its anniversary celebration. Central to the project were the fascinating recollections of five BFS alumni spanning the decades of the 1930s – 1980s. Students worked with Rebecca and […]
Bonnie Lucas is a 66-year old artist who has lived and worked in Manhattan’s Little Italy since 1979. Within the walls of her rent-stabilized apartment on Spring Street, for nearly 40 years, she has been creating intricately crafted art —primarily paintings, collâges, and assemblages. Today, she shares her 400-square foot live/work space with over 600 […]
As of Fall 2015, America’s oldest architectural artifacts to the early film industry still remain in Midwood, Brooklyn — the Vitagraph Co. smokestack and the square block open lot of the first modern film studio ever built on American soil– and are in danger of imminent demolition as the site is owned by a real estate developer. […]
Meet Malik and Holly, two seniors at Park Slope Collegiate Secondary School who will be guest blogging for UMP this Fall! Stay tuned and keep up to date as Holly recounts the various activities of students in their Urban Memory Project Brooklyn History course in Dispatches from Brooklyn History, and enjoy the reflections of Malik […]
An integral part of UMP’s student programming involves bringing in experts from the field to discuss relevant current issues. Last week we were thrilled to host Aifuwa Ehigiator, CEO of Our Street, which develops low to moderate income communities through equity crowdfunding. Students at Park Slope Collegiate, site of our most current UMP, learned about the […]
For its eighth year UMP is partnering with Park Slope Collegiate to explore the history and issues facing the borough of Brooklyn. This year the emphasis is on students learning how to gather and synthesize primary source historical research to inform them on how different neighborhoods develop. So far the students have examined fire insurance […]
Al Criscillo was a barber on Metropolitan Avenue in Williamsburg for 54 years. Starting in the 1960s he offered a free photo with every first haircut, the result being a large archive documenting Brooklyn patrons through the years. The resulting collection of photographs is currently on display at the City Reliquary Museum where they are housed […]
Check out Design Arts Daily’s interview with photographer, Brian Rose, about his project Time and Space on the Lower East Side — a series of photographs capturing the Lower East Side in the 1970s and 2000s. Rose discusses his connection to the the neighborhood, and muses on the constant change that defines life in the city. […]
The Urban Memory Project begins its first venture into Manhattan with a partnership at the Lower Manhattan Arts Academy (LOMA). Co-founder Rebecca Krucoff and teacher Maria Zagoreos are leading students on an exploration of the neighborhood’s history and current issues and engaging them in the question “What is the greater good for the Lower East […]
