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All That Dwell in the Light: BFS Decades Through Personal Recollections

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 […]

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Funkytown- Artist Bonnie Lucas Reflects on Life in 1980’s New York City

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 […]

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A Film Studio Grows in Brooklyn

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. […]

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Our Street visits with UMP

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 […]

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Park Slope UMP begins

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 […]

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A Snip and a Snap

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 […]

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Brian Rose’s “Time and Space on the Lower East Side” and UMP’s latest exhibit of LES photographs

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.   […]

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Urban Memory Project begins pilot Lower East Side program

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 […]

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