Your Home's Genealogy

• Learn the Stories Your Home Has To Tell!

Sure, Park Slope is historic, but we need to prove just how historic to the Landmarks Preservation Commission. What do you know about your own building?  Did someone famous, or infamous, once call it home?  Did an interesting business exist where yours does now?  Your building’s genealogy -- both the hard data and any social history you can provide -- may in fact prove very useful in the campaign to broaden the District’s boundaries.  And wouldn’t it be great if you found out your house or shop really had an unusual story to tell? 

Use our survey form to help us collect both Park Slope’s “Vital Statistics” (who built the buildings, and when) and the “Social History” of the neighborhood. 

Please submit as much or as little as you know about any building in Park Slope.  We are particularly interested in buildings outside the current historic district.  It is important to note your sources.  For example, if you’ve discovered the architect of a building, or the year it was built, please note your source for that information. Why are sources so important? Because the LPC will consider the information in these forms in order to determine the boundaries of any expansion to the Park Slope Historic District.

Don't forget to cite your sources for any information!

Suggested resources: 

There are a great many resources, both on- and off-line, for conducting research into the architectural and social history of New York City buildings.  Below are a few suggestions:

The New York Public Library has compiled a how-to guide for researching New York City buildings.  Resources include reference books; research guides; NYC government resources; books, articles, and pictures; and on-line photographic resources.  The section on Research Guides is particularly helpful and contains links to many other online resources and guides.

New York Times columnist Christopher Gray has devoted two “Streetscapes” columns to building history research.  The first, “A Guide to Researching the History of a Building”, published July 2, 1995, describes a “manual” process involving a lot of footwork and on-site visits to archives and repositories, in a case history research example.  The guide was updated for the digital age in a second article, “An Online Journey Through a House's History”, published December 5, 2004; in this case all the research is done online.  Both articles are archived at the New York Times website.

Andrew Dolkart, a professor of historic preservation at Columbia University and a leading authority on New York City architectural history has compiled his own guide for building research.

The Brooklyn Public Library's “Brooklyn Collection” contains resources such as old maps and city directories.

The Brooklyn Public Library has also placed the Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper, 1841-1902, online in searchable form. 

The Brooklyn Historical Society has a historic map and atlas collection, and copies of the official block-by-block Brooklyn land conveyance records (dating back to the late 1600s in some cases).