Some House

From Max Hubacher, January 11, 1952, “Old red brick house in downtown Brooklyn, L.I., on the site a park is planned. In background the Manhattan Bridge.” It’s amazing that it could be so hard to place a photo taken in downtown Brooklyn within living memory, but it is. The obvious location is the stretch of park between Cadman Plaza West (formerly Fulton Street) and Cadman Plaza East (formerly Washington Street) between Brooklyn Borough Hall and the approach to the Brooklyn Bridge. Technically, that’s three parks: Cadman Plaza from the bridge south to Tillary Street, Korean War Veterans Plaza from Tillary south to Johnson Street, and Columbus Park from Johnson south to Borough Hall. The picture isn’t Cadman Plaza, since construction there started in the 1930s. This might be Korean Veterans Plaza, or it might be Walt Whitman Park, a small square just east of Cadman Plaza. Or maybe…here’s a 1903 map of the area. Note that a lot of the land that later became Cadman Plaza was being used,…