Brooklyn Museum

200 Eastern Parkway | also 186 Eastern Parkway | Prospect Park | built 1915

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The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1897

    October 2

    The Brooklyn Institute's museum formally opens on Eastern Parkway after two years of building

    McKim, Mead & White won the design competition for the museum, and construction of its west wing began on September 14, 1895. The first show, nearly 600 paintings, opened to the public on June 1, 1897. The formal opening followed on October 2, 1897, making it among the final major buildings erected in the city of Brooklyn before it merged into Greater New York in 1898.

    “The Brooklyn Institute's museum formally opened on October 2, 1897, and was one of the last major structures built in the city of Brooklyn…”

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. 1897

    The neoclassical building is a fraction of the design McKim, Mead & White planned

    The original plan called for a building four times larger than what exists, with wings around four light courts. Only the northern wings were built, giving the museum its L shape. The Piccirilli Brothers carved 30 figures for the facade. The complete building would have carried 80, in four groups of 20 by subject.

    “Only the wings on the northern end, as well as the northeastern light court ... were built; the resulting L-shaped building covers a site of about 4.5 acres…”

    Source: Wikipedia

  3. 1963

    Daniel Chester French's Brooklyn and Manhattan statues move to the museum entrance

    Sculptor Daniel Chester French made the pediment sculptures on the museum's portico. He also designed two allegorical figures, Brooklyn and Manhattan, that stand by the entrance. They date from 1916, when they were made for the Brooklyn end of the Manhattan Bridge, and were moved to the museum in 1963.

    Source: Wikipedia

  4. 1966

    March 15

    The Landmarks Preservation Commission designates the museum a landmark

    The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences building, Eastern Parkway at Washington Avenue, as a landmark in a report dated March 15, 1966. Three witnesses spoke in favor at the February hearing, including the museum's director, and none opposed. The commission cited the facade and its twenty-eight heroic-size figures, and ranked it among McKim, Mead & White's finest works.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  5. 1968

    October

    Henri Ghent opens the museum's Community Gallery for Black New York artists

    After the coalition Federated Institutes of Cultural Enrichment pressed the museum in 1967 to show more Brooklyn and African American artists, it hired Black curator Henri Ghent to direct a Community Gallery. It opened in a narrow ground-level corridor in October 1968, and Ghent's first show, Contemporary Afro-American Arts, included Joe Overstreet, Kay Brown, Frank Smith and Otto Neals. By 1970 he estimated it had drawn perhaps 100,000 more visitors.

    “The museum then hired black curator Henri Ghent to direct a new "Community Gallery"; Ghent's first exhibition, Contemporary Afro-American Arts (1968)…”

    Source: Wikipedia

  6. 1999

    The Sensation exhibition prompts Mayor Giuliani to threaten the museum's city funding

    The 1999-2000 show of Charles Saatchi's collection, titled Sensation, drew controversy over pieces including Chris Ofili's The Holy Virgin Mary. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani threatened to withhold city funding from the museum. In the lawsuit that followed, a U.S. district court judge ruled that the city could not cut off the funds on First Amendment grounds.

    Source: Wikipedia

  7. 2004

    April

    A glass entrance pavilion by James Polshek opens on Eastern Parkway

    The museum hired architect James Polshek in 2000 to design a glass-clad entrance, which he called Brooklyn's new front stoop. The Landmarks Preservation Commission approved the design over preservationist opposition. The $63 million renovation also added air conditioning throughout the building and was finished in April 2004, when the museum reverted to the name Brooklyn Museum.

    “The renovation cost $63 million and also added air conditioning throughout the museum building. ... The museum's renovation was completed in April 2004.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  8. 2007

    March

    The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art opens with The Dinner Party

    The museum received Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party in 2002 as a gift from The Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation. In March 2007 the museum opened the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art on its fourth floor. The artwork's permanent exhibition began that year as the center's centerpiece.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 17 buildings with stories in Prospect Park