A Seemingly Viable Neighborhood That No Longer Exists Weeksville, Lost and Found, 1910–2010

• Published in: Brooklyn's Promised Land p. 226
• Main Author: Wellman, Judith
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: United States NYU Press 07.11.2014; New York University Press
• Subjects: African American studies; American studies; Anthropology; Applied arts; Architecture; Arts; Behavioral sciences; Black communities; Buildings; Colleges; Communities; Community colleges; Education; Educational institutions; Ethnography; Ethnology; Formal education; History instruction; History of the Americas; Houses; Housing; Human geography; Human societies; Humanities instruction; Neighborhoods; North American history; Pedagogy; Public colleges; Residential buildings; Row houses; Schools; Social geography; Social groups; Social sciences; Sociology; United States history
• ISBN: 0814724159; 9780814724156
• DOI: 10.18574/nyu/9780814744468.003.0012

In the early twentieth century, two significant developments, both relating to transportation, added new elements to the landscape. One was the continued growth of rail transport, creating the iconic elevated trains that ran along the historic route of the Long Island Railroad on Atlantic Avenue. The second change was the automobile. To accommodate new gas-powered cars and trucks, people in Weeksville constructed dozens of one-story garages all over their neighborhoods. Many of these still stood in the early twenty-first century. Otherwise, most of Weeksville’s built environment—blocks and blocks of Italianate-inspired row houses and commercial structures—reflected its nineteenth-century expansion.