Sliding into the New Year

This From the Vault post was originally written by Tess Colwell and published on February 18, 2015 by the Brooklyn Historical Society. To see the latest Photo of the Week entries, visit the Brooklynology blog home, or subscribe to our Center for Brooklyn History newsletter.

This POTW was originally posted late in a snowy winter. We have yet to see what nature has in store for us this year.

How are you surviving this never-ending winter? With temperatures dipping into the single digits and sporadic snow and sleet showers, it feels like there’s no end in sight. The upside is there’s no better time for sledding!

The Photo of the Week features a sledding scene in Prospect Park on New Year’s Day in 1978. This photograph was taken by Donald L. Nowlan, a long-time Brooklyn resident, who grew up in Park Slope and lived at 470 3rd Street. Many of the photographs in this collection document Nowlan’s high school and college years in Brooklyn, spanning from 1960-1979. Photographs include scenes from Coney Island, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Prospect Park, and a Reenactment of the Battle of Brooklyn in Prospect Park (circa 1979). To see more of Nowlan’s photographs, check out this gallery. If you’re interested in sledding in Prospect Park, NYC Parks recommends a hill near the Tennis House at Prospect Park West and 9th Street. Check out more Brooklyn sledding spots here.

Also worth noting is the color in this photographic print. In early color photographs, you’ll see similar red or yellow tones. That’s because color photographs are unstable by nature and each color (yellow, magenta, cyan) fades at a different rate. While fading in color photographs are unavoidable to some degree, it is possible to slow the process with proper care. Kodak recommends storing your old color photographs in a cool, dry, uncontaminated storage place, preferably at these specs: in the dark at 24°C (75°F) or lower and at 30- to 50-percent relative humidity.
 

Interested in seeing more photos from CBH’s collections? Visit our online image gallery, which includes a selection of our images, or the digital collections portal of Brooklyn Public Library. We look forward to inviting you to CBH in the future to research in our entire collection of images, archives, maps, and special collections. In the meantime, please visit our resources page to search our collections. Questions? Our reference staff is available to help with your research! You can reach us at cbhreference@bklynlibrary.org.