The Brooklyn Studies Program @ Brooklyn College (BSP@BS) is a network of Brooklyn College faculty who are documenting and disseminating the history of Brooklyn.
The participants in the Brooklyn Studies Project @ Brooklyn College include Arthur Bankoff (Anthropology), Edwin Burrows (History), Anthony Cucchiara (Library), Philip Gallagher (History), Barbara Higginbotham (Library), Jerome Krase (Sociology), Marianne LaBatto (Library), Philip Napoli (History and Library), and Jocelyn Wills (History).
BSP@BC initiatives include:
Research
Teaching
Archival work
Anthropology
Photography
Oral history
Archaeological excavations
Education
Professional training
Media presentations
Internships
Partnerships with like-minded organizations
Lectures and other programming
These interlacing and complementary initiatives generate a synergy that promotes and strengthens the study of Brooklyn. BSP@BC participants are particularly interested in bringing historians together and making their work more visible via lectures and a Web site; making Brooklyn historical documents available to teachers; inviting teachers to campus to learn more about Brooklyn history; and curriculum development.
The BSP@BC Web site is near completion and will debut in the fall 2005.
In 2004-2005 participants met five times. Additionally, Ted Burrows and Barbra Higginbotham met with Paul Moses (Journalism; director for the Center for the Study of Brooklyn (CSB)) to pursue areas of mutual interest and clarify areas of interest. While the CSB focuses primarily on policy, in March the two groups collaborated in presenting the panel discussion "50 Years after the Eagle: How City Papers Cover Brooklyn."
In the fall, we have invited the Center for the Study of Brooklyn to co-sponsor our panel discussion that centers on Soft Skull Press' America's Mayor: The Hidden History of Rudy Giuliani's New York.
In May, BSP@BC members were delighted by the excellent publicity participant Phil Napoli received for his oral history project with Viet Nam veterans. As the Daily News wrote:
"Long after the Vietnam War ended, the story of that conflict is still unfolding. Phillip Napoli is seeing to it that the story is told, in the 90 interviews he has done with Vietnam vets from around the city as part of an oral history and book project. The journey has taken the Brooklyn College history professor from homes to American Legion posts to VA hospitals. Napoli, 44, said he found a complex tapestry of lives, which belies the stereotype of the Vietnam veteran."
Project members hope to expand their work through grant proposals.
Should the College succeed in acquiring Mike Armstrong's back files of the Phoenix, this acquisition would propel both the Center for the Study of Brooklyn and the Brooklyn Studies Project @ Brooklyn College at incredible speeds. The Phoenix covered all of the economic, social, political, and cultural issues of downtown Brooklyn, as well as those of the surrounding communities of Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, Carroll Garden, Brooklyn Heights, Red Hook, Fort Greene, and Park Slope. In the spring 2005 a proposal was presented to the president.
