This episode was originally published in July, 2020. In Episode 36 of Flatbush + Main, Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia say farewell to Brooklyn Historical Society by revisiting their favorite segments from the podcast's history.
This episode was originally published on June 18, 2019. In Episode 35 of Flatbush + Main, we celebrate the 200th birthday of Brooklyn's bard, Walt Whitman. Whitman was a journalist, a poet, a lover, a wanderer, and a Brooklynite. We consider his experiences walking Brooklyn's streets and the inspiration he drew from the places and people he encountered.
This episode was originally published on May 28, 2019. In Episode 34 of Brooklyn Historical Society's podcast Flatbush + Main, co-hosts Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia discuss Brooklyn's long farming history, and the complex interplay of power, land, and labor in Kings County.
This episode was originally published on April 5, 2019. In Episode 33 of Brooklyn Historical Society's podcast Flatbush + Main, co-hosts Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia explore Coney Island's queer history. Guest Hugh Ryan joins Julie and Zaheer this episode. Hugh is the author of the new book, When Brooklyn Was Queer, and the co-curator, with Avram Finkelstein, of BHS's newest exhibition, On the (Queer) Waterfront.
This episode was originally published on February 15, 2019. In Episode 32 of Brooklyn Historical Society's podcast Flatbush + Main, co-hosts Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia examine the history of Muslims in Brooklyn, drawing on BHS's groundbreaking public and oral history project that launched in 2017.
This episode was originally published on January 15, 2019. In Episode 31 of Brooklyn Historical Society's podcast Flatbush + Main, co-hosts Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia discuss the infamous Blackout of 1977, the economic and social context that led up to the event, its impact on many Brooklyn neighborhoods, and its enduring legacy.
This episode was originally published on October 31, 2018. In Episode 30 of Brooklyn Historical Society's podcast Flatbush + Main, co-hosts Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia discuss Brooklyn Historical Society's Puerto Rican Oral History Project (1973-1975), the institution's first oral history collection, which resulted in over 80 interviews with narrators born as early as the 1880s. They situate this landmark undertaking in the social and intellectual developments of the 1960s and 1970s, from the Civil Rights Movement to the rise of Ethnic Studies programs.
This episode was originally published on September 28, 2018. In Episode 29 of Brooklyn Historical Society's podcast Flatbush + Main, host Zaheer Ali and guest-host Erin Wuebker, fellow BHS historian, discuss the impact of cholera on Brooklyn, which led to the illness and death of thousands of residents in the 19th century. Zaheer and Erin consider how epidemics of cholera were both symptoms of the city's tremendous growth and change in this era, and catalysts for Brooklyn to develop basic infrastructure we associate with a modern city.
This episode was originally published on August 30, 2018. In Episode 28 of Brooklyn Historical Society's podcast Flatbush + Main, co-hosts Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia discuss the impact on Brooklyn of the 1863 New York City draft riots, the largest domestic uprising in American history after the Civil War itself, resulting in the death of hundreds of Black New Yorkers. Zaheer and Julie consider the complex--and sometimes violent--racial dynamics that made Brooklyn a place of both refuge and danger for its Black residents during this perilous moment.
This episode was originally published on July 31, 2018. In Episode 27 of Brooklyn Historical Society's podcast Flatbush + Main, co-hosts Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia are joined by guest Joshua B. Freeman, author of Behemoth: A History of the Factory and the Making of the Modern World. They consider the impact of factories on Brooklyn's social and economic history, and discuss the experiences of factory workers that worked and lived in Brooklyn.
This episode was originally published on June 13, 2018. In Episode 26 of Brooklyn Historical Society's podcast Flatbush + Main, co-hosts Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia discuss the tragic 1978 killing of Crown Heights resident Arthur Miller Jr. by police, and consider his important legacy as a community leader, activist, and businessman.
This episode was originally published on May 15, 2018. In Episode 25 of Brooklyn Historical Society's podcast Flatbush + Main, co-hosts Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia, joined by fellow BHS historian Erin Wuebker, explore the fascinating history of gender and medicine in Brooklyn and learn about some of Brooklyn's pioneering female physicians.
This episode was originally published on April 11, 2018. In Episode 24 of Brooklyn Historical Society's podcast Flatbush + Main, co-hosts Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia discuss a Revolutionary War tragedy: the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans inside prison ships during the British wartime occupation of New York from 1776 to 1783.
This episode was originally published on March 16, 2018. In Episode 23 of Brooklyn Historical Society's podcast Flatbush + Main, co-hosts Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia revisit Brooklyn Historical Society DUMBO to celebrate the opening of its new longterm exhibition, Waterfront.
This episode was originally published on February 14, 2018. In Episode 22 of Brooklyn Historical Society's podcast Flatbush + Main, co-hosts Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia examine the legacy of black-owned businesses in Brooklyn.
This episode was originally published on January 4, 2018. In Episode 21 of Brooklyn Historical Society's podcast Flatbush + Main, co-hosts Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia dig into what we do at Brooklyn Historical Society: engaging our many visitors and constituents in the process of doing history.
This episode was originally published on December 5, 2017. In Episode 20 of Brooklyn Historical Society's podcast Flatbush + Main, co-hosts Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia use one seemingly inconsequential manuscript collection to explore themes of memory and history-making over many generations. In 1915, Brooklynite Francis Morrell wrote a small tract called "Recollections of Old Williamsburgh." This self-published work of genealogy reminds us that historical writing tells us just as much about the time that it was written as about the time period it purports to study.
This episode was originally published on November 3, 2017. In Episode 19 of Brooklyn Historical Society's podcast Flatbush + Main, co-hosts Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia examine an important but long-forgotten tragedy in Brooklyn's past: the Brooklyn Theatre Fire of 1876, and discuss the Gilded Age, municipal reform, class relations, the culture of leisure, and the politics of memory in the 19th century - and today.
This episode was originally published on October 3, 2017. In Episode 18 of Brooklyn Historical Society's podcast Flatbush + Main, co-hosts Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia consider what it means to remember and document Hurricane Sandy five years after the storm devastated many parts of Brooklyn.
This episode was originally published on August 30, 2017. In Episode 17 of Brooklyn Historical Society's podcast Flatbush + Main, co-hosts Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia examine the meanings and global roots of a time-honored tradition in Brooklyn, the West Indian Carnival.