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Myrtle Avenue (Book II)
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Myrtle Avenue (Book II)

46

of Emeralders. They are permitted by the owners here until the ground shall be wanted to live rent free, as far as the land is concerned. To the right descending, you catch a view of the burying ground, Potter's field, which is seldom, this summer, without some activity going on inside its low paling; for sickness and death are rife, lately, among the poor immigrants; and the relatives and friends of previous dead come often to linger over the last resting place of those who were dear to them when living. To the left rise the brown turrets of the county prison, with its long range in the rear, where the prisoners cells are. -- We believe the building is not yet finished as its architectural plan designs.

From Raymond to Fulton street, all is the clattering din of traffic, turmoil, passage and business. -- The street floor of nearly every building is occupied as a retail shop; and the inhabitants of the neighborhood can buy every article for human comfort or luxury about as well as the dweller in any part of the great city over the river. Groceries, clothing and tailoring stores -- dry goods, hat, boot and shoe, and boot stores -- places for selling tin-ware, wood-ware, fruit

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and vegetables, lace, hosiery, cabinet furniture, confectionary, watches and jewelry, also abound -- with bakeries, butchershops, and almost every other establishment usually found in cities. Only one description of edifice is wanting in this three-mile st.; and that strange to say in this of "city of churches" -- is a house of public worship! This is the more to be regretted, as that part of the city is densely populated; and there are thousands and thousands of young people, who have special claims on the attention of the moral and philanthropic. There are a great many public houses on Myrtle avenue - but not one church.

by Walt Whitman in the Monday evening August 16, 1847 issue of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle

The above was written 12 years after Myrtle ave opened in 1835

Bedford- There is no more rapidly improving portion of this city than in the 9th ward, in the vicinity of Bedford. Upon Clinton, Fulton, Clason and the other streets thereabout, numerous dwellings of the most commodious style are in a state of rapid progress. These mansions are being erected by many of our wealthy and flourishing citizens, who are determined to escape from the closeness of city life - As eligible lots are procurable in that

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Myrtle Avenue (Book II)
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