Young street racers on Brooklyn's Third Avenue, between 29th and 17th Streets. Soon after this photo was taken, the cops moved in and ended things. July 1968.Jerry Haynes/NY Daily News Archive/Getty Images
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Men and boys listen to a Dodgers-Giants baseball game on the radio on a Brooklyn street. Circa 1960.Ed Clark/The LIFE Premium Collection/Getty Images
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Maxie Rosenfeld takes a swing with a sledgehammer at the concrete cornerstone of Ebbets Field during an auction sale on the old stomping grounds of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Balls, bats, bases, and other diamond bric-a-brac were sold at the auction. The stadium had recently been torn down to make way for a middle-income housing project. April 1960.Bettmann/Getty Images
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Police find a dead body in the trunk of a car at 3rd Ave., between Atlantic Ave. and State St. October 1962.Bettmann/Getty Images
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Several children flee police officers during a race riot in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. July 1964.Bettmann/Getty Images
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(Original caption) "Idle school drop-outs playing billiards." June 1962. Grey Villet/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
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Father Benny Calleja, of Our Lady of Peace, gives last rites to a man identified as Joseph Magnasco at 4th Avenue and Union Street. Magnasco was shot and dumped on the street in what police said was an apparent gangland slaying. October 1961.Bettmann/Getty Images
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Patrolman Russell Blair plays basketball with local kids at Sterling Place playground. August 1962. Bettmann/Getty Images
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Side by side (on Avenue P and East Second Street) a Chinese restaurant, a pizzeria, and a kosher butcher. June 1960.Bettmann/Getty Images
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Burglary suspect Harrison Coleman is arrested by Patrolman Harry Batterbee at Packers Super Market on Columbia St. August 1963.Jerry Haynes/NY Daily News Archive/Getty Images
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Police close in on the uncle of victim Edermilo Molina as he becomes hysterical after identifying the body of his young nephew, who was shot and killed. January 1966.Charles Frattini/NY Daily News Archive/Getty Images
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A Brooklyn College student struggles with the police after her arrest as anti-war demonstrators tried to break up the recruiting efforts of two U.S. Navy officers. October 1967.Bettmann/Getty Images
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An unidentified man lies slumped in the front seat of a car, where he was seriously wounded by a gun shot. Another man, identified as Peter Likos, 42, was found murdered in front of the same car. May 1960.Bettmann/Getty Images
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Accused killer George Whitmore Jr., 19, of Brooklyn is led from Police Headquarters to be arraigned in the stabbings of Janice Wylie and Emily Hoffert. He plead innocent and was remanded to the Brooklyn House of Detention. May 1964.Judd Mehlman/NY Daily News/Getty Images
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Beachgoers line the sands at Coney Island. July 1966.Harry Benson/Express/Getty Images
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New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller greets locals. June 1960.Ted Russell/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images
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Famous jazz musician Sonny Rollins plays his saxophone on the Williamsburg Bridge. June 1966.David McLane/NY Daily News Archive/Getty Images
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The scene in the Park Slope neighborhood after two airplanes crashed to the ground. The planes had collided over foggy New York harbor. December 1960.Paul Bernius/NY Daily News/Getty Images
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Senator Robert F. Kennedy stands surrounded by children outside a building. Circa 1966. Buyenlarge/Getty Images
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Thousands of mourners overflow a South Brooklyn street for a glimpse of the funeral for mob boss and union leader Anthony Anastasio. March 1963.Bettmann/Getty Images
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Miss Coney Island Arlene Shaw takes a dip with Polar Bear Club members. May 1968.Leroy Jakob/NY Daily News Archive/Getty Images
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Indignant Brooklyn Navy Yard workers offer thumbs down to express their ire over Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's order to shut down both Brooklyn's Navy Yard and Army Terminal. November 1964.Bettmann/Getty Images
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Steve Whitaker and Bill Robinson of the New York Yankees visit children in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. July 1967. CBS/Getty Images
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Crowds gather around Nathan's famous hot dog restaurant in Coney Island. June 1961.Bettmann/Getty Images
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An Italian-American family sits in front of a fence. Circa 1963-1964.Anthony Catalano/Flickr
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Eight-year-old student Mark Coleman of P.S. 244 uses an early computer. Watching the youngster operate the computer are school district administrators and the president of RCA, the developer of this machine. March 1968.Bettmann/Getty Images
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Seminary students Yuhuda Poliak, left, and Shraga Mendlowitz work on decorations for a sukkah, an outdoor covering used as part of a Jewish religious observance. September 1969.Bill Wunsch/The Denver Post/Getty Images
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Rev. William B. Glenesk leads church members in singing "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" at the Spencer Memorial Presbyterian Church. July 1963.Arthur Schatz/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images
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A street market on Belmont Avenue in the largely Jewish neighborhood of Brownsville. 1962.Roger Higgins/World-Telegraph & Sun/Library of Congress
29 Raw Photos Of Brooklyn In The 1960s, Long Before Gentrification
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A far cry from the gentrified boomtown that is modern Brooklyn, the old Brooklyn of the 1960s was a gritty place defined by starkly drawn ethnic enclaves, urban decay, and devastating crime waves.
In Brooklyn, as in much of America, the 1960s was a time of tumult. Government workers, from teachers to transit laborers, were striking across the borough. Meanwhile, crime ran rampant as large swathes of Brooklyn were controlled by Italian and Irish criminal organizations. At the same time, smaller neighborhood gangs claimed blocks all around Brooklyn.
While crime had not yet reached the fever pitch that it would in the New York of later decades, 1960s Brooklyn represented the beginning of Brooklyn's long descent — one from which it has only recovered in recent years. In the 1960s, as the booming economy following World War II began to wane, neighborhoods across Brooklyn fell into poverty and violence.
Manufacturing jobs started to leave the borough, and in 1966, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a source of jobs for 12,000 people and the very symbol of industry in Brooklyn, was closed down.
By the late 1960s, these economic factors, as well as racist views towards the growing African-American population in the borough, led many families in white neighborhoods to leave Brooklyn for the suburban communities of Long Island. This "white flight" only sped up the process of urban decay in the borough as more and more people left Brooklyn.
Nevertheless, the racial tension underscoring this white flight continued to bubble over within Brooklyn's borders. In 1966, for example, riots broke out after the police killed an 11-year-old African-American and the resulting street clashes brought 1,000 police officers to the scene.
Despite these dire social conditions, 1960s Brooklyn was also a place of vibrant culture and art. Tight-knit communities brought and their cultures from their homelands and both preserved and modified them in their new adopted homeland, creating a tapestry of different cultures within Brooklyn. Thus the same ethnic divisions that created social tensions also made for an increasingly rich tapestry of culture across the borough.
Ultimately, whether in terms of culture, crime, ethnic makeup, or otherwise, the Brooklyn of the 1960s was a place in transition — much like the Brooklyn of today.
Gabe Paoletti is a New York City-based writer and a former Editorial Intern at All That's Interesting. He holds a Bachelor's in English from Fordham University.
John Kuroski is the editorial director of All That's Interesting. He graduated from New York University with a degree in history, earning a place in the Phi Alpha Theta honor society for history students. An editor at All That's Interesting since 2015, his areas of interest include modern history and true crime.
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Paoletti, Gabe. "29 Raw Photos Of Brooklyn In The 1960s, Long Before Gentrification." AllThatsInteresting.com, August 26, 2017, https://allthatsinteresting.com/brooklyn-1960s-photos. Accessed February 22, 2025.
