Photo of the Day: Cortelyou Rd, 100 Years Ago

This old photo of Cortelyou Road and Coney Island Ave must have been taken sometime in the 1920s, judging by the buildings and the trolley. There are some big differences, but 100 years later, the intersection is still quite recognizable. The building on the left, which was new at the time, still stands today, although it’s now covered with a ton of ugly siding (if you don’t believe me, check out the position of the windows the next time you go by). The young boys in front, who seem so chill about the possibility of getting hit by a trolley, were probably “photoshopped” in through negative splicing, in order to give the photo some character. (I call them the little ghost boys of Flatbush and have seen them in other old photos of Flatbush, perhaps taken by the same photographer.) You can see that the biggest difference between Cortelyou Rd in the 1920s and Cortelyou Rd in 2020s (besides the lack of cars) is the infrastructure needed for the electric trolley, including the high poles and the wires between them. The Cortelyou trolley was one of the first lines to be discontinued, ending in 1930. Now we have the B103 bus with its crazy route, and isn’t that more fun?

Photo: From my own collection, photographer unknown.

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