Item #4000 East New York. 1867. Gustav KRAETZER.
Rare, Lovely View of an Idyllic Brooklyn
East New York, Brooklyn/ New York.
[Brooklyn, 1867]

East New York. 1867.

17 x 24 inches, Tinted lithograph. Mounted on conservation paper, a few mended tears just entering printed area, overall clear & crisp image, very good.

Panoramic view of an area that was renowned in its day as having one of the most beautiful prospects in the New York area. The work also affords a rare and evocative glimpse of the then independent village of East New York prior to urbanization. The snug village in the foreground sweeps down to a serene vista of Jamaica Bay, the Rockaways, and the Atlantic Ocean in the distance. The vantage point of the view is in fact one of the highest elevations on Long Island. A parade ground with marching troops can be seen at upper right. Elegantly dressed citizens enjoy the prospect from beside the Sailors Monument (also known as the Seaman's Monument).
This 50-foot marble column is surmounted by a globe and is on a pediment inscribed with the dedication "For Sailors of all Nations.” The monument was erected in the Evergreens Cemetery in the 1850s and marked the three-acre site where, in a compassionate gesture highly unusual during that era, unknown foreign sailors and merchant seamen who became ill and died in port were cared for and buried free of charge by a charitable organization called the Sailors' Cemetery Association. The monument could be seen from great distances; hence the land on which it stood became known as Beacon Hill.
Gustav Kraetzer was a publisher of lithographs, notably topographical views and maps. He operated his firm in New York from at least 1851, moving his business in the late 1850s to Sheffield Avenue in East New York (later annexed to Brooklyn), where he was one of the early residents.


* Reps 2504; Deák, Gloria Gilda; 817; Peters, H. T. America on Stone, p. 255;

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