This amazing vintage photograph shows Downtown Brooklyn at the turn of the century. While the streetscape is completely different than today, we still see some contemporary monuments, from the grand romanesque-revival post office and Borough Hall’s cupola in the distance. The rest of the built environment pictured would be demolished between the 1940s - 70s as part of the Cadman Plaza Urban Renewal plan that replaced the historic commercial buildings with grand European plazas, courthouses, subsidized housing blocks, and other civic institutions.