Gaslit Brooklyn

Photo found on: Violette79

Brooklyn is a goldmine of Victorian architecture, and every so often we’re reminded of what it must have looked like over 100 years ago, when much of Brownstone Brooklyn was constructed. The other day we happenstanced upon a block in Park Slope, on which every single street light has a flickering gas flame. It was such a throwback to another time.

Gaslight first came to Brooklyn in 1825, and the producer was the Brooklyn Gas Light Company. The first gas to light Brooklyn’s streets was finally sent out in 1849 from a coal gas plant constructed near the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The financial success of this effort was the impetus for the formation of seven more gas companies in Brooklyn and Queens, and three in Staten Island, by the end of the Civil War. In 1895, when the population of Brooklyn had swelled to well over 800,000, the Brooklyn Union Gas Company (which later became Keyspan and is now National Grid) was incorporated as a parent company of six smaller gas companies servicing various sections of Brooklyn and Queens: Brooklyn Gas Light, Fulton Municipal Gas, Metropolitan Gas Light, People’s Gas Light, Williamsburgh Gas Light and Citizens’ Gas. Brooklyn Union Gas was, from its inception, a gas manufacturing and distribution company, with plants dispersed at various locations all throughout its territory.

With the building of the Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co., Inc’s 1,840 miles of pipeline from Texas to New York, natural gas was supplied to the city. Five New York utility companies – Brooklyn Union included – constructed pipes within the city to connect to the transcontinental lines. In 1952, Brooklyn Union underwent a major transformation when it abandoned its manufacturing component to became solely a natural gas distribution company.

Of course, electricity has long since taken over gaslighting, but remnants of old gaslit New York can be found all over brownstone neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Just take a walk.

Laying of the Transcontinental Pipeline in Brooklyn, 1949, courtesy Brooklyn Public Library

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