Photo of the Day: Boy Scout Photo Opp

The caption on this photo from the National Archives confuses me on many levels. First of all, these Boy Scouts don’t look like they’re farming, especially because there’s nothing to farm. Secondly, by the year the picture was taken, 1917, Flatbush was already suburbs. There weren’t really any farms left.

After quite a bit of puzzling and a closer look at the dirt they’re pushing around, it occurred to me that not only was the “farming” fake, but that these boys were standing in an empty lot owned by a developer, not on a farm!

What’s interesting about the photo, though,  is that whoever set up the pretend photo opp did a pretty good job—this looks similar to how Flatbush would have looked back when it was a farming community. The houses and barns were all lined up along Flatbush Ave, while their land stretched behind them in relatively thin parcels that stretched the length of one of our “avenue blocks” today—for instance, one landowner would own all the land between Ditmas Ave and Dorchester Ave, from Flatbush Ave all the way into Kensington. (Many families owned more than one parcel.)

Originally, the farmers who were enslaved by the landowners grew grains like wheat, rye, and barley. Then the Erie Canal opened, marking 1825 as the first time Flatbush residents began hating on the Midwest. With much easier access to the coast, the Midwest took over the grain market and Flatbush farmers (now servants) grew vegetables like cabbage, turnips, and potatoes. These veggies were sold more locally than the grain had been: farmers would haul it to present-day Brooklyn Heights, where it would be taken to Manhattan markets with the help of Fulton’s Ferry. Much harder work than the Boy Scouts are feigning.