Brooklyn Building History Can Start With Tax Photos

Brooklyn has so many older buildings that a property-history question can quickly become fuzzy. The NYC Municipal Archives’ 1940s Tax Department photographs are a practical starting point. The archive says the photographs were made between 1939 and 1941 by the Works Progress Administration with the New York City Department of Taxation.

An Archives project note says the long-awaited 1940 tax photograph collection was digitized and placed online, while the archive record describes the images as WPA and Tax Department work from 1939-1941. For a Brooklyn rowhouse, storefront, or apartment building, the photo will not answer ownership or code questions.

It can, however, show a building’s earlier street face before you move to ACRIS, DOB records, old maps, or landmark files.

Keep the photograph’s archive information and date with your notes. Use what is visible in the image to narrow the next record search, such as an older storefront, facade, address, or neighboring building. The photograph answers a visual-history question; it does not establish ownership, legal use, or whether later work was approved. Those questions still belong with the recorded-document, permit, map, or landmark file that covers them.