Recurring series

Dumbo Before the Bridges Opening Reception

Opening Reception - November 5th Show Runs - November 5th 2026 - February 28th 2027 Join us for the opening of "Dumbo Before the Bridges"! Dumbo's capital street reconstruction project – known in NYC DDC parlance as "HWKKP005" – broke ground in 2019. This $108 million dollar project modernized Dumbo’s famed Belgian block streets, upgrading water and sewer infrastructure, and finishing the neighborhood's plaza spaces. 801,035 Belgian blocks were restored, 23,180 linear feet of water, sewer, electricity and wifi were renewed, 5,795 linear feet of bike lanes was installed, 1,071 linear feet of freight train tracks from the from the Jay Street Connecting Railroad were restored – and 2,771 artifacts were unearthed during these six years. In Dumbo Before the Bridges , the public has a rare chance to view some of the artifacts unearthed during HWKKP005, alongside historic photographs (albeit from the mid 1930s) of the corners and intersections where these artifacts were found. New York City has a long history of landfilling to create livable space, and Dumbo is no exception. For most of its history, Dumbo was a salt marsh, with the water line reaching present-day Water Street. In 1686, the New York City municipal government began selling underwater land lots, or “water lots,” to private citizens who proceeded to fill these spaces to build wharves and other coastal infrastructure. Across the river, in the City of Brooklyn, this process of landfilling by private citizens began in earnest in the 1790s, with Brooklyn residents systematically extending the shore 500 feet into the East River by filling in land, moving the shoreline from Water Street to where it stands today. In Dumbo, landfilling began after the American Revolution, when lands seized from the loyalist Rapalje family were purchased by the Sands family; it was the Sands family that first undertook the massive endeavor of landfilling the low-lying portions of Dumbo (west of Bridge Street) from the 1790s-1820s. After the 1820s, landfilling in Dumbo occurred in smaller increments—up until the mid-1850s. By the 1860s, Brooklyn's industry was booming; huge brick warehouses dominated the waterfront, earning Brooklyn the nickname, “The Walled City.” Dumbo warehouses stored and processed goods from all around the world, from animal hides to indigo to tobacco, while thousands of workers in the busy factories roasted and packaged coffee (a game changing invention, thanks to the Arbuckle Brothers), and made soap and ceramics. Prefabricated cardboard boxes (another game changer, this one Robert Gair's), brillo pads, water meters and even Eskimo pies would follow. In January 1870, construction began on the Brooklyn Bridge; it opened to the public on May 24, 1883. The Manhattan Bridge followed, opening on December 31, 1909. Project archeologist Mark Tweedie has curated a dozen objects -- from bottles and military buttons to fire bricks and smoking pipes -- many dating back to the early 1800s. Some likely made it to Dumbo through this process of landfilling. Some are likely the remnants of buildings destroyed to make way for our bridges. Yet others are of unknown provenance. Together, they offer a peek into the industrial and home lives of Brooklynites along the waterfront--well before the bridges which so define the Dumbo of today were built.