For seven years, DUMBO's historic streets were torn up and rebuilt. Along the way, the work turned up 2,771 objects that had been sitting under the neighborhood, many of them from the early 1800s. Starting Thursday, November 5, a selection of them goes on view a few steps from where they were found.

Dumbo Before the Bridges opens at the Adams Street Library, 9 Adams Street, and runs through February 28. An opening reception is set for November 5 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the library.

What is in the show

The exhibit draws on the street reconstruction project known by its city contract number, HWKKP005, which ran from 2019 to 2026. Mark Tweedie, the project's archaeologist, chose more than a dozen of the 2,771 finds for the display. They are shown alongside historic and modern photographs of the same streets.

The point of the selection is the waterfront before the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge went up: the factories, workshops and homes that lined these blocks when the area was an industrial shoreline rather than the neighborhood framed by two bridges that visitors photograph today. The objects trace both sides of that life, the industrial work along the river and the households of the people who did it.

The exhibit's own promotional image is a photograph of the Manhattan Bridge in the middle of construction in 1908, which gives a sense of how recent the bridges are compared with some of what came out of the ground.

Who put it together

The exhibit is presented by Team Dumbo, the neighborhood's business improvement district, along with the Adams Street Library, the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission, the NYC Department of Design and Construction and the NYC Department of Transportation.

About the library

The Adams Street Library is Brooklyn Public Library's 60th branch and the first new branch the system built since 1983. It sits on the ground floor of a former factory building at 9 Adams Street, facing Brooklyn Bridge Park, with the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges in view. The branch serves Vinegar Hill, DUMBO and Farragut in particular, and its design and programs were shaped by several months of community feedback before it opened.

That makes it a fitting home for an exhibit about what came before: a working factory building, now a library, showing what the factory district left behind under its own streets.

When to go

The exhibit is open during library hours: Monday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday 1 to 8 p.m., Wednesday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Thursday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Friday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The library is closed Sundays. Like every Brooklyn Public Library branch, it is free to walk in.

November 5 is also a busy night in the neighborhood: Art in Dumbo lists several gallery openings around DUMBO the same evening, so the reception can be the start of a longer walk.

Getting there

The F train stops at York Street, the A and C at High Street, and the 2 and 3 at Clark Street. NYC Ferry's East River route stops at DUMBO/Fulton Ferry. Brooklyn Bridge Park recommends public transit, since parking nearby is limited.

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