Sesquicentennial tablet stolen from library wall

On Tuesday, Dec. 16, if you live in Bay Ridge or did at one time, “the small town in the big city” will celebrate its 172nd birthday.

It was a mild Friday evening on Dec. 16, 1853 when a group of prominent area landowners met at the School District No. 2 Yellow Hook school house, then located on Third Avenue near our present day 73rd Street.

As a result of the 1848-49 yellow fever epidemic in other Brooklyn communities, villagers were especially concerned about the continual stigma of having a name like Yellow Hook. So in the one-story yellow-painted frame school building, a historic meeting was called where a resolution was unanimously passed to change the village name from Yellow Hook to Bay Ridge. Back then Yellow Hook was only a small village within the confines of the Town of New Utrecht.

With that having been said, I have to pass along the sad news about the mysterious theft of the bronze wall tablet that has been ripped from the mounting bolts holding it in place on the brick wall at the entrance to the Bay Ridge branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. You can still see the holes in the wall where it was once mounted. It was placed there to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Bay Ridge by the library with funding by the Bay Ridge Sesquicentennial Committee. 

The commemorative tablet was unveiled at a noon ceremony in front of the library, on an easel stand, on Tuesday, Dec 16, 2003. Participating officials included Brooklyn Public Library executive director Ginnie Cooper, City Councilman Vincent Gentile, Brooklyn Borough Historian Ronald Schweiger, State Senator Marty Golden, the Bay Ridge Sesquicentennial Committee co-chairmen George Fontas and Theodore General, and Bay Ridge Historical Society President Peter Scarpa. A few days later the W&EBaum firm that designed and manufactured the tablet  had it mounted on the wall.  

No one to my knowledge knows exactly when it was stolen. I was notified by former Councilman Gentile, who had organized the sesquicentennial committee, that George Frontas had told him he saw it was missing. Upon hearing about it, I met with the Bay Ridge Chief Librarian Rita Meade and she told me Community Board 10 District Manager Josephine Beckmann was notified and Brooklyn Library leadership was alerted. 

When I asked Meade and later the maintenance engineer who works at the library daily, they said they didn’t  know it was missing until it was brought to their attention.  I also asked whether this library had an outside video camera. The chance of ever recovering this iconic commemorative tablet is slim to none!

So we are launching a fund-raising committee to fund a new bronze tablet to be placed inside the library. Back in 2003, the tablet and installation cost was $2,000. I am in the process of contacting the Tablet manufacturer with the hopes we can negotiate a reasonable replacement cost.  In the meantime, please contact your elected officials, community organizations and business to ask for their support.

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Brooklyn Borough Historian Ronald Schweiger was a guest speaker at the December meeting of the Society of Old Brooklynites. Schweiger is a past president of the Society  and former president of the Brooklyn College Alumni Association, as well as a resident expert on the borough’s famed Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team. His talk this time was about historical tidbits on how the borough was formed and about his lengthy career serving three borough presidents: Marty Markowitz, Eric Adams and Antonio Reynoso.