The Hatching Cat of Gotham

Judge Jenks was in the Kings County Courthouse when the fire on his desk started. Construction of the courthouse began in 1861 on land that was once part of DuFlon’s Military Garden, which had a theater and later, in the 1850s, a lager beer and free concert saloon owned by Louis Grantegein, with a shooting gallery and bowling. The courthouse was razed 100 years later; today the Brooklyn Law School occupies the site.
Image: George F. Nesbitt & Co., 1862, from the Collections of the Museum of the City of New York.