Joe Roifer & friend. Apt. 9E, Turner Tower. 135 Eastern Parkway, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, June 20, 1978
 
In 1976 a woman named Dinanda H. Nooney became interested in Brooklyn, while working as a volunteer for George McGovern’s short-lived presidential campaign (he had lost to Nixon in 1972, of course, and he soon found that the Democratic Party wasn’t interested in a second attempt). Two years later, she used the connections she had made in order to undertake a survey of the borough. Along the way, she got more interested in the people living in some of the homes she was researching, and she began to ask permission to do portraits of families in their homes. Many of these sitters referred other potentially willing subjects to her.

The results of these efforts are nearly six hundred gelatin silver prints of Brooklynites in their abodes, and they are stunning. In 1995 Nooney gave the collection to the New York Public Library, and you can now see the photos on the NYPL website. You can even see them broken out by neighborhood if that floats your boat.

For many of the homes shown here, there are other photos in the collection as well, so be sure to poke around the collection. I can’t get enough of these pictures, I’ve been looking at them all day. 
 

Jerry & Linda Schick. 188 Washington Ave., Fort Greene, Brooklyn, June 10, 1978
 

Russell McCombs. 315 Eastern Parkway, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, June 23, 1978
 

Fran Orans. 4715 Surf Ave., Coney Island, Brooklyn, August 5, 1978
 

Bernice & Beresford Sealy. 145 Maple St. Flatbush, Brooklyn, February 13, 1978
 

Dr. Robert L. Leslie. 140 Lincoln Rd., Flatbush, Brooklyn, November 10, 1978
 

Jonathan & Dorothy Nelson. 897 Sterling Pl., Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, May 20, 1978
 

Joseph & Mary Merz, architects. Daughter Julie & cat. 48 Willow Place, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, January, 1978
 

Allen Wiener & sons. [I only see one son, but whatever.] 331 President St., Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, July 8, 1978
 

Jean & Helen Gazagnaire. 58 Tompkins Pl., Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, March 1, 1978
 

Geoffrey & Tobi Needler. 51 Montgomery Pl., Park Slope, Brooklyn, June 24, 1978
 

Bill Saari & son Ian. 104 Prospect Pl. Park Slope, Brooklyn, February 9, 1978
 

The living room of Conrad & Phyllis Milster. 178 Emmerson St., Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, May 9, 1978

via Messy Nessy Chic

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
What New York Used to Be
Old New York crime photographs superimposed on their present day locations