Name Eugene Armbruster | ||
 | ||
Eugene L. Armbruster (1865–1943) was a New York City photographer, illustrator, writer, and historian born in Baden-Baden, Germany and based in Bushwick, Brooklyn, where he died. His work includes many buildings, roads, and neighborhoods in area towns such as Amagansett, Astoria, Bridgehampton, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights, Bushwick, Coney Island, Corona, East New York, East Hampton, Elmhurst, Flatbush, Flatlands, Flushing, Forest Hills, Gravesend, Hempstead, Jackson Heights, Jamaica, Jericho, Long Island City, Manhattan, Maspeth, Middle Village, Montauk, Oyster Bay, Queens Village, Rego Park, Ridgewood, Rikers Island, South Ozone Park, Southampton, Williamsburg, and Sullivan County.
Contents
Life
Armbruster was born in Baden-Baden, Germany in 1865 and immigrated to the United States in 1882. He was naturalized as a United States citizen in 1891. He owned a house on Eldert Street in Bushwick, where he lived with his wife Julia, and their two children Julia and Eugene Jr. He was a proprietor of the H. Henkel Cigar Box Manufacturing Company until his retirement in 1920. While Armbruster did photography and historical writing throughout his life, he conducted much of this work after he retired.
Photography and historical work
Armbruster took photographs for documentary over aesthetic purposes. He usually chose to photograph in late fall, winter, and early spring. The overwhelming majority of his photographs are of buildings and street scenes. Armbruster published several books, most of which pertain to the history of Brooklyn from Dutch settlement in the 17th century to the early 20th century. He was also the author of pamphlets, and a columnist for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. In the newspaper he often answered questions from readers about the history of Brooklyn, advertised his books, and advocated for the preservation of historic buildings.
His published books include:
Library and archival holdings
Substantial holdings of Armbruster's photographic prints and negatives, and scrapbooks can be found at the following cultural institutions: Queens Library, New-York Historical Society, Brooklyn Historical Society, and New York Public Library.
His photographs were identified and described by Vincent Seyfried for Queens Library. According to the library's finding aid, Armbruster photographed areas in Kings County, New York from approximately 1895–1936, Manhattan from 1920–1925, Nassau County, New York from 1917–1925, Queens County, New York from 1910–1931, Rikers Island in 1931, and Suffolk County, New York from 1910–1934. The Queens Library collection divides their 6.950 photographs into eight series by county, plus "miscellaneous 1920–1925" and "unknown 1910–1925".