In the late nineteenth century, a Brooklyn Daily Eagle columnist who signed his reports "E.R.G." chronicled a pedestrian-level view of the architecture, history and street life of the city’s thoroughfares, describing how its interlocking roadways formed the tapestry of a budding metropolis—then in the midst of a grand transformation after the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge. He watches the Saturday shoppers on Myrtle Avenue and the Sunday gamblers on Baltic Street; he studies the handsome villas of Washington Avenue and the shanties of Columbia Street; he celebrates Shore Road and lambastes the Gowanus Canal. Often cited by local historians for their detail and flair, these columns are for the first time collected by historian Henry Stewart ( How Bay Ridge Became Bay Ridge ), who demystifies the obscurest references while piecing together how the story of one of the largest cities in America began on its sidewalks.