A photographic time capsule of a pre-gentrified South Brooklyn Memorial Day parade that preserves a neighborhood and a moment now largely vanished

On Memorial Day 1976, weeks before the nation marked its 200th birthday, South Brooklyn filled with flags, brass bands, scout troops, and families along Fifth Avenue. A vivid portrait of South Brooklyn in 1976, patriotic, diverse, and on the cusp of change, this book gathers more than fifty photographs by lifelong New Yorker Larry Racioppo, who left his nearby apartment that morning to record the pageantry of “America’s Birthday.” What he captured is a timeless record of Brooklyn’s people and pride during the Bicentennial year, now published as the United States marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026.

Italian-, Puerto Rican-, Irish-, and Polish-American neighbors appear as marchers and as specta�tors on stoops, at bar windows, inside ethnic clubhouses, and in second-story windows. The pictures register storefronts and fraternal halls, homemade floats and uniforms, and the easy mingling of ritual and everyday life that defined the blocks then. Seen together, they preserve a local parade and the social world around it, including mom-and-pop businesses, clubs, and gathering places, at a moment when the city and neighborhood were about to change.

A foreword by novelist and historian Kevin Baker situates the work within the civic culture of 1970s New York. Racioppo’s Afterword traces the 1976 route from Green-Wood Cemetery to the Old Stone House Park and reflects on five decades of photographing Memorial Day parades, from South Brooklyn to Rockaway, as generations of veterans and families pass the tradition along.

Part civic history and part street-level portrait, Memorial ’76 expands Racioppo’s acclaimed chronicle of New York’s neighborhoods, standing alongside Brooklyn Before and Here Down on Dark Earth, and offers scholars and general readers an essential visual archive of working-class pride, urban ritual, and the everyday textures of a Brooklyn that has largely disappeared.

About the Author

Larry Racioppo was born and raised in South Brooklyn and has photographed New York City since 1971. A Guggenheim Fellow and former staff photographer for NYC’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, his work is held by the Museum of the City of New York, the Brooklyn Museum, El Museo del Barrio, the Brooklyn Public Library, and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. Recent books include Here Down on Dark Earth: Loss and Remembrance in New York City (Fordham) and Brooklyn Before: Photographs, 1971–1983.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Store Description

Account dedicated to Print on Demand titles. Brook Bookstore offers a wide selection of books with a continuously updated catalog and fast shipments all over the world. We hold distribution rights with all of the publishers we promote and are in continuous search of new interesting titles to propose to our customers. We are part of Brandon Group SRL (an Italian company) and all of the orders are shipped from Europe. Depending on availability orders will be picked from our different warehouses. CONTACT US If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us sending a message to our store. We have a well prepared customer service team who will be happy to assist you. Our working hours are from Monday to Friday from 9:30 to 18:30 (CET, UTC +1) so messages received during the weekends might be responded with a slight delay but we guarantee you will get back to you as soon as possible. RETURNS If you want to return your order, please submit your request through Abebooks platform. Returns requests are managed case by case by our team and always in line with Abebooks policies: AbeBooks? Return Policy guarantees that you can return any book for a refund within 30 days, when the return is due to an error on the bookseller?s part. When the motive of the return is not due to an error of the seller it is up to Brook Bookstore to accept the return or else after studying the case. CANCELLATION You can send a cancellation request to our customer service team while the package has not yet been shipped. After that we cannot ensure we can retrieve the parcel but we suggest you to get in touch with us in order to verify the case. INVOICE You can request the invoice to be issued together with the shipment of the order or, at the latest, in the same month of the shipment.

Visit Seller's Storefront

Seller's business information

Brandon Group S.R.L.
Via Vannella Gaetani 27, Brandon Group, Napoli, NA, 80121, Italy

Sale & Shipping Terms

Terms of Sale

Account dedicated to Print on Demand titles.

CANCELLATION
You can send a cancellation request from the order page while the package has not yet been shipped. After that we cannot ensure we can retrieve the parcel but we suggest you to get in touch with us in order to verify the case.

INVOICE
You can request the invoice to be issued together with the shipment of the order or, at the latest, in the same month of the shipment.

RETURNS
If you want to return your order, please contact us for authoriz...

More Information

Shipping Terms

Shipping rates from Italy to U.S.A.

Shipping rates from Italy to U.S.A.
Order quantity	25 to 40 business days	60 to 60 business days
First item	US$ 6.28	US$ 583.78

Delivery times are set by sellers and vary by carrier and location. Orders passing through Customs may face delays and buyers are responsible for any associated duties or fees. Sellers may contact you regarding additional charges to cover any increased costs to ship your items.