To borrow from Lou Gehrig, I consider myself the luckiest guy on the face of the earth for having been born and raised in Brooklyn. I didn't know it at the time, but I sure do now. "Brooklyn Memories" shares this experience in photographs taken in 2009 on a visit to see family for the first time in forty years. My cousin David graciously took me to old haunts all over Brooklyn. Our trips are captured in thirty-five vibrant and gritty photographs of iconic Brooklyn landmarks and neighborhoods. The photographs are accompanied by humorous and irreverent stories of every day life, personal triumphs, and failures that were typical of the time and place. "Brooklyn Memories" will interest many New York (and east coast) expatriates; and readers who have read Brooklyn lore, but never visited the borough. Many of the subjects photographed have been seriously harmed by Hurricane Sandy. Some are completely gone, and may be "memories" forever.

Irv Lefberg, December 2012