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Brooklyn

borough of New York City (1990 pop. 2,300,664), 71 sq mi (184 sq km), coextensive with Kings co., SE N.Y., at the western extremity of Long Island; became a borough of New York City in 1898. Brooklyn is a residential and industrial region, with the largest population of the city's five boroughs; among its manufactures are machinery, textiles, paper products, and chemicals. The borough is the center of important foreign and domestic commerce and has extensive waterfront facilities. The Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Williamsburg bridges span the East River, connecting Brooklyn with Manhattan; beneath the river are the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel (for vehicular traffic) and subway tunnels. The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge connects the borough with Staten Island.

Neighborhoods and Points of Interest

Brooklyn is a borough of many well-defined neighborhoods, from the gentrified brownstone communities of Park Slope and Cobble Hill to Bedford-Stuyvesant, the largest African-American neighborhood in the city. Brighton Beach has a large community of Russian Jews, and there are also neighborhoods of Hispanics, Italians, Poles, Hasidic Jews, and other ethnic groups.

Among the numerous educational institutions in the borough are Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, Polytechnic Institute of New York, Pratt Institute, St. Joseph's College, and Long Island Univ. Near beautiful Prospect Park, the scene of fierce fighting in the American Revolution (see Long Island, battle of), is the main building of the Brooklyn Public Library. Also in that area are the Brooklyn Museum, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the Brooklyn Children's Museum, and the innovative Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Among the many structures that give the borough its appellation “City of Churches” are the Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims, where Henry Ward Beecher preached. Other points of interest in the borough include Coney Island, with its beach and amusement park; the Brooklyn Historical Society; the New York Aquarium (at Coney Island); and the Lefferts Homestead (1777). Fort Hamilton (built 1831 as a harbor defense) overlooks the Narrows of New York Bay. Marine Park and parts of Jamaica Bay are included in Gateway National Recreation Area.

History

The Dutch and English settled the area in 1636 and 1637; about nine years later Dutch farmers established the hamlet of Brueckelen, near the present Borough Hall. By 1664, six towns had been established: Breuckelen (the name was later anglicized to Brooklyn), Bushwick, Flatbush, Gravesend, and New Utrecht. Kings county was established in 1683; Brooklyn was incorporated as a village (Brooklyn Ferry) in 1816 and was chartered as a city in 1834. In the 1830s Brooklyn Heights became one of the first suburbs accessible to New York City by ferry.

Brooklyn absorbed many settlements and villages, such as Flatbush, New Utrecht, and Gravesend (all in the 17th cent.). After annexing Williamsburg and Bushwick in 1855, Brooklyn became the third largest city in the United States and continued to absorb other local villages until it became coextensive with Kings county in 1896. In 1898, when it became a borough of New York City, its population was 830,000. Immigration doubled its population in twenty years.

The New York Naval Shipyard (popularly known as the Brooklyn Navy Yard) was located on the East River from 1801 until its closing in the late 1960s. Its closing coincided with the decline of Brooklyn as a port. The Daily Eagle, a noted newspaper published in Brooklyn from 1841 until 1955, had Walt Whitman as one of its editors. The borough also was home to the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team until it moved to Los Angeles after the 1957 season.

Bibliography

See H. C. Syrett, The City of Brooklyn, 1865–1898 (1944, repr. 1968); R. F. Weld, Brooklyn is America (1950, repr. 1967) and Brooklyn Village, 1816–1834 (1932, repr. 1970); David W. McCullogh, Brooklyn (1983); Jonathan Rieder, Canarsie (1985); Elliot Willensky, When Brooklyn Was the World (1986).