Brooklyn

Brooklyn is the most populous of the five boroughs of New York City, and it is coextensive with Kings County in the U.S. state of New York. It is located at the western end of Long Island and shares a border with the borough of Queens. Brooklyn is connected to Manhattan by several bridges and tunnels, including the famous Brooklyn Bridge, and to Staten Island by the Verrazzano–Narrows Bridge.

As of the 2020 United States census, Brooklyn had a population of over 2.7 million people, making it very crowded. If it were its own city, it would be one of the largest in the United States. Brooklyn has a rich history, beginning with the Dutch in the 1600s, and it became part of New York City in 1898.

Today, Brooklyn is known for its diverse neighborhoods and cultures. It is a center for Jewish culture and is home to many educational institutions like Brooklyn College and Pratt Institute. In recent years, Brooklyn has become a popular place for artists, entrepreneurs, and technology companies, bringing new life and change to the area.

Toponymy

Brooklyn's name comes from a town in Dutch called Breukelen. The word is made from two parts: broeck, meaning bog or marshland, and lede, meaning a small water stream. Breukelen was started in America in 1646 and first written down in 1663.

Over time, the name of the old town in Holland changed many times. It has been called Bracola, Broccke, Brocckede, and many other ways. The name for the settlement in New Amsterdam also changed a lot. It was spelled Breucklyn, Brucklyn, Broucklyn, and more. Because there were so many different spellings, some people thought it meant "broken land". But today, the name Brooklyn best shows what it really means.

The county's name, Kings County, was named after King Charles II of England. He ruled from 1660 to 1685.

History

The history of European settlement in Brooklyn goes back more than 350 years. It began in the 17th century as a small Dutch-founded town called "Breuckelen" on the East River shore of Long Island. Over time, it grew into a larger city and became part of New York City in 1898.

Colonial era

New Netherland

The Dutch were the first Europeans to settle the western edge of Long Island, where the Lenape, an American Indian tribe, lived. The town of Breuckelen was named after a place in the Netherlands. It was part of New Netherland and included several parishes like Gravesend, Brooklyn Heights, and Flatlands.

Province of New York

After the English took over in 1664, Brooklyn became part of the Province of New York. In 1683, it became one of the original twelve counties of New York.

Revolutionary War

In 1776, the Battle of Long Island took place, where British troops defeated the Continental Army led by George Washington. This battle was a key part of the American Revolutionary War.

Post-independence era

Urbanization

In the 19th century, Brooklyn started to grow along the East River. The New York Navy Yard was located there, and ferry services helped connect Brooklyn to Manhattan. The city of Brooklyn was formed in 1834 and grew quickly.

Civil War

Brooklyn supported the Union during the American Civil War. The 14th Brooklyn regiment was well-known for its service.

New York City borough

In 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was finished, improving travel between Brooklyn and Manhattan. In 1898, Brooklyn joined with other areas to become part of the larger City of New York. Some people were unhappy about losing Brooklyn's separate city status.

Geography

Brooklyn is a big part of New York City, covering 97 square miles (250 km²). Most of this area is land, about 71 square miles (180 km²), and the rest is water. It is the second largest area of the five parts of New York City.

Brooklyn is located at the southwestern end of Long Island. It has many water borders, including Jamaica Bay, the Atlantic Ocean, and the East River. Important bridges connect Brooklyn to other parts of the city, such as the Brooklyn Bridge and the Verrazzano–Narrows Bridge.

Neighborhoods

See also: List of Brooklyn neighborhoods and New York City ethnic enclaves

Brooklyn's neighborhoods have many different groups of people. For example, in the early to mid-1900s, Brownsville had mostly Jewish people, but since the 1970s, it has been mostly African American. Midwood was filled with Irish people, then Jewish people for about 50 years, and is now slowly becoming a place where many Pakistani people live. Brooklyn's largest group of people, white people, went from 97.2% in 1930 to 46.9% by 1990.

The borough attracts people who used to live in other cities in the United States. Many of these people come from Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, Cincinnati, and Seattle.

Community diversity

Because New York City is a place where people from all over the world come, Brooklyn has many different cultures and groups of people. In 2010, 51.6% of people in Brooklyn were part of religious groups. In 2014, there were 914 religious groups in Brooklyn. Brooklyn has many different neighborhoods with people from many cultures.

Jewish American

Main article: Jews in New York City

Over 600,000 Jewish people, especially Orthodox and Hasidic Jews, live in areas like Borough Park, Williamsburg, and Midwood. These areas have many Jewish schools, places of worship, and restaurants that follow Jewish food rules. Other Jewish neighborhoods include Canarsie, Sea Gate, and Crown Heights. Many hospitals in Brooklyn were started by Jewish groups.

Chinese American

Main articles: Chinatowns in Brooklyn and Chinese people in New York City

Over 200,000 Chinese Americans live in southern Brooklyn, mostly in Sunset Park, Bensonhurst, Gravesend, and Homecrest. Sunset Park has the largest group of Chinese people, known for its Chinese culture and celebrations like the Chinese New Year.

African American and Caribbean American

Main article: Caribbean immigration to New York City

Brooklyn has large African American and Caribbean communities. Many people from the Caribbean live in Crown Heights, Flatbush, East Flatbush, Kensington, and Canarsie. Brooklyn is home to the largest group of people from the Caribbean outside of the Caribbean. The West Indian Labor Day Parade happens every Labor Day on Eastern Parkway.

Hispanic American

Further information: Puerto Ricans in New York City and Nuyorican

After World War II, Puerto Rican people started living in neighborhoods like Sunset Park, Red Hook, and Gowanus. Bushwick has become a big place for Hispanic Americans, with many Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, South Americans, Central Americans, and Mexicans. Sunset Park has many Mexican people, especially from Puebla.

Russian and Ukrainian American

Main article: Russian Americans in New York City

Brooklyn has many Russian and Ukrainian people, mostly in Brighton Beach and Sheepshead Bay. Brighton Beach has many Russian and Ukrainian shops and is sometimes called Little Russia or Little Odessa.

Polish American

Brooklyn's Polish people are mostly in Greenpoint, Borough Park, and Sunset Park.

Italian American

Main article: Italians in New York City

Italian Americans live in neighborhoods like Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights, Bay Ridge, Bath Beach, and Gravesend. These areas still have Italian restaurants, bakeries, and cafes.

Arab American & Muslim

In the early 1900s, many Lebanese and Syrian Christians lived around Atlantic Avenue. More recently, Arab immigrants, especially Egyptians and Lebanese, have moved to Bay Ridge. Brighton Beach has a growing Pakistani community, and Midwood has Little Pakistan on Coney Island Avenue.

Irish American

Irish Americans live in neighborhoods like Windsor Terrace, Park Slope, Bay Ridge, Marine Park, and Gerritsen Beach.

South Asian American

Younger professionals of Indian origin are finding Brooklyn a good place to live. Nearly 30,000 Indian Americans live in Brooklyn. Brighton Beach has a growing Pakistani community, and Kensington has a growing Bangladeshi community.

Greek American

Greek Americans live in Bay Ridge and other parts of Brooklyn.

LGBTQ community

Main article: LGBT culture in New York City § Brooklyn

Brooklyn has many same-sex couples. Park Slope became popular among lesbians, and Prospect Heights has many LGBT people. The Brooklyn Liberation March in 2020 focused on supporting Black transgender lives.

Artists-in-residence

Brooklyn became a popular place for artists after they were priced out of Manhattan. Neighborhoods like Williamsburg, DUMBO, Red Hook, and Park Slope were popular for artists. However, costs have gone up, and artists are moving to other places.

Demographics

Main article: Demographics of Brooklyn

Brooklyn is the most populous part of New York City. In 2020, more than 2.7 million people lived there. Brooklyn is home to many different kinds of people and languages.

Ethnic groups

Brooklyn has many different ethnic groups. In 2020, about 35% of people were white, 27% were Black or African American, and 19% were Hispanic or Latin American. There were also many people from Asian backgrounds and other groups.

Languages

Many languages are spoken in Brooklyn. Over half of the people speak only English at home, but many others speak Spanish, Chinese, Russian, and many other languages. This makes Brooklyn a very diverse place.

Culture

Main article: Culture of Brooklyn

See also: Culture of New York City, LGBT culture in New York City § Brooklyn, and Media of New York City

Brooklyn has been very important to American culture in books, movies, and plays. People often think of Brooklyn as having a special New York City way of talking, though this is changing over time. The colors that represent Brooklyn are blue and gold.

Brooklyn is home to famous places like the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Brooklyn Philharmonic. It also has the Brooklyn Museum, which is one of the biggest art museums in the United States and has over a million pieces of art, from ancient times to today. The Brooklyn Children's Museum was the first museum made just for kids and opened in 1899.

Brooklyn has many local newspapers and magazines, including The Brooklyn Paper and Brooklyn Rail. There are also newspapers and magazines for many different languages and cultures living in Brooklyn.

Some fun events in Brooklyn include the Coney Island Mermaid Parade in June, the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest on July 4th, and the Labor Day Carnival in Crown Heights. There is also an art film festival called the Art of Brooklyn Film Festival each June.

Economy

See also: Economy of New York City

Brooklyn's jobs depend on three main things: how well the whole country and New York City are doing, how many people move in and out, and its role as a helpful place for businesses to keep their offices.

Many people in Brooklyn work outside the borough, so what happens in Manhattan matters a lot. Lots of new people moving to Brooklyn create jobs in services, stores, and building work.

Since the late 1900s, Brooklyn has gained many jobs from big companies moving their office work from Manhattan, plus fast-growing technology and entertainment businesses in an area called DUMBO, and more companies helping with things like accounting and computer services.

While Brooklyn used to have many factories, it now has more service jobs. Even so, some factories still make clothes, furniture, metals, and food. The area known as the Brooklyn Navy Yard once employed thousands of people building ships, and today it has many different kinds of businesses.

Construction and services are growing fast, and most businesses in Brooklyn are small. Brooklyn also has many banks and credit unions, and changes in Downtown Brooklyn have brought in a lot of new investment and technology start-up companies.

Parks and other attractions

See also: Tourism in New York City

• Brooklyn Botanic Garden: next to Prospect Park is a beautiful garden with cherry trees, a rose garden, a Japanese garden, and many other special places for kids to explore.
• Coney Island started as a fun place for rich people but became one of America’s first amusement parks. The famous Cyclone rollercoaster, built in 1927, is a historic landmark. Other rides like the Wonder Wheel are still running. Coney Island had a tough time in the 1970s but is now lively again.
• Floyd Bennett Field: the first city airport in New York City, now part of the National Park System. You can see old hangars and runways, and walk through nature areas with different plants and animals.
• Green-Wood Cemetery was founded in 1838 and is a peaceful place to walk and see beautiful views.
• Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge: a special place for animals and birds, shared between Brooklyn and Queens, and part of the Gateway National Recreation Area
• New York Transit Museum shows old subway, train, and bus items from New York’s history. It is located at Court Street, an old subway station in Brooklyn Heights.
• Prospect Park is a big park in central Brooklyn. It was designed by the same people who made Manhattan’s Central Park. The park has meadows, a lake, a zoo, a boathouse, and places for concerts and sports. Every year, it hosts a fun Halloween Parade.
• Fort Greene Park has the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument, a memorial for soldiers from the Revolutionary War.

Further information: Wildlife of Brooklyn

Sports

Main article: Sports in Brooklyn

Brooklyn’s big professional basketball team is the Brooklyn Nets. They moved to Brooklyn in 2012 and play at the Barclays Center in Prospect Heights.

Brooklyn has a rich sports history. It was home to many famous athletes and was where early baseball games were played. The Brooklyn Dodgers were a famous baseball team that played at Ebbets Field. In 1947, they made history by hiring Jackie Robinson, the first African-American player in Major League Baseball. The Dodgers won the World Series in 1955 but moved to Los Angeles two years later.

In 2001, minor league baseball returned to Brooklyn with the Brooklyn Cyclones, who play at MCU Park in Coney Island. They are part of the New York Mets organization.

A new soccer team, Brooklyn FC, will start playing in 2024 with a women’s team and, in 2025, a men’s team.

Brooklyn also has many places for fishing, with many boats and different kinds of fish to catch.

Government and politics

See also: Government and politics in Brooklyn

Brooklyn, like the other parts of New York City, has its own system for handling laws and leaders. It has many local leaders called City Council members, more than any other area of the city. Brooklyn also has a leader known as a borough president, along with other local government teams.

Brooklyn is split into many areas called community districts. Each of these areas has a group of volunteers called a community board that helps make suggestions for the city. The United States Postal Service also has post offices in Brooklyn, with a big one in Downtown Brooklyn.

Brooklyn has mostly voted for leaders from one political group, called Democrats, in big elections for many years. In recent times, a smaller number of people in Brooklyn have voted for leaders from the other political group, called Republicans.

Federal representation

As of 2023, Brooklyn was represented in the United States House of Representatives by five leaders, most of whom were from the Democratic group. One leader was from the Republican group. Each leader looks after different parts of Brooklyn, including many different neighborhoods.

• Nydia Velázquez looks after a part of central-west Brooklyn.
• Hakeem Jeffries looks after a part of southern Brooklyn.
• Yvette Clarke looks after central and southern Brooklyn.
• Dan Goldman looks after southwestern Brooklyn and a part of Manhattan.
• Nicole Malliotakis looks after southwestern Brooklyn and all of Staten Island.

Housing

Brooklyn has many different places to live, including private homes and public housing managed by the New York City Housing Authority. The city created affordable homes through the Mitchell–Lama Housing Program.

In 2022, there were 1,101,441 homes in Brooklyn, with about 15,876 homes for every square mile (6,130/km²). In 2023, more than 100,000 people lived in public housing, which had nearly 50,000 units.

Education

See also: Education in New York City and List of high schools in New York City

Brooklyn has many schools, both public and private. Public schools are run by the New York City Department of Education, the largest school system in the United States.

One famous school is Brooklyn Technical High School, known as Brooklyn Tech. It opened in 1922 and focuses on science, math, and technology. Many of its graduates go on to study at top universities.

Brooklyn also has many colleges. Brooklyn College is part of the City University of New York and was the first public college in New York City to allow both men and women to study together. Other colleges include Medgar Evers College, New York City College of Technology, and private schools like Adelphi University, Brooklyn Law School, and Pratt Institute. These schools offer many different programs for students to choose from.

Brooklyn Public Library

The Brooklyn Public Library is a special library system just for Brooklyn. It offers many public programs, millions of books, and over 850 free computers for people to use. You can find books and magazines in many languages spoken in Brooklyn, such as English, Russian, Chinese, Spanish, Hebrew, and Haitian Creole, as well as French, Yiddish, Hindi, Bengali, Polish, Italian, and Arabic. The main library building is a famous landmark near Grand Army Plaza.

There are 58 library branches, so every person in Brooklyn lives close to one. Besides a special Business Library in Brooklyn Heights, the Brooklyn Public Library is building a new Visual & Performing Arts Library. This library will focus on art, theater, dance, music, film, photography, and architecture, and will include both old and new digital collections. It will also offer training on arts technologies.

Transportation

See also: Transportation in New York City

In 2015, about 57 percent of households in Brooklyn did not have cars, which is a bit higher than the rest of New York City.

Brooklyn has many ways to get around. There are 19 subway lines, including the Franklin Avenue Shuttle, that go through Brooklyn. Almost 93% of people who travel from Brooklyn to Manhattan use the subway. Some places like Flatlands and Marine Park don’t have many subways close by. Big subway stations in Brooklyn include Atlantic Avenue–Barclays Center, Broadway Junction, DeKalb Avenue, Jay Street–MetroTech, and Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue. Brooklyn used to have many streetcars, but now most people use buses instead. There are also express buses to Manhattan, and yellow taxis, though there aren’t as many as in other parts of the city. Brooklyn has three train stations for the Long Island Rail Road: East New York, Nostrand Avenue, and Atlantic Terminal. In 2017, a new ferry service started, with routes to Manhattan. A new streetcar line called the Brooklyn–Queens Connector was planned to start around 2024.

See also: Brooklyn streets and List of lettered Brooklyn avenues

Most big roads are in the western and southern parts of Brooklyn. There are two major highways: Interstate 278, which uses the Gowanus Expressway and the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway, and Interstate 478, which is the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel to Manhattan. Other important roads include the Prospect Expressway, Belt Parkway, and Jackie Robinson Parkway. Many streets in Brooklyn have numbers, like numbered streets and avenues, especially in areas like Park Slope and Bay Ridge. Some streets have names based on old towns or nearby water bodies.

Brooklyn is connected to Manhattan by three bridges—the Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Williamsburg Bridge—and a tunnel called the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel. The Verrazzano–Narrows Bridge links Brooklyn to Staten Island. Brooklyn also shares several bridges with Queens over Newtown Creek.

Brooklyn was an important port, especially at the Brooklyn Army Terminal and Bush Terminal in Sunset Park. Today, most big ships go to New Jersey, but Brooklyn still has a cruise terminal in Red Hook. In 2017, ferry services began, connecting Brooklyn to Manhattan. There are plans for more ferry routes, including one to Coney Island.

Partnerships with districts of foreign cities

See also: New York City § Sister cities

Brooklyn has friendly partnerships with several districts in other countries. These partnerships began in different years, starting from 1990. Some of the partnered districts include:

• Anzio, Lazio, Italy (since 1990)
• Huế, Vietnam
• Gdynia, Poland (since 1991)
• Beşiktaş, Istanbul Province, Turkey (since 2005)
• Leopoldstadt, Vienna, Austria (since 2007)
• London Borough of Lambeth, United Kingdom
• Bnei Brak, Israel
• Konak, İzmir, Turkey (since 2010)
• Chaoyang District, Beijing, China (since 2014)
• Yiwu, China (since 2014)
• Üsküdar, Istanbul, Turkey (since 2015)

Hospitals and healthcare

Main article: List of hospitals in Brooklyn

Brooklyn has many important places where people can get help when they are sick or hurt. Some of these places include Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center, Kings County Hospital Center, Maimonides Medical Center, Mount Sinai Brooklyn, New York Community Hospital, NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County, NYU Langone Hospital – Brooklyn, and SUNY Downstate Medical Center. These hospitals work to make sure everyone in the area gets the care they need.