Presidential election results
| Year |
Republican |
Democrat |
| 2008 |
20.0% 151,872 |
79.4%
603,525 |
| 2004 |
24.3% 167,149 |
74.9%
514,973 |
| 2000 |
15.7% 96,605 |
80.6%
497,468 |
| 1996 |
15.1% 81,406 |
80.1%
432,232 |
| 1992 |
22.9% 133,344 |
70.7%
411,183 |
| 1988 |
32.6% 230,064 |
66.3%
368,518 |
| 1984 |
38.3% 285,477 |
61.3%
328,379 |
| 1980 |
38.4% 200,306 |
55.4%
288,893 |
| 1976 |
31.1% 190,728 |
68.3%
419,382 |
| 1972 |
49.0% 373,903 |
50.8%
387,768 |
| 1968 |
32.0% 247,936 |
63.1%
489,174 |
| 1964 |
25.0% 229,291 |
74.8%
684,839 |
| 1960 |
33.5% 327,497 |
66.2%
646,582 |
| 1956 |
45.2% 460,456 |
54.7%
557,655 |
|
Brooklyn (named after the
Dutch
town
Breukelen
),an independent city until its consolidation
with New York in 1898, Brooklyn is New York City's most populous
borough, with 2.5 million residents, and second largest in
area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same
boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most
populous county in
New York
State
and the second most densely populated county in the
United States, after New York County (Manhattan
).
Though a part of New York City, Brooklyn maintains a distinct
culture, independent art scene, and unique architectural heritage.
Many
Brooklyn
neighborhoods are
ethnic enclaves
where particular ethnic groups and cultures predominate.
History
The Dutch
were the first Europeans to settle in the area on the western end
of Long
Island
, then largely inhabited by the Native American
people, called the Lenape (often erroneously
referred to by the Lenape place-name,
"Canarsee"
, in contemporary colonial documents.) The first
Dutch settlement, established in 1634, was called Midwout (Midwood). The Dutch also
purchased land during the 1630s from the Mohawk in present- day Gowanus, Red Hook
, the Brooklyn Navy Yard
, and Bushwick
.
The
Village of Breuckelen, named for Breukelen in the province of Utrecht
in the Netherlands, was authorized by the Dutch West India Company in 1646;
it became the first true municipality in what is now New York
State. At the time, Breuckelen was part of
New Netherland. Other villages which were
later incorporated into Brooklyn were Boswijk (Bushwick), Nieuw
Utrecht (
New Utrecht), and
Nieuw Amersfoort (Flatlands). A few houses and cemeteries still
bear witness to the Dutch origins of the borough of Brooklyn.
The Dutch lost Breuckelen in the British conquest of New Netherland
in 1664. In 1683, the British reorganized the
Province of New York into twelve
counties, each of which was sub-divided into towns. Over time, the
name evolved from Breuckelen, to Brockland, to Brocklin, to
Brookline, and eventually, to Brooklyn. Kings County was one of the
original counties, and Brooklyn was one of the original six towns
within Kings County. The county was named in honor of
King Charles II of England.
In August and September of 1776, the
Battle of Long Island (also called the
Battle of Brooklyn) was fought in Kings County. It was the
first major battle in the
American Revolutionary War
following the
Declaration of
Independence and the largest battle of the entire conflict.
While
General George Washington's defeat
on the battlefield cast early doubts on his abilities as a military
tactician and leader, he did keep the Continental Army intact with a brilliant
overnight tactical retreat, across
the East
River
, a maneuver seen by historians as one of his
greatest practical accomplishments.
New York became the British political and military base of
operations in North America. This encouraged the departure of
patriot and their
sympathizers while attracting
loyalist refugees fleeing the
other colonies. Loyalists swelled the population of the surrounding
area, including Brooklyn. Correspondingly, the region became the
focus of General Washington's intelligence activities (see
Intelligence in
the American Revolutionary War). The British also began to
hold American patriot
prisoners-of-war in rotting
hulk anchored in
Wallabout Bay off Brooklyn. More
American
prisoners died in these prison-ships than the sum of all the
American battle casualties of the Revolutionary War.
Brooklyn, 1879.
The first half of the nineteenth century saw significant growth
along the economically- strategic East River waterfront, across
from New York City. Brooklyn's population expanded more than
threefold between 1800 and 1820, doubled again in the 1820s, and
doubled yet again during the 1830s.
The county encompassed two cities: the
City of Brooklyn and the City of Williamsburgh
. Brooklyn annexed Williamsburgh in 1854,
which lost its final "h" in the process. With the addition of this
new area, Brooklyn grew from a substantial community of 36,236 to
an imposing city of 96,838.
The
building of rail
links, such as the Brighton Beach
Line in 1878 heralded explosive growth, and, in the space of a
decade, the City of Brooklyn annexed the Town of New
Lots
in 1886, the Town of Flatbush, the Town of Gravesend
, and the Town of New
Utrecht in 1894, and the Town of Flatlands
in 1896. Brooklyn had reached its natural
municipal boundaries at the Kings County line.
In 1883,
the Brooklyn
Bridge
was completed, and transportation to Manhattan no
longer required a boat trip. Brooklyn now prepared to engage
in the still-grander consolidation process developing throughout
the region.
In 1894, Brooklyn residents voted, by a
slight majority, to join with Manhattan, The
Bronx
, Queens
, and
Richmond
(later Staten Island) to become the five boroughs of the modern New York
City. This referendum took effect in 1898. Kings County,
nonetheless, retained its status as one of New York State's
counties.
Government
Since consolidation with New York City in 1898, Brooklyn has been
governed by the New York City Charter that provides for a "strong"
mayor-council system. The
centralized New York City government is responsible for public
education, correctional institutions, libraries, public safety,
recreational facilities, sanitation, water supply, and welfare
services.
The office of
Borough President
was created in the consolidation of 1898 to balance centralization
with local authority. Each borough president had a powerful
administrative role derived from having a vote on the
New York City Board of
Estimate, which was responsible for creating and approving the
city's budget and proposals for land use.
In 1989, the Supreme
Court of the United States
declared the Board of Estimate unconstitutional on
the grounds that Brooklyn, the most populous borough, had no
greater effective representation on the Board than Staten Island,
the least populous borough, a violation of the Fourteenth
Amendment's Equal Protection
Clause pursuant to the high court's 1964 "one man, one vote"
decision.
Since 1990 the Borough President has acted as an advocate for the
borough at the mayoral agencies, the City Council, the New York
state government, and corporations. Brooklyn's Borough President is
Marty Markowitz, elected as a
Democrat in 2001
and re-elected in 2005.
The Democratic Party holds the majority of public offices. 69.7% of
registered voters in Brooklyn are Democrats. Party platforms center
on affordable housing, education and economic development.
The most
controversial political issue is the proposed Atlantic
Yards
, a large housing and sports arena project.
Pockets
of Republican influence exist in Bay Ridge
and Dyker
Heights
.
Each of the city's five counties (coterminous with each borough)
has its own criminal court system and
District Attorney, the chief public
prosecutor who is directly elected by popular vote.
Charles J. Hynes, a Democrat, has been the District
Attorney of Kings County since 1989. Brooklyn has 16 City Council
members, the largest number of any of the five boroughs. Brooklyn
has 18 of the city's 59 community districts, each served by an
unpaid Community Board with advisory powers under the city's
Uniform Land Use Review Procedure. Each board has a paid district
manager who acts as an interlocutor with city agencies.
Brooklyn's official motto is
Een Draght Mackt Maght.
Written in the (old)
Dutch language,
it is inspired by the motto of the
United Dutch Provinces and translated
as
In Unity There is Strength. The motto is displayed on
the borough
seal and
flag, which also feature a young robed woman bearing
fasces, a traditional emblem of
republicanism. Brooklyn's official colors are
blue and gold.
Federal representation
Brooklyn has not voted for a
Republican in a national
presidential
election in the last 50 years. In the 2008 presidential
election Democrat
Barack Obama received
79.4% of the vote in Brooklyn and Republican
John McCain received 20.0%.
Six U.S.
Congressional
Districts (out of 435) include parts of Brooklyn. Two of those
districts fall entirely within the borough.
- Democrat Anthony
Weiner of Queens is the
representative of the 9th district, which
includes much of central and southeastern Brooklyn, as well as
portions of south-central Queens.
Party affiliation of Brooklyn registered voters
(relative percentages)
| Party |
2005 |
2004 |
2003 |
2002 |
2001 |
2000 |
1999 |
1998 |
1997 |
1996 |
| Democratic |
69.7 |
69.2 |
70.0 |
70.1 |
70.6 |
70.3 |
70.7 |
70.8 |
70.8 |
71.0 |
| Republican |
10.1 |
10.1 |
10.1 |
10.1 |
10.2 |
10.5 |
10.9 |
11.1 |
11.3 |
11.5 |
| Other |
3.7 |
3.9 |
3.8 |
3.6 |
2.9 |
2.8 |
2.5 |
2.8 |
2.3 |
2.3 |
| No affiliation |
16.5 |
16.9 |
16.1 |
16.2 |
16.3 |
16.5 |
15.9 |
15.5 |
15.4 |
15.2 |
|
The
United States Postal
Service operates post offices in Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Main
Post Office is located at 271 Cadman Plaza East in
Downtown Brooklyn.
Economy
Brooklyn's job market is driven by three main factors: the
performance of the national/city economy, population flows and the
borough's position as a convenient back office for New York's
businesses.
Forty-four percent of Brooklyn's employed population, or 410,000
people, work in the borough; more than half of the borough's
residents work outside its boundaries. As a result, economic
conditions in Manhattan are important to the borough's jobseekers.
Strong international immigration to Brooklyn generates jobs in
services, retailing and construction.
In recent years Brooklyn has benefited from a steady influx of
financial back-office operations from Manhattan, the rapid growth
of a high-tech/entertainment economy in
DUMBO, and strong growth in support services
such as accounting, personal supply agencies, and computer services
firms.
Jobs in the borough have traditionally been concentrated in
manufacturing, but since 1975, Brooklyn has shifted from a
manufacturing-based to a service-based economy. In 2004, 215,000
Brooklyn residents worked in the services sector, while 27,500
worked in manufacturing. Although manufacturing has declined, a
substantial base has remained in apparel and niche manufacturing
concerns such as furniture, fabricated metals, and food products.
The pharmaceutical company
Pfizer has a
manufacturing plant in Brooklyn that employs 990 workers.
First
established as a shipbuilding facility in 1801, the Brooklyn Navy
Yard employed 70,000 people at is peak during World War
II and was then the largest employer in the borough.
The
Missouri
, the ship on which the Japanese formally
surrendered, was built there, as was the iron-sided Civil War
vessel the Monitor, and the
Maine, whose sinking off
Havana led to the start of the Spanish-American War. The
Navy Yard is now a hub for industrial design firms, food processing
businesses, and artisans, along with a growing film and television
production industry. About 230 private-sector firms providing 4,000
jobs are at the Yard.
Construction and services are the fastest growing sectors. Most
employers in Brooklyn are small businesses. In 2000, 91% of the
approximately 38,704 business establishments in Brooklyn had fewer
than 20 employees. , the borough's unemployment rate was
5.9%.
Demographics
| Brooklyn
Compared |
| 2000
Census |
Brooklyn |
NY City |
NY State |
| Total population |
2,465,326 |
8,008,278 |
18,976,457 |
| Population density |
34,920
/sq mi
|
26,403
/sq mi
|
402
/sq mi
|
| Median
household income (1999) |
$32,135 |
$38,293 |
$43,393 |
| Per capita income |
$16,775 |
$22,402 |
$23,389 |
| Bachelor's degree or higher |
22% |
27% |
24% |
| Foreign born |
38% |
36% |
20% |
| White |
41% |
45% |
67% |
| Black |
36% |
27% |
16% |
| Asian |
8% |
10% |
6% |
| Hispanic (any race) |
20% |
27% |
15% |
Brooklyn has been New York City's most
populous borough since the mid-1920s.
(Key: Each borough's historical population in millions.
The Bronx,
Brooklyn,
Manhattan,
Queens,
Staten Island)
According to the 2005-2007 American Community Survey Estimates, the
borough's population was 43.7% White (36.2% non-Hispanic White
alone), 36.2% Black or African American (33.7% non-Hispanic Black
or African American alone), 0.5% American Indian and Alaska Native,
9.3% Asian, 0.0% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, 11.9%
from some other race and 1.5% from two or more races. 19.6% of the
total population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.
[7654]
37.4% of the population were foreign born (and another 3.5% were
Born in Puerto Rico, U.S. Island areas, or born abroad to American
parents), 46.1% spoke a language other than English at home and
27.4% had a Bachelor's degree or higher.
[7655]
In the 2000 Census, the following percentages of Brooklyn residents
self-reported these European ancestries:
- Italian: 7.5%
- Polish: 3.8%
- Irish: 3.3%
- Russian: 2.9%
- German: 1.6%
- Ukrainian: 1.5%
According to 2005 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, there are 2,486,235
people (up from 2.3 million in 1990), 880,727 households, and
583,922 families residing in Brooklyn. The population density was
34,920/square mile (13,480/km²). There were 930,866 housing
units at an average density of 13,180/square mile
(5,090/km²).
In 2000, 41.20% of Brooklyn residents were
white; 36.44% were
black; 7.54% were
Asian; 0.41% were
Native American; 0.06%
Pacific Islander; 10.05% were of
other races; and 4.27% were from two or more races. People of
Hispanic or Latino
origin, who may be of any race, comprised 19.79% of the population.
18.00% of the population reported speaking
Spanish at home, 5.95%
Russian, 4.19%
French or a
French-based creole, 3.92%
Chinese, 3.10%
Yiddish, 2.10%
Italian, 1.42%
Polish, 1.13%
Hebrew, 1.09%
Punjabi and 0.68%
Urdu.
Of the 880,727 households in Brooklyn, 38.6% were married couples
living together, 22.3% had a female householder with no husband
present, and 33.7% were non-families. 33.3% had children under the
age of 18 living in them. Of all households 27.8% are made up of
individuals and 9.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of
age or older. The average household size was 2.75 and the average
family size was 3.41.
In Brooklyn the population was spread out with 26.9% under the age
of 18, 10.3% from 18 to 24, 30.8% from 25 to 44, 20.6% from 45 to
64, and 11.5% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age was
33 years. Brooklyn has more women and girls, with 88.4 males for
every 100 females.
The median income for households in Brooklyn was $32,135, and the
median income for a family was $36,188. Males had a median income
of $34,317, which was higher than females, whose median income was
$30,516. The
per capita income was
$16,775. About 22% of families and 25.1% of the population were
below the
poverty line, including 34%
of those under age 18 and 21.5% of those age 65 or over.
Neighborhoods
See also: List
of Brooklyn neighborhoods and
New York City ethnic
enclaves
Brooklyn has long been a magnet for immigrants, and many ethnic
groups dominate a particular ethnic neighborhood. However, with
gentrification on the rise, many of
Brooklyn's neighborhoods are now becoming increasingly diverse with
an influx of immigrants integrating its neighborhoods. It presently
has substantial populations from many countries. The borough also
attracts people previously residing in the United States.
Of these,
most come from Chicago
, San Francisco
, Washington DC
, Baltimore
, Boston
, and Seattle
.
Brooklyn contains hundreds of distinct neighborhoods, representing
many of the major ethnic groups found within the New York City
area. The borough is home to a large
African-American community.
Bedford
Stuyvesant
is home to one of the most famous African-American
communities in the city. It is a hub for African-American
culture, often referenced in
hip hop and
African-American arts.
Brooklyn's African-American and Caribbean
communities are spread throughout much of
Brooklyn.
Brooklyn
is also home to many Russians, who are
mainly concentrated in community of Brighton
Beach
and surrounding communities. Brighton Beach
features many Russian businesses.
Because of the large Russian community,
it has been nicknamed "Little Odessa
."
Bushwick
is the largest hub of Brooklyn's Hispanic-American community.
With
around 80% of Bushwick's population being Hispanic, it is a
Hispanic cultural stronghold in New York City
. Many businesses in the neighborhood reflect
Bushwick's strong Hispanic presence.
Sunset Park also has a significant
number of Hispanics, with 42% of the demographics belonging to
Hispanics.
Italian-Americans are mainly concentrated
in the neighborhoods of Dyker Heights
and Bensonhurst
, where there are many Italian restaurants and pizzerias.
Chinese-Americans are scattered
throughout the southern parts of Brooklyn, but largely concentrated
in
Sunset Park along 8th
avenue, which is known for
Chinese
culture and also known as
Brooklyn's Chinatown. Many
Chinese restaurants can be found
throughout
Sunset Park, and
the area hosts a popular
Chinese New
Year celebration.
Currently Sunset Park still carries
Brooklyn's Chinese population, however the Chinese population in
recent years have been spreading more rapidly in other parts of the
southern parts of Brooklyn than in Sunset Park, especially in
Bensonhurst and could soon replace Sunset Park as having
Brooklyn's largest Chinese population.
Orthodox Jews and Hasidic Jews are largely concentrated in
Borough
Park
, where there are many yeshivas, synagogues, and
kosher delicatessens, as well as other Jewish businesses. Other notable Orthodox and
Hasidic Jewish neighborhoods are in
Flatbush,
Williamsburg
and
Crown Heights.
Brooklyn's Irish can be found throughout Brooklyn, in
low to moderate concentrations in the neighborhoods of Marine
Park
, Gerritsen
Beach, and Vinegar Hill
.
Brooklyn's Polish are largely concentrated in Greenpoint
, which is home to Little Poland.
Brooklyn's
Arab can be found in the
Southwest portion of Brooklyn. Especially in the neighborhood of
Northern
Bay Ridge, where there
are many Middle Eastern restaurants, hookah lounges,
Arabic church, and
mosques.
Culture
Brooklyn has played a major role in American letters.
Walt Whitman wrote of the Brooklyn waterfront
in his classic poem
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.
Harlem Renaissance playwright
Eulalie Spence taught at
Eastern
District High School in Brooklyn from 1927-1938, a time during
which she wrote her critically acclaimed plays
Fool's
Errand, and
Her.
In 1930, poet Hart
Crane published the epic poem The Bridge, using the Brooklyn
Bridge as central symbol and poetic starting point.
The
novels of Henry Miller include
reflections on several of the ethnic German and Jewish
neighborhoods of Brooklyn during the 1890s and early 20th century;
his novels Tropic of
Capricorn
and The Rosy
Crucifixion include long tracts describing his childhood and
young adulthood spent in the Borough. Betty Smith's 1943
book
A Tree Grows
in Brooklyn, and the
1945 film based on it, are
among the best-known early works about life in Brooklyn. Chaim
Potok,
rabbi and Brooklyn resident, wrote
The Chosen, a book about two Jewish boys
growing up in Brooklyn that was published in 1947. William Styron's
novel
Sophie's
Choice is set in
Flatbush, just
off Prospect Park, during the summer of 1947. Arthur Miller's 1955
play
A View From the
Bridge is set in Brooklyn. Paule Marshall's 1959 novel,
Brown Girl, Brownstones, about Barbadian immigrants during
the Depression and World War II is also set in.
More recently, Brooklyn-born author
Jonathan Lethem has written several books
about growing up in the borough, including
Motherless Brooklyn and
The Fortress of
Solitude. The neighborhood of Park
Slope
is home to many contemporary writers, including
Jonathan Safran Foer, Jhumpa Lahiri, Jonathan Franzen, Rick Moody, Jennifer
Egan, Kathryn Harrison,
Paul Auster, Franco Ambriz, Nicole
Krauss, Colson Whitehead,
Darin Strauss, Siri Hustvedt and Suketu Mehta, among others. The
Discovery Kids show
Time Warp Trio is
also set in Brooklyn.
The borough has had a part in theater and film as well.
Lynn Nottage's play
Crumbs from the Table of
Joy is set in post-World War II Brooklyn and deals with
the hopes and frustrations of an African American family recently
arrived from Florida. The John Travolta movie
Saturday Night Fever was set in
Bay Ridge, an Italian neighborhood in southern Brooklyn. Neil
Simon's 1983 play "Brighton Beach Memoirs" is set in 1937 Brooklyn.
In the late 1980s Brooklyn achieved a new cultural prominence with
the films of
Spike Lee, whose
She's Gotta Have It and
Do The Right Thing were
shot in Brooklyn neighborhoods. In 2001/02, the German filmmaker
Christoph Weinert shot a
documentary
With Allah in Brooklyn. The 2005 film
The Squid and the
Whale, by
Noah Baumbach, the
son of novelist Jonathan Baumbach and
Village Voice film
critic Georgia Brown, examined the family life of the Park Slope
intelligentsia.
After Radio City
Music Hall, Brooklyn Technical High
School
houses the second largest auditorium in New York
City with seating capacity of over 3,000.
The
Brooklyn
Museum
, opened in 1897, the nation's second largest public
art museum, includes in its permanent collection more than 1.5
million objects, from ancient Egyptian masterpieces to contemporary
art. The Brooklyn Children's Museum
, the world's first museum dedicated to
children, opened in December 1899. The only such New York
State institution accredited by the
American Association of
Museums, it is one of the few globally to have a permanent
collection - 30,000+ cultural objects and natural history
specimens.
The Brooklyn Academy of Music
(BAM) includes a 2,109-seat opera house, a
874-seat Theater, and the art house BAM Rose Cinemas.
Bargemusic and St. Ann's Warehouse are on
the other side of Downtown Brooklyn in the
DUMBO arts district.
Brooklyn's art scene has flourished in
recent years, due largely to the conversion of former manufacturing
buildings into art studios.
Founded
in 1863, the Brooklyn Historical Society
(BHS) is a museum, library, and educational
center dedicated to preserving and encouraging the study of
Brooklyn's history. BHS houses materials relating to the
founding of the U.S. and the history of Brooklyn and its people.
The
BRIC Rotunda Gallery, founded in 1981, is the oldest
not-for-profit gallery dedicated to presenting contemporary art
work by artists who are from, live, or work in the borough. The
Gallery, located in Brooklyn Heights, presents contemporary art of
all media, public events and an innovative arts education program.
The Gallery's aim is to increase the visibility and accessibility
of contemporary art while bridging the gap between the art world
and global culture in Brooklyn and the world beyond. BRIC Rotunda
Gallery is the contemporary art space of
BRIC
Arts|Media|Bklyn, a multi-disciplinary arts and media
non-profit, dedicated to presenting contemporary art, performing
art and community media programs that are reflective of Brooklyn's
diverse communities and to supporting the creative process.
In 2008, a
TKTS Booth was opened in Downtown
Brooklyn (Jay St. and Myrtle St. Promenade), allowing patrons to
buy both day-of and next-day matinee tickets to selected theatre,
dance and music events.
Brooklyn contains the most of every group from every culture,
ethnic, and racial background. The majority of the people of
African descent is of Caribbean origin. Much of Brooklyn's distinct
culture can be reflected on the cultures that these immigrants
bring with them. A portion of Utica Avenue was historically named
Malcolm X Boulevard because of
his achievements as both a nationalist, and a separatist. To this
day
Malcolm X remains the most important
figure to many of the people in that community.
Brooklyn
is home to one of the most vibrant Jewish communities outside of
Israel - one reason for the 2007 signed partnership with Leopoldstadt
, a district of Vienna
, Austria
(a main Jewish centre of Central Europe for centuries, and despite the
Holocaust even today). Some
estimates have the Jewish population in Brooklyn at as high as
three-quarters of a million, with many living in Borough Park,
Williamsburg, Flatbush, Gravesend, Crown Heights, and other
sections of Brooklyn. Much of the Jewish community, most notably
the Hasidic and Hareidi Jews, are fluent in Yiddish and often use
it as their first language.
Variously called the "City of Trees," "City of Homes," or the "City
of Churches" in the 19th century, Brooklyn is now often styled the
"Borough of Homes and Churches". As of 2008, there are more than
516,000 Jews in Brooklyn—some 37 percent of whom are
Orthodox.
As a promotional gesture by the current borough administration,
distinctive traffic signs are posted along major traffic arteries
at Brooklyn’s border crossings. They incorporate colorful
expressions associated with Brooklyn, including: "Fugheddaboudit,"
"
Oy vey!," and "How Sweet It Is." One sign
identifies the borough as: "Home to Everyone From
Everywhere!"
Brooklyn and Red Hook feature in Arthur Miller's play
A View From The Bridge which is a
tragedy set in 1940-50s New York about an Italian American
Family.
Media
Brooklyn has several local newspapers: The
Brooklyn Daily Eagle,
Bay Currents (Oceanfront Brooklyn),
Brooklyn View,
The
Brooklyn Paper, and Courier-Life Publications.
Courier-Life Publications, owned by Rupert Murdoch's
News Corporation, is considered to be
Brooklyn's largest chain of newspapers. Brooklyn is also served by
the major New York dailies, including
The New York Times,
The New York Daily News, and
The New York Post. The
borough is home to the arts and politics monthly,
Brooklyn Rail and the arts and cultural
quarterly,
Cabinet.
HelloBrooklyn.com is Brooklyn's largest portal with more than
10,000 links.
Brooklyn has a thriving ethnic press. Major ethnic publications
include the Brooklyn-Queens Catholic paper
The Tablet,
Hamodia, an Orthodox Jewish daily,
as well as several Haitian newspapers including the
Haitian Times,
Haiti
Observateur, and
Haiti Progress. Many
nationally-distributed ethnic newspapers are based in Brooklyn.
Over 60 ethnic groups, writing in 42 languages, publish some 300
non-English language magazines and newspapers in New York
City.
The
Brooklyn accent is often
portrayed as 'typical New York' in American television and film.
The City of New York also has an official television station, run
by the
NYC Media Group, which
features programming based in Brooklyn.
Brooklyn Community Access
Television is the borough's
public access channel. BCAT, the
Media program of BRIC, shares the former Strand Theater - adjoining
BAM's Harvey Theater - with the non-profit artists collective
atelier/exhibition center,
Urban Glass. The facility's upcoming expansion
will include a new 250-seat, year round home for BRIC's annual
"Celebrate Brooklyn" performances.
Tourism
Southern Brooklyn was once the premier resort destination for New
York City.
Coney Island
developed as a playground for the rich in the early
1900s, when wealthy New Yorkers would bet on horses at the Gravesend or Sheepshead Bay Race Track and
dined at high-class restaurants and seaside hotels. No trip
to Sheepshead Bay would be complete without a stop at the docks and
then dinner at
Lundy's
Restaurant. The introduction of the subway made Coney Island a
vacation destination for the masses, and it evolved into one of
America's first amusement grounds.
The Cyclone rollercoaster
, built in 1927, is on the National Register of
Historic Places. The 1920 Wonder Wheel and other rides are
still operational at Astroland
. Coney Island went into decline in the
1970s, but is undergoing a renaissance. The annual
Coney Island Mermaid Parade is a
hipster costume-and-float parade which honored
David Byrne, pre-punk music guru, as
the head merman in 1998. Coney Island also hosts the annual
Nathan's Hot Dog Eating
Contest.
Green-Wood
Cemetery
, founded by the social reformer Henry Evelyn
Pierrepoint in 1838, is both one of the most significant cemeteries
in the United States and an expansive green space encompassing
478 acres (190 ha) of
rolling hills and dales, several ponds, and a baroque
chapel. Still in use, the cemetery is the burial
ground of some of the most famous New Yorkers, including Albert Anastasia (1903-1957), mobster,
"Lord High Executioner" for "Murder Inc."; Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988),
artist; Aqualung, drifter; Leonard
Bernstein (1918-1990), composer; Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869),
New
Orleans
-born pianist and composer; Laura Jean Libbey (1862-1924),
best-selling "dime-store" novelist; Samuel F.B. Morse (1791-1872), inventor of the
telegraph;
Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965), journalist;
Martha Bulloch Roosevelt
(1834-1884), mother of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt;
Margaret Sanger (1879-1966), birth control
advocate;
F.A.O. Schwarz (1836-1911), toy store founder;
William M. "Boss"
Tweed (1823-1878), notorious boss of the New York political
machine and actor Frank Morgan (1890-1949) best known for his
portrayal of the title character in the film The Wizard of
Oz.
The
New York
Transit Museum
displays historical artifacts of the New York
subway, commuter rail and bus systems; it is located in the former
IND Court Street subway
station in Brooklyn Heights. The 52 acre (21 ha) Brooklyn
Botanic Garden
includes a cherry tree esplanade, a one acre
(0.4 ha) rose garden, a Japanese hill and pond garden, a
fragrance garden for the blind, a water lily pond esplanade,
several conservatories, a rock garden, a native flora garden, a
bonsai tree collection, and children's gardens and discovery
exhibits.
Sports
Brooklyn has a storied sports history. It has been home to many
famous sports figures such as
Red
Auerbach,
Carmelo Anthony,
Bobby Fischer,
Vince Lombardi,
Brandon Silvestry (aka Low Ki),
Joe Paterno,
Mike
Tyson,
Joe Pepitone,
Joe Torre,
Larry Brown,
Vitas Gerulaitis,
Al Bummy Davis,
Herbie Kronowitz,
Paul Lo Duca,
John
Franco,
Stephon Marbury,
John Halama, and
Rico Petrocelli.
Basketball legend
Michael Jordan was born in Brooklyn,
but grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina
.
Parks
throughout the borough such as Prospect Park
, Marine Park, and the community sports complex at Floyd
Bennett Field
provide residents an opportunity to practice and
hone their sports skills and talents.
Brooklyn's most famous team, the Brooklyn Dodgers, played at Ebbets Field
and was named for "trolley dodgers". Dodger
Jackie Robinson in 1947 became the
first African American player in Major League Baseball in the
modern era. In 1955, the Dodgers, perennial National League pennant
winners, won the only
World Series for
Brooklyn against their rival
New York
Yankees. The event was marked by mass euphoria and
celebrations.
Just two years later, the Dodgers moved to
Los
Angeles
. Walter
O'Malley, the team's owner at the time, is still vilified even
by Brooklynites too young to remember the Dodgers as Brooklyn's
ball club. More recent attempts to bring back the Dodgers have not
borne fruit.
After a
43-year hiatus, however, professional baseball returned to the
borough in 2001 in the form of the Brooklyn Cyclones, a minor league team that plays in
Keyspan
Park
in Coney
Island. They are an affiliate of the
New York Mets.
Minor
league soccer arrived in Brooklyn when the Brooklyn Knights relocated from their
previous home in Queens to the new Aviator Field
complex, which includes a 2,000-seat soccer-specific stadium. The
team plays in the
USL
Premier Development League, at the fourth level of US
soccer.
The
Eastern
Professional Hockey League included a team called the
Brooklyn Aces into its inaugural 2008 season
membership.
The team will play at Aviator
Sports and Recreation
.
A reminder of Brooklyn's days as a sporting goods manufacturer, a
skateboard company in Brooklyn called 5boro is co-owned by Mark
Nardelli and
Steve Rodriguez.
Transportation
Brooklyn is well served by public transit. Eighteen
New York City Subway lines, including
the
Franklin Avenue Shuttle,
traverse the borough and 92.8% of Brooklyn residents traveling to
Manhattan use the subway.
Major stations include, Atlantic Avenue-Pacific
Street
, Broadway
Junction
, DeKalb Avenue
, Jay Street-Borough Hall
, and Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue
.
The public bus network covers the entire borough. There is also
daily express bus service into Manhattan. New York's famous yellow
cabs also provide transportation in Brooklyn, although they are
less numerous in the borough.
There are three commuter rail stations in
Brooklyn: East New York station
, Nostrand Avenue station
, and Atlantic Terminal/Flatbush
Avenue
, the terminus of the Atlantic Branch of the Long Island Rail Road.
The
terminal is located adjacent to the Atlantic Avenue-Pacific Street
Station
, with ten connecting subway lines.
The grand majority of limited-access expressways and parkways are
located in the western and southern sections of Brooklyn. These
include, the
Brooklyn-Queens
Expressway, the
Gowanus
Expressway, which is part of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway,
the
Prospect Expressway,
New York State Route 27, the
Belt Parkway, and the
Jackie Robinson Parkway.
Major
thoroughfares include, Atlantic Avenue, 4th Avenue,
86th Street, Kings Highway,
Bay Parkway, Ocean Parkway
, Eastern
Parkway, Linden Boulevard,
McGuiness Boulevard, Flatbush
Avenue, Pennsylvania Avenue
, and Bedford
Avenue.
Much of
Brooklyn has only named streets, but Park Slope
and western sections south of there have numbered streets running
approximately east/west, and numbered avenues going approximately
north/south. East of Dahill Road, lettered avenues run
east/west, and numbered streets have the prefix "East". Numbered
streets prefixed by "North", "South", "West", "Bay", "Brighton",
"Plumb" or "Flatlands" exist in other areas, loosely based on the
old grids of the original towns of Kings County that eventually
consolidated to form Brooklyn.
Brooklyn
is connected to Manhattan by three bridges, the Brooklyn, Manhattan
, and Williamsburg
bridges; a vehicular tunnel, the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel
; and several subway tunnels.
The
Verrazano-Narrows Bridge
links Brooklyn with the more suburban borough
of Staten Island. Though much of its border is on land,
Brooklyn shares several water crossings with Queens, including the
Kosciuszko Bridge
(part of the Brooklyn-Queens
Expressway), the Pulaski Bridge
, and the JJ Byrne Memorial Bridge, all of which
carry traffic over Newtown Creek, and
the Marine
Parkway Bridge
connecting Brooklyn to the Rockaway
Peninsula
.
Historically Brooklyn's waterfront was a
major shipping port, especially at the Brooklyn
Army Terminal
in Sunset Park.
Most
container ship cargo operations have shifted to the New Jersey side
of New York Harbor, while the city has recently built a new cruise
ship terminal in Red Hook that is to become a focal point for New York's
growing cruise industry. The Queen Mary
2, the world's largest ocean liner, was designed specifically
to fit under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, the longest suspension bridge in the United
States. The Queen Mary 2 makes regular ports of call
at the Red Hook terminal on her transatlantic runs from Southampton
, England
. New York
Water Taxi offers commuter services from Brooklyn's west shore
to points in Lower Manhattan,
Midtown, Long
Island City and Breezy Point in Rockaway, Queens
, as well as tours and charters. A
Cross-Harbor Rail Tunnel,
originally proposed in 1920s as a core project for the then new
Port Authority of New
York is again being studied and discussed as a way to ease
freight movements across a large swath of the metropolitan
area.
Education
Education in Brooklyn is provided by a vast number of public and
private institutions. Public schools in the borough are managed by
the
New York City
Department of Education, the largest public school
system.
Brooklyn
College
is a senior college of the City University of New York, and
was the first public co-ed liberal
arts college in New York City. The College ranked in the
top 10 nationally for the second consecutive year in
Princeton Review’s 2006 guidebook,
America’s Best Value Colleges. Many of its students are
first and second generation immigrants. Emblematic of its students’
potential is Eugene Shenderov, the son of Russian immigrants who
received a 2005
Rhodes
Scholarship before graduating from the College's B.A.-M.D.
program in June 2005. The Brooklyn College campus serves as home to
the Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts complex and its four
theaters, including the
George Gershwin.
Brooklyn
Technical High School (commonly called Brooklyn Tech or just Tech), a New
York City public high school, is the largest specialized high
school for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in the
United States. Tech opened in 1922. The school'a current
location is across the street from Fort Greene Park. It was built
from 1930-33 at a cost of $6 million, is 12 stories high, and
covers over half a city block. Brooklyn Tech is noted for its
famous alumni (including two Nobel Laureates), its academics, and
the large number of graduates attending prestigious
universities.
Founded in 1970,
Medgar Evers
College is a senior college of the
City University of New York,
with a mission to develop and maintain high quality, professional,
career-oriented undergraduate degree programs in the context of a
liberal arts education. The College offers programs both at the
baccalaureate and associate degree levels, as well as Adult and
Continuing Education classes for Central Brooklyn residents,
corporations, government agencies, and community organizations.
Medgar
Evers College is a few blocks east of Prospect
Park in Crown Heights
.
Brooklyn Law School was founded
in 1901 and is notable for its diverse student body. Women and
African Americans were enrolled in 1909. According to the Leiter
Report, a compendium of law school rankings published by
Brian Leiter, Brooklyn Law School places 31st
nationally for quality of students.
Kingsborough
Community College
is a junior college in the City University of New York
system, located in Manhattan Beach
. It was recently named one of the top
ten community colleges in the United States by the New York
Times.
SUNY Downstate Medical
Center, originally founded as the Long Island College Hospital
in 1860, is the oldest hospital-based medical school in the United
States. The Medical Center comprises the College of Medicine,
College of Health Related Professions, College of Nursing,
University Hospital of Brooklyn, and the School of Graduate
Studies, where Nobel Prize-winner
Dr. Robert F. Furchgott is a member of the faculty.
Half of the Medical Center's students are minorities or immigrants.
The College of Medicine has the highest percentage of minority
students of any medical school in New York State.
Polytechnic University 
, the United States' second oldest private
technological university,
founded in 1854, has its main campus in Downtown's MetroTech
Center
, a commercial, civic and educational
redevelopment project of which it was a key sponsor.
As of
July 2008 it merged with the much larger and wealthier NYU
, and is now
called Polytechnic Institute of NYU.
Poly's
MetroTech neighbor, CUNY's New York
City College of Technology
(City Tech) of The City University of New York
(CUNY) (Downtown Brooklyn/Brooklyn Heights)is the largest public
college of technology in New York State and a national model for
technological education. Established in 1946, City Tech can
trace its roots to 1881 when The Technical Schools of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art were renamed The New York Trade School.
That institution – which became the Voorhees Technical Institute
many decades later – was soon a model for the development of
technical/vocational schools worldwide. In 1971, Voorhees was
incorporated into City Tech.
Long
Island University
is a private university in Downtown Brooklyn with
6,417 undergraduate students. In Clinton
Hill
, the Pratt Institute
is one of the leading art schools in the United
States and offers programs in art, architecture, fashion design,
design, creative writing, library science, and other area
disciplines.
Brooklyn
is home to smaller liberal arts institutions such as Saint
Francis College
in Brooklyn Heights
, Saint
Joseph's College, New York in Clinton Hill and Boricua College
in Williamsburg.
As an
independent system, separate from the New York and Queens public
library systems, the Brooklyn Public Library
offers thousands of public programs, millions of
books, and use of more than 850 free Internet-accessible
computers. It also has books and periodicals in all the
major languages spoken in Brooklyn, including Russian, Chinese,
Spanish, Hebrew, and Haitian Kreyol, as well as French, Yiddish,
Hindi, Bengali, Polish, Italian, and Arabic.
The Central Library
is a landmarked building facing Grand Army Plaza
and is undergoing extensive renovations and an
underground expansion. There are 58 library branches,
placing one within a half mile of each Brooklyn resident. In
addition to specialized Business Library in Brooklyn Heights, the
Library is preparing to construct its new Visual & Performing
Arts Library (VPA) in the BAM Cultural District, which will focus
on the link between new and emerging arts and technology and house
traditional and digital collections. It will provide access and
training to arts applications and technologies not widely available
to the public. The collections will include the subjects of art,
theater, dance, music, film, photography and architecture. A
special archive will house the records and history of Brooklyn's
arts communities.
District partnership
In the
year 2007 Brooklyn entered into a district partnership with the
Viennese district Leopoldstadt.
See also
References
Notes
- Kings County, New York, United States Census Bureau,
December 30, 2006
- "Population, Housing Units, Area, and Density:
2000", United States Census Bureau,
accessed May 11, 2007.
- McCullagh, David. 1776. Simon & Schuster. May 24,
2005. [ISBN 978-0743226714]
- Cornell Law School Supreme Court Collection: Board
of Estimate of City of New York v. Morris, accessed June 12,
2006
- The webpage cannot be found, accessed October 10,
2007
- Borough of Brooklyn. blue and gold.
- "'Black seat' threatened by Yassky’s congressional run, big
money support." 1 June 2006.[1]
- Anthony Weiner neighborhoods, accessed April
15, 2007.
- " NYC Post Offices to observe Presidents’ Day."
United States Postal
Service. February 11, 2009. Retrieved on May 5, 2009.
- New York State Department of Labor Brooklyn Report, April 2006.
[2]
- New York City Economic Development Corporation, Brooklyn
Borough Update March 2004.[3]
- New York State Dept of Labor [4]
- U.S. Census Bureau, 2001 County Business Patterns. [5]
- New York State Dept of Labor[6]
- American Factfinder 2000 Ancestry: Kings County,
NY
- U.S. Census Bureau, "Residential Population and Components of
Change New York State and Counties, April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2005."
Retrieved on 2006-08-04.[7]
- MLA Data Center - Kings County, New York
Retrieved 4 November 2006.
- "African Americans", Encyclopedia of Chicago Accessed
1 March 2008
- Gibson, Campbell (June 1998). Population of the 100 Largest Cities and Other
Urban Places in the United States: 1790 to 1990. U.S.
Bureau of the Census - Population Division, accessed 1 March
2008
- San Francisco Hopes to Reverse Black
Flight
- Census Shows More Black Residents Are Leaving New York and
Other Cities
- Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation. Comprehensive
Economic Development Strategy Report,
2002.http://www.bedc.org/statistics/domestic_migration.htm
- Muhammad, Nisa Islam. "D.C. ‘exodus’ sparks district renewal efforts for
Whites", The Final Call, June 21, 2007. Accessed
June 25, 2007.
- German Original Titel: Mit Allah in Brooklyn
-
http://schools.nyc.gov/ChoicesEnrollment/High/Directory/school/?sid=3330#AdditionalInformationAnchor
- Partnership with Leopoldstadt (Vienna, Austria): scroll down to New York City, then
proceed to Brooklyn on the list of sister cities in New
York.
-
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5irUYN-jzvVqxM2-KINEi4mGpGJiQD94KR8SG0
- Brooklyn
Events at a Glance, accessed October 10, 2007
- Ebbets Field, Accessed October 10, 2007
- Convissor, Daniel DOT
Sees More Highways As Brooklyn's Road to Clean Air, Auto-Free
Press, January/February 1992. Retrieved 4 November 2006.
- ^ New York City School Reports 2006-07
- http://bths.edu/school_history.jsp?rn=9612672
- Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation Hall of Fame
- Leiter's Law School Rankings
- http://www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org
-
http://diepresse.com/home/politik/aussenpolitik/289167/index.do?from=suche.intern.portal
Further reading
External links
, Brownsville,
East New York, and Canarsie
, and Sunset
Park, as well as Manhattan's Lower East Side
and parts of western Queens
, Brighton
Beach
, Boro
Park
and parts of Bath Beach. It also includes
the piers in Red Hook and Sunset Park.
and all of Gravesend and Dyker Heights.
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