Brooklyn, New York

Today, Brooklyn, an 81-squaremile area at the western end of Long Island, is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs. Among other things, it is known for the Brooklyn Bridge, its vibrant ethnic neighborhoods, Coney Island, the West Indian Carnival celebration, and the Brooklyn Dodgers—-the baseball ghosts that still haunt it after almost 50 years.

The first European settlers of Brooklyn were the Dutch, who claimed the area as part of their New Netherlands territories early in the 17th century. They established five Dutch farming communities and one English one: Flatlands (1636), Brooklyn (1646), Flatbush or Midwood (1652), New Utrecht (1657), and Bushwick (1660), as well as the English town Gravesend (1645), founded by Lady Deborah Moody, who with her followers had fled New England seeking religious freedom. Although all of the towns were stable and prospered, of the six, Flatbush, which was centrally located and served as the administrative, economic, and religious hub until the 1830s, and Brooklyn, located on the great harbor opposite lower Manhattan, were the most important.

On August 27, 1776, the Battle of Long Island, the first and biggest engagement of the American Revolution, took place in the towns of Flatbush and Brooklyn. The battle was won decisively by the British, who routed the American troops. The American Revolution almost ended with that battle. However, on August 29, fog and night made fighting another day possible when the remaining troops, with George Washington aboard the last boat, were able to escape across the East River to Manhattan.

After the British left in 1783, the towns, which had been devastated by the occupation, began to rebuild themselves. With the exception of Brooklyn, the towns remained sparsely populated farming communities until the late 19th century. Because the land in those towns stayed in the same families for generations, the combination of strong social and kinship ties and lack of economic necessity made it possible for them to withstand pressures to urbanize. The town of Brooklyn, because of its location on the East River, grew rapidly.

Brooklyn's transformation to an urban manufacturing and industrial center began with the development of its waterfront. In 1801, the federal government opened the Brooklyn Navy Yard on the East River. Shipbuilding in the Navy yard reached its peak during World War II, when more than 70,000 men and women worked around the clock 7 days a week in support of the war effort. In 1966 the government closed the yard and turned it over to New York City, which has developed it into an industrial park. The closure of the yard coincided with the decline of Brooklyn's manufacturing base and waterfront activities and the beginning of its shift to a service economy. Today, Brooklyn's once working waterfront is being turned into a large urban park.

Throughout the 19th century and well into the 20th century, the Brooklyn waterfront was an industrial powerhouse. In 1814, regular commuter steam ferry service began on the East River, making the commute between the town of Brooklyn and Manhattan easier and safer. The convenience allowed more people to move to Brooklyn, which was considered a healthier environment for families than crowded Manhattan. Many of the landholders, particularly on Brooklyn Heights, began to subdivide their holdings for housing, creating the first suburb.

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