Brooklyn

Brooklyn, one of the five boroughs of New York City, New York, United States. Brooklyn is both an important industrial centre, with extensive deep-water harbour facilities, and a densely populated residential area, the most populous borough of New York City. The borough has a total water frontage of some 320 km (200 mi). Population 2,465,326 (2000).

Brooklyn is linked to Manhattan across the East River by three bridges and a tunnel, as well as by several subway tunnels. Easy maritime access to the fine, sheltered New York Harbor has been instrumental in making Brooklyn one of the busiest ports in the United States, especially for international trade. Among the major imports are raw sugar, coffee, cacao, and spices, most of which are processed here before being transported elsewhere. Manufactured goods are diversified and include metal products, machinery, textiles, clothing, paper products, and electrical goods. During World War II, more than 70,000 men and women worked day and night building battleships at the Brooklyn Naval Yard.

The borough has an extensive system of parks and recreational areas totalling some 1,689 hectares (4,170 acres). Most notable is Prospect Park, a landscaped area of broad drives and wooded hills, and the beaches and amusement area of Coney Island. Among the borough's many churches are the Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims (1846) in Brooklyn Heights, of which the American clergyman Henry Ward Beecher was pastor and which was the centre of activities of Abolitionists before the American Civil War. Brooklyn has numerous institutions of higher education, including the Polytechnic University (1854), Brooklyn College (1930) of the City University of New York, Long Island University (1926), and the State University of New York Health Science Center (1858). The Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences includes in its facilities the Brooklyn Museum (1897), and the Brooklyn Children's Museum (1899).

At the time of early European exploration the site of present-day Brooklyn was occupied by the Canarsie people, an Algonquian-speaking group. The first European settlement of the area took place in 1636, when Dutch farmers purchased tracts of land near Gowanus Bay and founded the community of Amersfort (present-day Flatlands). In 1637 a group of Walloons settled in the vicinity of Wallabout Bay. In 1646 a settlement not far from the site of Borough Hall was patented and named Breucklen (Dutch, “marshland”) after a town in Holland. In 1667, three years after the British had seized New Netherland, Breucklen was united with several adjoining villages. After the American War of Independence the community grew steadily and its name was finally anglicized as Brooklyn. In 1801 the New York Naval Shipyard was established on Wallabout Bay. Ferry service across the East River to Manhattan began in 1814, and the population began to increase rapidly; the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883 further stimulated residential and industrial development. The city became a borough of New York City in 1898. In the 1980s and 1990s, racial tensions erupted in violence and demonstrations, particularly in the Bensonhurst and Crown Heights neighbourhoods.