Interesting facts about Brooklyn

Brooklyn is one of the five boroughs of New York City.

It lies at the southwestern end of Long Island, and the borough’s western border constitutes the island’s western tip.

An independent city until its consolidation into New York in 1898, Brooklyn is New York City’s most populous borough, with about 2.8 million residents.

Named after the Dutch village of Breukelen, it shares a land border with the borough of Queens, at the western end of Long Island.

Brooklyn has several bridge and tunnel connections to the borough of Manhattan across the East River, and the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge connects it with Staten Island.

The Dutch were the first Europeans to settle the area on the western edge of Long Island, which was then largely inhabited by the Canarsie Native American tribe.

What is now Brooklyn today left Dutch hands after the English captured the New Netherland colony on 1664, a prelude to the Second Anglo-Dutch War.

On August 27, 1776, was fought the Battle of Long Island (also known as the ‘Battle of Brooklyn’), the first major engagement fought in the American Revolutionary War after independence was declared, and the largest of the entire conflict.

Fervent in the Union cause, the city of Brooklyn played a major role in supplying troops and materiel for the American Civil War.

The number of people living in Brooklyn grew rapidly early in the 19th century.

Economic growth continued, propelled by immigration and industrialization, and Brooklyn established itself as the third-most populous American city for much of the 19th century.

Discovered in 1609 by Dutch explorer Henry Hudson, Coney Island eventually became an amusement resort at the beach. During the 1870s and 1880s, several luxury hotels were built there and a railroad was extended to the resort. Coney Island became famous for having several of the best-known amusement parks in the world.

Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan. It is home to the world’s two largest stock exchanges by total market capitalization, the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. Wall Street was originally known in Dutch as “de Waalstraat” when it was part of New Amsterdam in the 17th century, though the origins of the name vary.

In 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was completed, transportation to Manhattan was no longer by water only, and the City of Brooklyn’s ties to the City of New York were strengthened. It was the longest suspension bridge in the world at the time of its opening, with a main span of 486.3 m (1,595.5 feet)
and a deck 38.7 m (127 feet) above mean high water. The span was originally called the New York and Brooklyn Bridge or the East River Bridge but was officially renamed the Brooklyn Bridge in 1915.

Originally a marshy wasteland, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden has been transformed into one of New York City’s most beautiful parks. It was founded in 1910 and is in Mount Prospect Park in central Brooklyn.
The 21-hectare (52-acre) garden holds over 14,000 taxa of plants and has nearly a million visitors each year.

The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At 52,000 square meters (560,000 square feet), the museum is New York City’s third largest in physical size and holds an art collection with roughly 1.5 million works.

Given New York City’s role as a crossroads for immigration from around the world, Brooklyn has evolved a globally cosmopolitan ambiance of its own, demonstrating a robust and growing demographic and cultural diversity with respect to metrics including nationality, religion, race, and domiciliary partnership.

Over 600,000 Jews, have become concentrated in Borough Park, Williamsburg, and Midwood, where there are many yeshivas, synagogues, and kosher restaurants, as well as many other Jewish businesses.

Over 200,000 Chinese Americans live throughout the southern parts of Brooklyn, primarily concentrated in Sunset Park, Bensonhurst, Gravesend and Homecrest.

Brooklyn became a preferred site for artists and hipsters to set up live/work spaces after being priced out of the same types of living arrangements in Manhattan.

The borough has played a major role in various aspects of American culture including literature, cinema, and theater.

The Brooklyn accent has often been portrayed as the “typical New York accent” in American media, although this accent and stereotype are supposedly fading out.

Brooklyn’s major professional sports team is the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets.

In the earliest days of organized baseball, Brooklyn teams dominated the new game. The second recorded game of baseball was played near what is today Fort Greene Park on October 24, 1845.

Brooklyn’s most famous historical team, the Brooklyn Dodgers, named for “trolley dodgers” played at Ebbets Field.

The borough’s official motto, displayed on the Borough seal and flag, is Eendraght Maeckt Maght, which translates from early modern Dutch as “Unity makes strength”.

Brooklyn’s official colors are blue and gold.