Brooklyn is a district of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. UU. From the iconic Coney Island to the brand-new Barclays Center and neighborhoods like Williamsburg, Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope, you can choose from year-round activities and places to visit. A stroll across the Brooklyn Bridge, a subway ride from Manhattan, or a cruise on the East River Ferry will take you to trendy neighborhoods and attractions, such as museums, gardens, parks, food markets and much more.
On your day trip or weekend getaway to Brooklyn, don't miss the chance to watch the Brooklyn Cyclones play at MCU Park, have a picnic in Prospect Park, stroll through the gardens of the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, and admire masterpieces at the Brooklyn Museum. End it all with a stop at an outdoor food market to sample a variety of foods and mingle with New Yorkers. Drive, bike or ride the Brooklyn Bridge, an iconic New York City landmark that connects Lower Manhattan to Brooklyn Heights. Appreciate the huge towers built of limestone, granite and cement, and the incredible views of the world-famous skyline from various vantage points on the pedestrian walkway.
Nestled on the banks of the East River, is the 85-acre Brooklyn Bridge Park, an attractive place to relax and enjoy views of New York's bustling Harbor, the Statue of Liberty, and the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges. The park has a restored 1920s carousel, playgrounds, docks and lawn for picnicking. Visitors can enjoy events such as outdoor movies, concerts, fitness classes, paddling, kayaking and more. Other amenities include basketball courts, an inline skating rink, and a small beach for launching non-motorized boats.
A seasonal ferry takes people from the park to Governors Island. Cherry blossoms in front of the Brooklyn Museum Admire the masterpieces of Cézanne, Monet, Bierstadt, Rothko and other renowned artists in this magnificent space near the Brooklyn Botanical Garden and Prospect Park. The prestigious Brooklyn Museum houses a huge collection of Egyptian antiquities, along with African, European, Japanese, Oceanic and American art, with the goal of helping people better understand the world. She is especially known for presenting Judy Chicago's feminist piece, The Dinner Party.
Brooklyn Museum houses nearly 1.5 million works in 560,000 square foot space. Even though it is the third largest museum in the city, it receives far fewer visitors than Manhattan's world-famous art museums, giving you the opportunity to enjoy famous pieces without many others around. For more than 21 years, the museum has organized a first Saturday program, with free programming for visitors every month. The program includes art classes, music and dance performances, art workshops and gallery talks, as well as musical performances and film screenings.
The Arc de Triomphe of Grand Army Plaza in Prospect Park, Brooklyn Starting at the Arc de Triomphe of Grand Army Plaza and surrounded by the neighborhoods of Park Slope, Crown Heights and Windsor Terrace, the 526-acre Prospect Park is a gathering place for local residents. You can see them using the trails for running, biking, dog walking, exploring the ravine forest and having a picnic in Long Meadow and Nethermead. Coney Island is a popular summer destination on the south end of Brooklyn. Known for its carnival rides and great Totonno's and Nathan's Famous foods, this sand park is just a subway ride from Manhattan.
Spend an entire day making the most of your time at this lively attraction, which features minor league baseball at MCU Park, an aquarium, an amphitheater and thrilling roller coasters at Luna Park amusement park. Of course, don't forget to enjoy the beach, that is, if you can find a place. For the past few years, Coney Island has hosted the annual Mermaid Parade, which draws costumed fans from all over the counties to participate in a lively celebration of water nymphs. Get a glimpse into the future of America's hobby at MCU Park, home of Brooklyn's cyclones.
This short-season Class A Mets affiliate is sure to delight fans everywhere. Bring your friends and family to a fun game of minor league baseball. MCU Park is conveniently located next to the waterfront and Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station. The venue can accommodate up to 19,000 attendees and is conveniently located near the Long Island Railroad and several subway lines in the Atlantic Terminal transportation hub.
As you climb the stairs from the underground railway, you can't help but admire the outstanding exterior of the place, composed of 12,000 panels of aged steel, representative of the reddish stone blocks that surround it. Pay homage to one of the oldest public transportation systems in the country at the New York Transit Museum in downtown Brooklyn. Located in a dismantled train station, the museum showcases old subway cars and buses from the early 20th century. Learn about the history of public transport in the metropolis since 1976 through souvenirs, reconstructed subway platforms, and rotating and long-lasting exhibits.
Attend an educational program with children and stop by the gift shop to buy a souvenir to remember their experience. During the holidays, nostalgic Christmas attractions give you the chance to ride in a 1930s R1-9 train car on Sundays between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day. The outdoor market, organized in collaboration with the Brooklyn Flea Market and the New York Green Market, is the largest weekly food market in the country and attracts 20,000 to 30,000 people every weekend, most of them local to the area. BAM Harvey Theater, is a cultural space that presents films, plays and opera.
Built in 1904 as the Majestic Theater, the impressive stage hosted musicals, vaudeville and plays that moved to Broadway. In the 1940s, the building served as an elegant European-style movie theater, until the advent of television, and closed in the 60s. It was resurrected again as a prominent cultural center in the late 80s, as part of the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), while maintaining its original architectural elements. Visitors can choose from several programs on a daily basis.
In the late 19th century, Green-Wood Cemetery competed with Niagara Falls in terms of visitor numbers. With spectacular Gothic arches at the entrance and a bucolic, undulating landscape that stretches across 478 acres, New York City's first rural cemetery was the final resting place of choice for many wealthy New Yorkers. It may come as a surprise to many, but New York City has the world's largest rooftop dirt farm, which grows more than 50,000 pounds of organic produce each year. Brooklyn Grange, located in the historic Brooklyn Navy Yard, is a 5.6 acre farm serving local restaurants and markets.
The Brooklyn Heights Boardwalk is an outdoor walkway with views of Midtown Manhattan, the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge. You'll also find some of the oldest mansions and architecture along the waterfront, in one of Brooklyn's most historic neighborhoods. Not far from the waterfront are some of Brooklyn's best restaurants and boutiques. Near Brooklyn Bridge Park, there are a variety of dining options, as well as rooftop terraces from which to enjoy a drink in the views.
There's a lot to discover in the city's most populated district. Between world-class nightlife and boundary-pushing cuisine, Brooklyn has earned an enviable reputation, but make no mistake, there's fun for all ages. Coney Island, Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Museum invite you, as well as some of the best New York-style pizzas anywhere. And everyone loves the views of the picturesque Brooklyn Heights waterfront.
Some parks in the city, Central and Prospect, were obviously built to replicate rustic fields and preserve serene forests. Brooklyn Bridge Park, however, was not, and that is precisely why it has become so popular. The project has transformed part of Brooklyn's waterfront into an 85-acre expanse; several sections house unique attractions such as Jane's Carousel, a restored 1920s carousel and riverfront esplanades with beautiful views of Manhattan. Featuring local and out-of-town businesses, BAM is one of New York's most prominent cultural institutions.
The Howard Gilman Opera House, with its federal-style columns and carved marble, is a beautiful dance venue. The Harvey Theater of 1904 (651 Fulton St between Ashland and Rockwell Pls), formerly called Majestic, has hosted the play of John Jasperse, Wally Cardona and Matthew Bourne. If you think New York is nothing more than overstimulation, you should come to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. Our editors will review what you submitted and determine if they should review the article.
By the 1880s, Brooklyn had become one of the most important manufacturing centers in the country, and its busy port handled more tonnage than its counterpart in Manhattan. Sugar refining was the city's largest industry, but Brooklyn was also the site of the hardware store (the Monitor of Civil War armored battleship was built at Continental Iron Works in Greenpoint), oil refineries, slaughterhouses, and many factories. Brooklyn produced watches, cigars, beer, insulated cables, electrical signs, packaged coffee and even teddy bears, which did not begin to decline as a manufacturing center until the 1950s, when manufacturers began moving to less expensive locations. However, despite their economic and political subordination to Manhattan, Brooklyonians maintained a fiercely independent identity that was reinforced by pride in their hometown major league baseball team, the Dodgers, who played at intimate Ebbets Field and whose Jackie Robinson broke the barrier of color of the major leagues.
Significantly, Brooklyn had also been a magnet for African Americans moving from the South during the Great Migration. Between 1954 and 1990, manufacturing production in Brooklyn fell by half. In addition, the Brooklyn shipyards fell into disuse, and in 1966 the Brooklyn Navy Yard was closed. Although it became gentrified, Williamsburg continued to enjoy a reputation as a hipster paradise, although many artists have camped in other neighborhoods, notably Greenpoint, Gowanus (with its namesake channel) and Bushwick.
Bedford-Stuyvesant, long the center of Brooklyn's black community, has faced poverty and urban blight, but is experiencing a resurgence. Little Odessa in Brighton Beach is home to expats from Russia and other former Soviet bloc countries. In fact, Brooklyn is home to immigrant communities from Latin America, the Caribbean, China, Korea, the Middle East and elsewhere. However, despite its revival in the 21st century, Brooklyn also contains poverty lines.
Named after the Dutch town of Breukelen, it is located on the western end of Long Island and shares a land border with the district of Queens. Brooklyn has several bridge and tunnel connections to the Manhattan district via the East River and the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge connects it to Staten Island. With a land area of 70.82 square miles (183.4 km) and an aquatic area of 26 square miles (67 km), Kings County is the fourth smallest county in New York State by land area and the third smallest by total area. The history of European settlements in Brooklyn spans more than 350 years.
The settlement began in the 17th century when the small town of Breuckelen, founded by the Dutch, on the bank of Long Island's East River, grew into a sizeable city in the 19th century and consolidated in 1898 with New York City (then confined to Manhattan and the Bronx), the remaining rural areas of the Kings County and the largely rural areas of Queens and Staten Island, to form modern New York City. What is now Brooklyn left Dutch hands after the English captured the colony of New Netherland in 1664, a prelude to the Second Anglo-Dutch War. New Holland was taken in a naval action, and the English changed the name of the new capture to their naval commander, James, Duke of York, brother of the then monarch King Charles II and future king himself as King James II. Brooklyn became part of the West Riding of York County in the province of New York, one of the middle colonies of nascent British America.
The British controlled the surrounding region during the war, as New York City was soon occupied and became their military and political base of operations in North America for the rest of the conflict. The British generally enjoyed a dominant loyal sentiment from residents in Kings County who did not evacuate, although the region was also the center of the fledgling and largely successful Patriot intelligence network, led by Washington itself. As a seaport and manufacturing center, Brooklyn was well prepared to contribute to the Union's strengths in shipping and manufacturing. The two combined in shipbuilding; the armored monitor was built in Brooklyn.
Economic growth continued, driven by immigration and industrialization, and Brooklyn established itself as the third most populous American city for much of the 19th century. The waterfront from Gowanus to Greenpoint was developed with docks and factories. Industrial shoreline access improved with Gowanus Canal and Newtown Creek Canal. USS Monitor was the most famous product of Williamsburg's large and growing shipbuilding industry.
After the Civil War, streetcar lines and other modes of transportation brought urban expansion beyond Prospect Park (completed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux in 1873 and widely heralded as an improvement over the previous Central Park) to the center of the county, as evidenced by the gradual settlement in a relatively rustic setting Windsor Terrace and Kensington. By the turn of the century, Dean Alvord's Prospect Park South development in nearby Flatbush would serve as a model for Flatbush's contemporary Victorian micro-neighborhoods and the post-consolidation emergence of outlying districts, such as Midwood and Marine Park. Along with Oak Park, Illinois, it also heralded automobile and railroad-driven fashion for the most remote prewar suburban communities, such as Garden City, New York and Montclair, New Jersey. The rapidly growing population needed more water, so the city built centralized water works, including the Ridgewood Reservoir.
However, the Municipal Police Department was abolished in 1854 in favor of a metropolitan force that would also cover New York and Westchester counties. In 1865, the Brooklyn Fire Department (BFD) also gave way to the new Metropolitan Fire District. Sports became big business, and the Brooklyn Bridegrooms played professional baseball in Washington Park, in the convenient suburb of Park Slope, and elsewhere. At the beginning of the next century, under their new name Brooklyn Dodgers, they brought baseball to Ebbets Field, beyond Prospect Park.
Racetracks, amusement parks and beach resorts opened in Brighton Beach, Coney Island and elsewhere in the southern part of the county. In 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was completed, transportation to Manhattan was no longer just by water, and Brooklyn's ties to New York City were strengthened. Brooklyn has an area of 97 square miles (250 km), of which 71 square miles (180 km) is land (73%) and 26 square miles (67 km is water) (27%); the district is the second largest district by land area among New York City districts. However, Kings County, bordering Brooklyn, is the fourth smallest county in New York State by land area and the third smallest by total area.
Brooklyn is located on the southwestern tip of Long Island, and the western border of the municipality constitutes the western end of the island. Brooklyn's maritime boundaries are wide and varied, including Jamaica Bay; the Atlantic Ocean; The Narrows, which separates Brooklyn from the Staten Island district in New York City and crossed by the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge; New York High Bay, which separates Brooklyn from Jersey City and Bayonne in the U.S. State of New Jersey; and the East River, which separates Brooklyn from the Manhattan district of New York City and crossed by the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, the Williamsburg Bridge and numerous New York City subway routes. East of Brooklyn is the district of Queens, which contains John F.
Kennedy in the Jamaica neighborhood of that district, approximately two miles from the border of the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn. The predominantly Jewish Crown Heights-based (and later East Flatbush) Madison Democratic Club served as the main political headquarters of the county clubhouse for decades until the rise of Meade Esposito's rival, the Canarsie-based Thomas Jefferson Democratic Club, in the 1960s and 1970s, playing a role integral role in the rise of figures such as New York State Assembly Speaker Irwin Steingut; his son, fellow President Stanley Steingut; New York City Mayor Abraham Beame; real estate developer Fred Trump; Democratic district leader Beadie Markowitz; and political fixer Abraham Bunny Lindenbaum. While not as large as the Native American population in Queens, younger professionals of Asian Indian origin are discovering that Brooklyn is a convenient alternative to Manhattan for finding housing. Nearly 30,000 Indian-Americans call Brooklyn home.
Brooklyn's Greek-Americans Live Across the District. A historic concentration has been maintained in Bay Ridge and adjacent areas, where there is a notable group of schools, businesses and cultural institutions focusing on Hellenic culture. Other businesses are located in downtown Brooklyn, near Atlantic Avenue. Like in much of the New York metropolitan area, Greek-owned diners are found throughout the district.
Brooklyn is home to the world-famous Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Brooklyn Philharmonic and the second largest public art collection in the United States, which is housed in the Brooklyn Museum. The district is home to the monthly Brooklyn Rail for art and politics, as well as the quarterly Cabinet for Arts and Culture. Brooklyn also has a storied sports history. It has been home to many famous sports figures such as Joe Paterno, Vince Lombardi, Mike Tyson, Joe Torre, Sandy Koufax, Billy Cunningham and Vitas Gerulaitis.
Basketball legend Michael Jordan was born in Brooklyn, although he grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina. Since its consolidation with New York City in 1898, Brooklyn has been governed by the Charter of New York City, which establishes a strong system of mayors and councils. New York City's centralized government is responsible for public education, correctional institutions, public safety, recreational facilities, sanitation, water supply and wellness services. On the other hand, the Brooklyn Public Library is an independent non-profit organization partially funded by the government of the City of New York, but also by the government of the State of New York, the U.S.
Since 1990, the Borough President has served as an advocate for the county in the agencies of the Mayor's Office, the City Council, the New York State Government, and corporations. The current president of Brooklyn Borough is Antonio Reynoso, who replaced Eric Adams when Adams took office as mayor of New York City. SUNY Downstate College of Medicine, founded as Long Island College Hospital in 1860, is the oldest school of hospital medicine in the United States. The Medical Center includes the School of Medicine, the College of Health Professions, the College of Nursing, the School of Public Health, the School of Graduate Studies and the University Hospital of Brooklyn.
Nobel Prize winner Robert F. Furchgott was a member of his faculty. Half of the students at the Medical Center are minorities or immigrants. The School of Medicine has the highest percentage of minority students of any medical school in New York State.
Long Island University is a private university based in Brookville on Long Island, with a campus in downtown Brooklyn with 6,417 undergraduate students. The Brooklyn campus has strong medical science and technology programs, at the graduate and undergraduate levels. Kingsborough Community College is a college in the City University of New York system in Manhattan Beach. There are 58 library branches, placing one within half a mile of every Brooklyn resident.
In addition to its specialized commercial library in Brooklyn Heights, the library is preparing to build 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 will house traditional and digital collections. It will provide access and training to art applications and technologies that are not widely available to the public. The collections will include themes of art, theater, dance, music, cinema, photography and architecture. A special archive will house the records and history of Brooklyn's art communities.
Much of Brooklyn has only named streets, but Park Slope, Bay Ridge, Sunset Park, Bensonhurst and Borough Park and the other western sections have numbered streets that extend approximately northwest to southeast, and numbered avenues that run approximately northeast to southwest. East of Dahill Road, lettered avenues (such as Avenue M) run east and west, and numbered streets have the prefix East. South of O Avenue, the related numbered streets west of Dahill Road use the West designation. This set of numbered streets runs from West 37th Street to East 108 Street, and the avenues run from A to Z with names that replace some of them in some neighborhoods (especially Albemarle, Beverley, Cortelyou, Dorchester, Ditmas, Foster, Farragut, Glenwood, Quentin).
The streets numbered with the prefix North and South in Williamsburg, and Bay, Beach, Brighton, Plumb, Paerdegat or Flatlands along the South and Southwest coast are loosely based on the old grids of the original Kings County cities that eventually consolidated to form Brooklyn. These names often reflect bodies of water or the beaches that surround them, such as Plumb Beach or Paerdegat Basin. Brooklyn is connected to Manhattan by three bridges, the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges; a vehicular tunnel, the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel (also known as Hugh L. Carey Tunnel); and several subway tunnels.
The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge links Brooklyn to Staten Island's most suburban district. Although much of its border is on land, Brooklyn shares several water crossings with Queens, including the Pulaski Bridge, the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge, the Kosciuszko Bridge (part of the Brooklyn-Queens Highway) and the Grand Street Bridge, all of which carry traffic over Newtown Creek and the Marine Parkway Bridge that connects Brooklyn to the Rockaway Peninsula. From a relaxed afternoon on Greenpoint's picturesque waterfront to window shopping on Manhattan Avenue and enjoying a retro breakfast at Peter Pan Donut & Pastry Shop, a visit to Greenpoint should be on your list of places to visit on your next trip to Brooklyn. Contrary to what the name suggests, Sundays in Brooklyn are open for brunch (and dinner) every day of the week.
If you're a shopaholic looking for things to do in Brooklyn for a day, you can spend a lot of it on Bedford Avenue. Basketball and hockey fans can also head to the Barclays Center to see the Brooklyn Nets and New York Islanders in action. It's called Brooklyn's Chinatown and it was originally a small Chinese enclave with Cantonese speakers as the main Chinese population in the late eighties and nineties, but since the 2000s, the Chinese population in the area drastically changed most Fuzhounese Americans, which contributed immensely to expanding this Chinatown very dramatically making this Chinatown with the nicknames of Fuzhou Town (), Brooklyn or Little Fuzhou () by Brooklyn. From kids' stores on Brooklyn's patterned streets to animal encounters, there are plenty of activities and exhibits to keep kids busy.
Visiting these incredible gardens is one of the best things to do in Brooklyn if you're interested in horticulture or just want a moment to relax. If your trip to Brooklyn inspires you to embrace your inner hipster, there's nothing more ironic or fun than a trip to the Royal Palms Shuffleboard Club in Gowanus. If you want to get a feel for the Brooklyn pizza scene, some inside stories about movies shot in Brooklyn, and enjoy this is a great tour. Sure, the Brooklyn Bridge serves a practical purpose as a means for millions of people to travel from lower Manhattan to Brooklyn, but it's also one of the city's most iconic structures.
For domestic, international or long-distance visitors, the best way to get to Brooklyn is to fly to JFK Airport. . .