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92-526: Seth Low (January 18, 1850 – September 17, 1916) was an American educator and political figure who served as the mayor of Brooklyn from 1881 to 1885, the president of Columbia University from 1890 to 1901, a diplomatic representative of the United States, and the mayor of New York City from 1902 to 1903. He was a leading municipal reformer fighting for efficiency during the Progressive Era . Low

184-433: A Pakistani enclave. Brooklyn's most populous racial group, white, declined from 97.2% in 1930 to 46.9% by 1990. The borough attracts people previously living in other cities in the United States. Of these, most come from Chicago , Detroit , San Francisco , Washington, D.C. , Baltimore , Philadelphia , Boston , Cincinnati , and Seattle . Given New York City's role as a crossroads for immigration from around

276-551: A humid subtropical climate ( Cfa ), with partial shielding from the Appalachian Mountains and moderating influences from the Atlantic Ocean . Brooklyn receives plentiful precipitation all year round, with nearly 50 in (1,300 mm) yearly. The area averages 234 days with at least some sunshine annually, and averages 57% of possible sunshine annually, accumulating 2,535 hours of sunshine per annum. Brooklyn lies in

368-527: A 14-block area in 1890. On the southwestern waterfront of Kings County, railroads and industrialization spread to Sunset Park (then coterminous with the city's sprawling, sparsely populated Eighth Ward) and adjacent Bay Ridge (hitherto a resort-like subsection of the Town of New Utrecht ). Within a decade, the city had annexed the Town of New Lots in 1886; the Towns of Flatbush , Gravesend and New Utrecht in 1894; and

460-569: A border with the borough of Queens . It has several bridge and tunnel connections to the borough of Manhattan, across the East River , and is connected to Staten Island by way of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge . With a land area of 69.38 square miles (179.7 km ) and a water area of 27.48 square miles (71.2 km ), Kings County is the state of New York's fourth-smallest county by land area and third smallest by total area. Brooklyn

552-453: A hill near the west end of present-day Atlantic Avenue , was reported to have emotionally exclaimed: "What brave men I must this day lose!". The fortified American positions at Brooklyn Heights consequently became untenable and were evacuated a few days later, leaving the British in control of New York Harbor . While Washington's defeat on the battlefield cast early doubts on his ability as

644-495: A historically black college directed under Booker T. Washington , from 1907 until 1916. From 1907, he was also president of the business-labor alliance the National Civic Federation . Even though he believed in collective bargaining rights, which had customarily been denied to labor unions by those in authority, he did not favor strikes, but rather embraced arbitration as a suitable labor-management negotiation tactic. He

736-726: A longstanding cultural lineage include Canarsie , Sea Gate , and Crown Heights , home to the Chabad world headquarters. Neighborhoods with largely defunct yet historically notable Jewish populations include central Flatbush, East Flatbush, Brownsville, East New York, Bensonhurst and Sheepshead Bay (particularly its Madison subsection). Many hospitals in Brooklyn were started by Jewish charities, including Maimonides Medical Center in Borough Park and Brookdale Hospital in East Flatbush. According to

828-556: A major role in supplying troops and materiel for the American Civil War . The best-known regiment to be sent off to war from the city was the 14th Brooklyn "Red Legged Devils" . They fought from 1861 to 1864, wore red the entire war, and were the only regiment named after a city. President Abraham Lincoln called them into service, making them part of a handful of three-year enlisted soldiers in April 1861. Unlike other regiments during

920-453: A prosperous importing company. When Brooklyn was incorporated as a city in 1834, Seth the elder was one of the incorporators; he also served on the Board of Aldermen and was first President of the Board of Education. Seth the elder was also involved with charity and support work for the poor; on his deathbed, he admonished his three-year-old grandson and namesake: "Be kind to the poor." Low's father

1012-481: A reform candidate, General John R. Woodward. By this time, the public was losing their attraction to reform, and Democrat Daniel D. Whitney won election. With Whitney came the return of Democratic machine politics for another seven years. By 1892, some writers were looking back on Low's tenure as a "Golden Age" of clean government. Following his tenure as mayor of Brooklyn, Low assumed the presidency of Columbia College , serving between 1890 and 1901. Not an educator in

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1104-529: A separate mayor, elected a Borough President . 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. The question became whether Brooklyn was prepared to engage in the still-grander process of consolidation then developing throughout the region, whether to join with the county of Richmond and

1196-400: A slimmer margin than his first election. Where Low won his first term by 5,000 votes, he squeaked by re-election with only a 1,548-vote margin. In 1884, Low's mugwump support of Democrat Grover Cleveland in 1884 furthered the rift with his fellow Republicans. He declined to run for a third term in 1885, and refused to support Republican nominee General Isaac S. Catlin. Instead, he supported

1288-503: A variation of the place name " Canarsie ". Bands were associated with place names, but the colonists thought their names represented different tribes. The Breuckelen settlement was named after Breukelen in the Netherlands ; it was part of New Netherland . The Dutch West India Company lost little time in chartering the six original parishes (listed here by their later English town names): The colony's capital of New Amsterdam , across

1380-577: A variety of Jewish businesses. Adjacent to Borough Park, the Kensington area housed a significant population of Conservative Jews (under the aegis of such nationally prominent midcentury rabbis as Jacob Bosniak and Abraham Heller) when it was still considered to be a subsection of Flatbush; many of their defunct facilities have been repurposed to serve extensions of the Borough Park Hasidic community. Other notable religious Jewish neighborhoods with

1472-441: A water meter magnate and close friend of President Grover Cleveland ), with nearby Crown Heights gradually fulfilling an analogous role for the city's Jewish population as development continued through the early 20th century. Northeast of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Bushwick (by now a working class, predominantly German district) established a considerable brewery industry; the so-called "Brewer's Row" encompassed 14 breweries operating in

1564-697: Is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn , New York. The Brooklyn Fire Department operated a fireboat named Seth Low from 1885 to 1917. In the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn there is also a playground named after Low. In Seth Low Pierrepont State Park Reserve , named after Low's nephew , there is a street named after Low called Seth Low Mountain Road. Intermediate School 96 in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn

1656-492: Is known as Seth Low Intermediate School 96. In the Brownsville section of Brooklyn , New York, there is a NYCHA public housing development named Seth Low Houses. It consists of four 17 and 18 story buildings. There was a Seth Low Junior College at Columbia University between 1928 and 1936. * indicates acting or interim president or chancellor Brooklyn Brooklyn is a borough of New York City located at

1748-500: Is water (27%); the borough is the second-largest by land area among the New York City's boroughs. However, Kings County, coterminous with Brooklyn, is New York State's fourth-smallest county by land area and third-smallest by total area. Brooklyn lies at the southwestern end of Long Island, and the borough's western border constitutes the island's western tip. Brooklyn's water borders are extensive and varied, including Jamaica Bay ;

1840-471: The Atlantic Ocean ; The Narrows , separating Brooklyn from the borough of Staten Island in New York City and crossed by the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge ; Upper New York Bay , separating Brooklyn from Jersey City and Bayonne in the U.S. state of New Jersey ; and the East River , separating Brooklyn from the borough of Manhattan in New York City and traversed by the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel ,

1932-601: The Brighton Beach Line in 1878 heralded the end of this isolation. Sports in Brooklyn became a business. The Brooklyn Bridegrooms played professional baseball at Washington Park in the convenient suburb of Park Slope and elsewhere. Early in the next century, under their new name of 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

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2024-652: The Brooklyn Bridge , the Manhattan Bridge , the Williamsburg Bridge , and numerous routes of the New York City Subway . To the east of Brooklyn lies the borough of Queens, which contains John F. Kennedy International Airport in that borough's Jamaica neighborhood, approximately two miles from the border of Brooklyn's East New York neighborhood. Under the Köppen climate classification , Brooklyn experiences

2116-471: The Brooklyn Fire Department (BFD) also gave way to the new Metropolitan Fire District. Throughout this period the peripheral towns of Kings County, far from Manhattan and even from urban Brooklyn, maintained their rustic independence. The only municipal change seen was the secession of the eastern section of the Town of Flatbush as the Town of New Lots in 1852. The building of rail links such as

2208-475: The City University of New York 's Brooklyn College , Medgar Evers College , and College of Technology . In the first decades of the 21st   century, Brooklyn has experienced a renaissance as a destination for hipsters , with concomitant gentrification , dramatic house-price increases, and a decrease in housing affordability. Some new developments are required to include affordable housing units. Since

2300-957: The International Peace Conference at The Hague . Others in the delegation were Andrew D. White , then the United States Ambassador to the German Empire; Stanford Newel of Minnesota, then the United States Minister to the Netherlands; Captain Alfred Mahan , of the United States Navy; Captain William Crozier , of the United States Army; and Frederick Holls of New York. At the conference, Low made

2392-536: The Middle Colonies of nascent British America . On November 1, 1683, Kings County was partitioned from the West Riding of York Shire, containing the six old Dutch towns on southwestern Long Island, as one of the "original twelve counties" . This tract of land was recognized as a political entity for the first time, and the municipal groundwork was laid for a later expansive idea of a Brooklyn identity. Lacking

2484-619: The New Netherland colony in 1664, a prelude to the Second Anglo-Dutch War . New Netherland was taken in a naval action, and the English renamed the new capture for 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 a part of the West Riding of York Shire in the Province of New York , one of

2576-447: The USDA plant hardiness zone 7b . Brooklyn's neighborhoods are dynamic in ethnic composition. For example, the early to mid-20th century, Brownsville had a majority of Jewish residents; since the 1970s it has been majority African American. Midwood during the early 20th century was filled with ethnic Irish , then filled with Jewish residents for nearly 50 years, and is slowly becoming

2668-536: The United States Supreme Court . They had no biological children, but adopted two nieces and a nephew. By 1881 Brooklyn had been governed for years by a corrupt Democratic political machine under Hugh McLaughlin . By this time, a wave of goo-goo (or "good government") sentiment had begun to gain favor, and public sentiment was starting to turn against the incumbent Democratic regime. Brooklyn Republicans sensed an opportunity, but they were split between

2760-501: The automobile and commuter rail -driven vogue for more 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 waterworks, including the Ridgewood Reservoir . The municipal Police Department, however, was abolished in 1854 in favor of a Metropolitan force covering also New York and Westchester Counties. In 1865

2852-509: The patroon and tenant farmer system established along the Hudson River Valley , this agricultural county unusually came to have one of the highest percentages of slaves among the population in the "Original Thirteen Colonies" along the Atlantic Ocean eastern coast of North America . On August 27, 1776, the Battle of Long Island (also known as the 'Battle of Brooklyn') was fought,

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2944-633: The " Little Fuzhou ( 小福州 )" of Brooklyn. Many Chinese restaurants can be found throughout Sunset Park, and the area hosts a popular Chinese New Year celebration. Since the 2000s going forward, the growing concentration of the Cantonese speaking population in Brooklyn have dramatically shifted to Bensonhurst/Gravesend and Homecrest creating newer Chinatowns of Brooklyn and these newer Brooklyn Chinatowns are known as "Brooklyn's Little Hong Kong/Guangdong" due to their Chinese populations being overwhelmingly Cantonese populated. Daniel D. Whitney Whitney

3036-475: The "stalwart" candidate Benjamin F. Tracy and reform candidate Ripley Ropes. Low had no particular ambition to become Mayor, but his name was brought forth as a compromise, because his wealth and old family name appealed to the "stalwarts" and his reformist views appealed to the reformers. Low accepted the nomination at the Republican city convention, making it clear that he would not be a partisan mayor. Low defeated

3128-597: The 'h' from its name. By 1841, with the appearance of The Brooklyn Eagle, and Kings County Democrat published by Alfred G. Stevens, the growing city across the East River from Manhattan was producing its own prominent newspaper. It later became the most popular and highest circulation afternoon paper in America. The publisher changed to L. Van Anden on April 19, 1842, and the paper was renamed The Brooklyn Daily Eagle and Kings County Democrat on June 1, 1846. On May 14, 1849,

3220-838: The 1883 poem, " The New Colossus " by Emma Lazarus , which appears on a plaque inside the Statue of Liberty . The poem calls New York Harbor "the air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame". As a twin city to New York, it played a role in national affairs that was later overshadowed by decades of subordination by its old partner and rival. During this period, the affluent, contiguous districts of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill (then characterized collectively as The Hill) were home to such notable figures as Astral Oil Works founder Charles Pratt and his children, including local civic leader Charles Millard Pratt ; Theosophical Society co-founder William Quan Judge ; and Pfizer co-founders Charles Pfizer and Charles F. Erhart . Brooklyn Heights remained one of

3312-509: The 1884 Presidential election. The national party blamed Low for losing New York State and thus the election. After losing party support, Low declined to run for a third term as Brooklyn Mayor in 1885. Not only was Low not on the ticket in the 1885 mayoral election, he refused to support the machine Republican candidate, General Isaac S. Catlin. Instead, he supported a reform candidate, General John R. Woodward. This Republican infighting presented an opportunity for Brooklyn Democrats to take back

3404-531: The 19th century and two-thirds of the 20th century. The first center of urbanization sprang up in the Town of Brooklyn, directly across from Lower Manhattan , which saw the incorporation of the Village of Brooklyn in 1816. Reliable steam ferry service across the East River to Fulton Landing converted Brooklyn Heights into a commuter town for Wall Street . Ferry Road to Jamaica Pass became Fulton Street to East New York . Town and Village were combined to form

3496-617: The 19th century and was consolidated in 1898 with New York City (then confined to Manhattan and the Bronx ), the remaining rural areas of Kings County, and the largely rural areas of Queens and Staten Island , to form the modern City of New York. The Dutch were the first Europeans to settle Long Island's western edge, which was then largely inhabited by the Lenape , an Algonquian-speaking American Indian tribe often referred to in European documents by

3588-640: The 19th century. The waterfront from Gowanus to Greenpoint was developed with piers and factories. Industrial access to the waterfront was improved by the Gowanus Canal and the canalized Newtown Creek . USS  Monitor was the most famous product of the large and growing shipbuilding industry of Williamsburg. After the Civil War , trolley lines and other transport brought urban sprawl beyond Prospect Park (completed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux in 1873 and widely heralded as an improvement upon

3680-507: The 2010s, parts of Brooklyn have evolved into a hub of entrepreneurship, high-technology startup firms , postmodern art , and design. The name Brooklyn is derived from the original Dutch town of Breukelen . The oldest mention of the settlement in the Netherlands is in a charter of 953 by Holy Roman Emperor Otto I as Broecklede . This form is made up of the words broeck , meaning bog or marshland , and lede , meaning small (dug) water stream, specifically in peat areas. Breuckelen on

3772-573: The American Civil War, the 14th wore a uniform inspired by the French Chasseurs , a light infantry used for quick assaults. As a seaport and a manufacturing center, Brooklyn was well prepared to contribute to the Union's strengths in shipping and manufacturing. The two combined in shipbuilding; the ironclad Monitor was built in Brooklyn. Brooklyn is referred to as the twin city of New York in

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3864-549: The American Jewish Population Project in 2020, Brooklyn was home to over 480,000 Jews. In 2023, the UJA-Federation of New York estimated that Brooklyn is home to 462,000 Jews, a large decrease compared to the 561,000 estimated in 2011. The predominantly Jewish, Crown Heights (and later East Flatbush)-based Madison Democratic Club served as the borough's primary "clubhouse" political venue for decades until

3956-661: The American continent was established in 1646, and the name first appeared in print in 1663. Over the past two millennia, the name of the ancient town in Holland has been Bracola , Broccke , Brocckede , Broiclede , Brocklandia , Broekclen , Broikelen , Breuckelen, and finally Breukelen . The New Amsterdam settlement of Breuckelen also went through many spelling variations, including Breucklyn , Breuckland , Brucklyn , Broucklyn , Brookland , Brockland , Brocklin , and Brookline/Brook-line . There have been so many variations of

4048-560: The East River, obtained its charter in 1653. The neighborhood of Marine Park was home to North America's first tide mill . It was built by the Dutch, and the foundation can be seen today. But the area was not formally settled as a town. Many incidents and documents relating to this period are in Gabriel Furman 's 1824 compilation. Present-day Brooklyn left Dutch hands after the English captured

4140-454: The Heights, the less exclusive South Brooklyn was home to longtime civic leader James S. T. Stranahan , who became known (often derisively) as the " Baron Haussmann of Brooklyn" for championing Prospect Park and other public works. Economic growth continued, propelled by immigration and industrialization , and Brooklyn established itself as the third-most populous American city for much of

4232-814: The New York metropolitan area's most august patrician redoubts into the early 20th century under the aegis of such figures as abolitionist clergyman Henry Ward Beecher , Congregationalist theologians Lyman Abbott and Newell Dwight Hillis (who followed Beecher as the second and third pastors of Plymouth Church , respectively), financier John Jay Pierrepont (a grandson of founding Heights resident Hezekiah Pierrepont ), banker/art collector David Leavitt , educator/politician Seth Low , merchant/banker Horace Brigham Claflin , attorney William Cary Sanger (who served for two years as United States Assistant Secretary of War under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt ) and publisher Alfred Smith Barnes . Contiguous to

4324-700: The Republicans split between Catlin and Woodward, Whitney was able to win the mayoralty of Brooklyn by 12,000 votes. Whitney's election marked the end of Low's reformist policies. Whitney's single mayoral term was described as "dull, plodding, but honest" by the Brooklyn Daily Eagle . Whitney was never particularly popular, but Democrats held power in Brooklyn for the next seven years. During this time Brooklyn city government returned to corrupt machine politics, as it had been before Low's time. After his time as mayor, Whitney left political life and returned to run

4416-486: The Town of Flatlands in 1896. Brooklyn had reached its natural municipal boundaries at the ends of Kings County. Low's time in office from 1882 to 1885 was marked by a number of reforms: Brooklyn elected a mayor from 1834 until 1898, after which it was consolidated into the City of Greater New York , whose own second mayor (1902–1903), Seth Low, had been Mayor of Brooklyn from 1882 to 1885. Since 1898, Brooklyn has, in place of

4508-630: The agricultural phase of cooperation. Low was also a trustee of the Carnegie Institute of Washington, D.C. In the Spring of 1916, Low became ill with cancer. He died in his home in Bedford Hills, New York , on September 17, 1916. Even his funeral demonstrated the ability of Low to reach political consensus, with honorary pallbearers that included both financier and philanthropist J. P. Morgan Jr. and labor activist and AFL founder Samuel Gompers . He

4600-546: The area, and afterward the British generally enjoyed a dominant Loyalist sentiment from the residents in Kings County who did not evacuate, though the region was also the center of the fledgling—and largely successful— Patriot intelligence network , headed by Washington himself. The British set up a system of prison ships off the coast of Brooklyn in Wallabout Bay . More American patriots died there than in combat on all

4692-523: The area. It is called "Brooklyn's Chinatown" and originally it was a small Chinese enclave with Cantonese speakers being the main Chinese population during the late 1980s and 1990s, but since the 2000s, the Chinese population in the area dramatically shifted to majority Fuzhounese Americans , which contributed immensely to expanding this Chinatown, and bestowing the nicknames " Fuzhou Town ( 福州埠 ), Brooklyn" or

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4784-988: The ascendancy of Meade Esposito 's rival, Canarsie-based Thomas Jefferson Democratic Club in the 1960s and 1970s, playing an integral role in the rise of such figures as Speaker of the New York State Assembly Irwin Steingut ; his son, fellow Speaker Stanley Steingut ; New York City Mayor Abraham Beame ; real estate developer Fred Trump ; Democratic district leader Beadie Markowitz; and political fixer Abraham "Bunny" Lindenbaum. Many non-Orthodox Jews (ranging from observant members of various denominations to atheists of Jewish cultural heritage) are concentrated in Ditmas Park and Park Slope , with smaller observant and culturally Jewish populations in Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Brighton Beach, and Coney Island. Over 200,000 Chinese Americans live throughout

4876-675: The battlefield engagements of the American Revolutionary War combined. One result of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 was the evacuation of the British from New York City , which was celebrated by New Yorkers into the 20th century. The first half of the 19th century saw the beginning of the development of urban areas on the economically strategic East River shore of Kings County, facing the adolescent City of New York confined to Manhattan Island. The New York Navy Yard operated in Wallabout Bay (border between Fort Greene and Williamsburg) during

4968-517: The commander, the tactical withdrawal of all his troops and supplies across the East River in a single night is now seen by historians as one of his most brilliant triumphs. The British controlled the surrounding region for the duration of the war, as New York City was soon occupied and became their military and political base of operations in North America for the remainder of the conflict. The Patriot residents largely fled or were cleared from

5060-661: The concluding speech, printed two months later in The New York Times , saying: On this day, so full for Americans of thoughts connected with their National Independence, we may not forget that Americans have yet other grounds for gratitude to the people of the Netherlands. We cannot forget that our flag received its first foreign salute from a Dutch officer, nor that the Province of Friesland gave to our independence its first formal recognition. By way of Leyden and Delft-Haven and Plymouth Rock , and again by way of New Amsterdam ,

5152-417: The day shift and another 12 on the night shift. Every time a rash of burglaries broke out, officials blamed burglars from New York City. Finally, in 1855, a modern police force was created, employing 150 men. Voters complained of inadequate protection and excessive costs. In 1857, the state legislature merged the Brooklyn force with that of New York City. Fervent in the Union cause, the city of Brooklyn played

5244-472: The department of political and social study. In 1895, he gave one million dollars of his inheritance from his father for Low Memorial Library to be built at the new Columbia University campus. It was dedicated to his father and opened in 1897. During his time at Columbia, Low was elected to the American Philosophical Society . On July 4, 1899, he was one of the American delegates to attend

5336-535: The earlier Central Park ) into the center of the county, as evinced by gradual settlement in the comparatively rustic villages of Windsor Terrace and Kensington in the Town of Flatbush. By century's end, Dean Alvord 's Prospect Park South development (adjacent to the village of Flatbush) would serve as the template for contemporaneous " Victorian Flatbush " micro-neighborhoods and the post-consolidation emergence of outlying districts, such as Midwood and Marine Park . Along with Oak Park, Illinois , it also presaged

5428-434: The first major engagement fought in the American Revolutionary War after independence was declared , and the largest of the entire conflict. British troops forced Continental Army troops under George Washington off the heights near the modern sites of Green-Wood Cemetery , Prospect Park , and Grand Army Plaza . Washington , viewing particularly fierce fighting at the Gowanus Creek and Old Stone House from atop

5520-412: The first, kernel incarnation of the City of Brooklyn in 1834. In a parallel development, the Town of Bushwick, farther up the river, saw the incorporation of the Village of Williamsburgh in 1827, which separated as the Town of Williamsburgh in 1840 and formed the short-lived City of Williamsburgh in 1851. Industrial deconcentration in the mid-century was bringing shipbuilding and other manufacturing to

5612-529: The free public school reached American shores. The United States of America have taken their name from the United States of the Netherlands . We have learned from you only that 'in union there is strength'; that is an old lesson, but also, in large measure, how to make 'One out of many'. From you we have learned what we, at least, value, to separate Church and State; and from you, we gather inspiration at all times in our devotion to learning, to religious liberty, and to individual and National freedom. These are some of

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5704-448: The incumbent Democrat James Howell after a two-week campaign, 45,434 votes to 40,937. Low's time in office was marked by a number of reforms: Low's tax increases and non-partisan governing policy lost him a measure of public support. By 1883, fellow Republicans were criticizing Low openly, and the press was critical of his tax policy. Although the Democrats ran the weak, nearly unknown candidate Joseph C. Hendrix in 1883, Low beat him by

5796-446: The introduction of a civil service system — based upon merit — for hiring municipal employees, reducing widespread graft within the police department , improving the system of education within the city , and lowering taxes. Despite these seemingly impressive achievements he only served for two years and was defeated in 1903 by Democrat George B. McClellan Jr. He was chairman of the Tuskegee University (formerly Tuskegee Institute ),

5888-399: The loss of Brooklyn's separate identity as a city was met with consternation by some residents at the time. Many newspapers of the day called the merger the "Great Mistake of 1898", and the phrase still elicits Brooklyn pride among old-time Brooklynites. Brooklyn is 97 square miles (250 km ) in area, of which 71 square miles (180 km ) is land (73%), and 26 square miles (67 km )

5980-420: The mayoralty. Daniel Whitney was an affable local grocer whose store was on Fulton Street, near Brooklyn City Hall . Whitney built up a reliable reputation during his four terms on the Board of Aldermen. This gained him the attention of the local Democratic political machine , run by party boss Hugh McLaughlin . The Democrats chose the relatively inexperienced Whitney to run for Brooklyn mayor in 1885. With

6072-410: The name that its origin has been debated; some have claimed breuckelen means "broken land". The current name, however, is the one that best reflects its meaning. The history of European settlement in Brooklyn spans more than 350 years. The settlement began in the 17th century as the small Dutch-founded town of "Breuckelen" on the East River shore of Long Island , grew to be a sizeable city in

6164-404: The name was shortened to The Brooklyn Daily Eagle ; on September 5, 1938, it was further shortened to Brooklyn Eagle . The establishment of the paper in the 1840s helped develop a separate identity for Brooklynites over the next century. The borough's soon-to-be-famous National League baseball team, the Brooklyn Dodgers , also assisted with this. Both major institutions were lost in the 1950s:

6256-454: The nation. Brooklyn contains dozens of distinct neighborhoods representing many of the major culturally identified groups found within New York City. Among the most prominent are listed below: Over 600,000 Jews , particularly Orthodox and Hasidic Jews , have become concentrated in such historically Jewish areas as Borough Park , Williamsburg , and Midwood , where there are many yeshivas , synagogues , and kosher restaurants, as well as

6348-508: The new municipal charter of " Greater New York ". The borough continues to maintain some distinct culture . Many Brooklyn neighborhoods are ethnic enclaves . With Jews forming around a quarter of its population, the borough has been described as "the most Jewish spot on Earth". Brooklyn's official motto, displayed on the borough seal and flag , is Eendraght Maeckt Maght , which translates from early modern Dutch as ' Unity makes strength '. Educational institutions in Brooklyn include

6440-433: The northern part of the county. Each of the two cities and six towns in Kings County remained independent municipalities and purposely created non-aligning street grids with different naming systems. However, the East River shore was growing too fast for the three-year-old infant City of Williamsburg; it, along with its Town of Bushwick hinterland, was subsumed within a greater City of Brooklyn in 1855, subsequently dropping

6532-418: The paper closed in 1955 after unsuccessful attempts at a sale following a reporters' strike, and the baseball team decamped for Los Angeles in a realignment of Major League Baseball in 1957. Agitation against Southern slavery was stronger in Brooklyn than in New York, and under Republican leadership, the city was fervent in the Union cause in the Civil War . After the war the Henry Ward Beecher Monument

6624-481: The reform movement, of which Low was a stalwart, denounced emergency assistance of potatoes and flour for the poor. The reduction in welfare assistance for the poor led many to seek shelter in "police station basements" and in city hospitals, and led many poor parents to bring "their children to asylums" and many men to beg on the streets for "charity or work." On December 9, 1880, he married Anne Wroe Scollay Curtis of Boston , daughter of Justice Benjamin R. Curtis of

6716-510: The small "old-fashioned" grocery where he had worked all his life, and continued there until the day before his death. In later years, Whitney was a central member of the Society of Old Brooklynites, a civic organization which remembered and celebrated the old days when Brooklyn was an independent city. Whitney had three sons with his first wife; she died in 1889. He remarried at age 71 to Miss Henrietta Titus of Glen Cove, New York , in 1893; she

6808-638: The southern part of the county. Toward the end of the 19th century, the City of Brooklyn experienced its final, explosive growth spurt. Park Slope was rapidly urbanized, with its eastern summit soon emerging as the city's third "Gold Coast" district alongside Brooklyn Heights and The Hill; notable residents of the era included American Chicle Company co-founder Thomas Adams Jr. and New York Central Railroad executive Clinton L. Rossiter. East of The Hill, Bedford-Stuyvesant coalesced as an upper middle class enclave for lawyers, shopkeepers, and merchants of German and Irish descent (notably exemplified by John C. Kelley,

6900-525: The southern parts of Brooklyn, primarily concentrated in Sunset Park , Bensonhurst , Gravesend , and Homecrest . Brooklyn is the borough that is home to the highest number of Chinatowns in New York City . The largest concentration is in Sunset Park along 8th Avenue, which has become known for its Chinese culture since the opening of the now-defunct Winley Supermarket in 1986 spurred widespread settlement in

6992-419: The specific meaning of the word, he succeeded by his administrative skill in transforming the institution. He led the move of the institution from Midtown Manhattan to Morningside Heights , and secured trustee approval to change its name to "Columbia University". The new campus matched Low's vision of a civic university fully integrated into the city; the original design subsequently reconceived, left it open to

7084-431: The state. Brooklyn, at 37,339.9 inhabitants per square mile (14,417.0/km ), is the second most densely populated county in the U.S. after Manhattan (New York County), as of 2022. Had Brooklyn remained an independent city, it would now be the fourth most populous American city after the rest of New York City, Los Angeles , and Chicago . Named after the Dutch town of Breukelen in the Netherlands, Brooklyn shares

7176-574: The street and surrounding neighborhoods. To forge a university, Low vitally united the various schools into one organization whose direction was moved from the separate faculties to a university council. Further reforms effected by him include the reorganization of the Law School, the addition of a faculty of pure science, the association of the University with the Teachers College, and the extension of

7268-498: The support of humorist Mark Twain . He and Twain made a joint appearance that drew a crowd of more than 2,000. In 1902, Low resigned as president of the university to become the second mayor of the newly consolidated City of New York . He stands out as the first mayor of Greater New York to be elected on a fusion ticket, with the support of both the Citizens Union and Republican parties. Some of his notable achievements include

7360-478: The things for which we believe the American people owe no little gratitude to the Dutch; and these are the things for which today, speaking in the name of the American people, we venture to express their heartfelt thanks. Low's first campaign for mayor of consolidated New York in 1897 was unsuccessful, partially because of a division among anti- Tammany Hall candidates and parties. However, four years later, he managed to attain office. During his 1901 campaign, he had

7452-554: The western portion of Queens County , and the county of New York , which by then already included the Bronx , to form the five boroughs of a united City of New York. Andrew Haswell Green and other progressives said yes, and eventually, they prevailed against the Daily Eagle and other conservative forces. In 1894, residents of Brooklyn and the other counties voted by a slight majority to merge, effective in 1898. Kings County retained its status as one of New York State's counties, but

7544-468: The westernmost end of Long Island in the State of New York . Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County , one of twelve original counties established under British rule in 1683 in the then Province of New York . As of the 2020 United States census , the population stood at 2,736,074, making it the most populous of the five boroughs of New York City, the most populous county in

7636-421: 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 . In 2010, 51.6% of the population was counted as members of religious congregations. In 2014, there were 914 religious organizations in Brooklyn, the 10th most of all counties in

7728-577: Was 45 years old. Whitney was a member for over 50 years and trustee of the Sands Street Methodist Church. On January 30, 1909, on the eve of Whitney's 90th birthday, he was feted with a grand reception at the Sands Street church. "Several hundred" people attended, and speeches were given in his honor by Borough President Bird Sim Coler and ex-mayors Charles A. Schieren and David Boody . On November 9, 1914, Whitney left his grocery

7820-458: Was a Unitarian , and his mother was an Episcopalian . For years, Low wavered between the two faiths. Finally, at age 22, Low decided he would henceforth be an Episcopalian. Low attended Poly Prep Country Day School in Brooklyn and Columbia College . After graduating from Columbia in 1870, Low made a short trip abroad, and then entered the tea and silk house of A. A. Low & Brothers, which had been founded by his father in New York. In 1875, he

7912-623: Was a founder and the first president of the Bureau of Charities of Brooklyn, and was elected vice-president of the New York Academy of Sciences and president of the Archaeological Institute of America . Low became interested in the food supply problem, that is its contribution to the constantly increasing cost of living . He became convinced that this difficulty could best be solved by democratic cooperation among farmers and consumers. He

8004-404: Was admitted a member of the firm, from which, upon its liquidation in 1888, he withdrew with a large fortune. In the mid-1870s, Seth Low began to lay the groundwork for his political career by supporting "welfare reform" and the elimination of food and coal disbursements for the poor which caused "starving people" to gather at "warehouses where food was stored" to beg for help. During this period,

8096-484: Was born January 31, 1819, in Oyster Bay, New York . He moved to Brooklyn at age 18, and worked in a grocery store at 20 Fulton Street. He eventually became head of the grocery, and remained at the store until the day before he died. Reformer and incumbent Republican mayor Seth Low had fallen out of favor with national Republicans for crossing party lines to support Grover Cleveland over Republican James G. Blaine in

8188-440: Was built downtown to honor a famous local abolitionist . A great victory arch was built at what was then the south end of town to celebrate the armed forces; this place is now called Grand Army Plaza . The number of people living in Brooklyn grew rapidly early in the 19th century. There were 4,402 by 1810, 7,175 in 1820 and 15,396 by 1830. The city's population was 25,000 in 1834, but the police department comprised only 12 men on

8280-430: Was founded by the Dutch in the 17th   century and grew into a busy port city on New York Harbor by the 19th   century. On January   1, 1898, after a long political campaign and public-relations battle during the 1890s and despite opposition from Brooklyn residents, Brooklyn was consolidated in and annexed (along with other areas) to form the current five-borough structure of New York City in accordance to

8372-583: Was president of the Bedford Farmers' Cooperative Association. He was also one of the founders of the Cooperative Wholesale Corporation of New York City, an organization which seeks to bring about a business federation of all the consumers' cooperative store societies in the eastern United States, but not being in sympathy with the radical tendency of this phase of the cooperative movement , he finally resigned and devoted himself entirely to

8464-512: Was the son of Abiel Abbot Low and Ellen Almira Dow. Low's father was a leading trader in China , and his father's sister, Harriet Low , was one of the first young American women to live in China. The Low family was old Puritan New England stock, descended from Thomas Low of Essex County, Massachusetts . Low was named after his grandfather Seth Low (1782–1853) who moved with his son Abiel to Brooklyn to start

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