Brooklyn (named after the Dutch town Breukelen) is New York City's most populous borough with 2.5 million residents, and second largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second most densely populated county in the United States, after New York County (Manhattan).
Brooklyn is located in the westernmost part of Long Island. It shares its only land boundary with Queens to the northeast. The westernmost section of this boundary is defined by Newtown Creek, (crossed by the Kosciuszko Bridge, the Pulaski Bridge, the Grand Street Bridge, and the Metropolitan Avenue Bridge) which flows into the East River.
Brooklyn NY has something for everyone. Whether your interests lie in architecture, museums or amusement parks in Brooklyn, festivals or futbol, culture or night clubs and nightlife, you'll find just what you're looking for, plus things you never expected, right here in Brooklyn. Visit Brooklyn, where you can travel the world in one day, from "Little Odessa" in Brighton Beach to Chinatown in Sunset Park, to Polish Greenpoint, to African-American history in Bedford-Stuyvesant, to Caribbean Flatbush, to Latino Sunset Park and Bushwick, to Pakistani Midwood, to the world's largest Hasidic population in Williamsburg and Crown Heights.
Variously called the "City of Trees," "City of Homes," or the "City of Churches" in the 19th century, Brooklyn is now often styled the "Borough of Homes and Churches" or even sometimes called "The Planet", popularized by Guru from the rap duo Gangstarr, for its large diversity, population, and size.
Brooklyn, the 'Borough of Homes', can be understood as a collection of neighborhoods, many historically descended from the old towns and villages of Dutch times. The borough's striking diversity plays host to a bustle of ethnic and multi-ethnic neighborhoods that both preserve a flavor of 'the old country', of whatever latitude, and create spaces for interaction between individuals and communities. So for illustration, Borough Park is largely Orthodox Jewish, Bedford-Stuyvesant: African American, Bensonhurst: Italian American, and Sunset Park: Hispanic and Chinese American.
Most sections of Brooklyn are indeed decidedly residential, fulfilling the borough's historic role as 'bedroom of New York'. Its residential character may seem strange to many not familiar with the borough, who tend to associate it with brownstones; however, brownstones are predominantly located in the northwestern neighborhoods between the Brooklyn Bridge and Prospect Park. Some have noted that the parts of Brooklyn more distant from Manhattan are actually less recognizably New York City than many parts of Queens, a borough often incorrectly associated with suburbia.
In recent years a series of artists' colonies have developed along the East River across from Manhattan as a refuge for artists fleeing the sky-high rents of SoHo. Such was the development of the artistic community in Williamsburg, with consequent recent rent hikes there spurring a further exodus, to DUMBO (Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass), and even to Red Hook.
Housing Cost
Estimated median house or condo value in 2008: $596,000
Mean prices in 2008: All housing units: $638,736; Detached houses: $740,290; Townhouses or other attached units: $634,512; In 2-unit structures: $660,288; In 3-to-4-unit structures: $733,535; In 5-or-more-unit structures: $475,232; Mobile homes: $174,867; Occupied boats, RVs, vans, etc.: $138,056
Demographics
Population in July 2007: 2,527,010. Brooklyn covers 70.6 square miles.
Information provided by idcide.com and city data.com
