Brooklyn

Borough of New York City, USA, occupying the southwestern end of Long Island; area 184 sq km/71 sq mi; population (1999 est) 2,268,300, the most populous of the boroughs. It is linked to Manhattan Island by the Brooklyn Bridge (1883), the Williamsburg Bridge (1903), the Manhattan Bridge (1909), and the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel (1950); and to Staten Island by the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (1964). Brooklyn is a densely populated and ethnically mixed residential area, and its waterfront is highly industrialized. There are more than 60 parks here, of which Prospect Park is the largest. There is also a museum, a botanical garden, and a beach and amusement area at Coney Island.

The area was first settled by Europeans in 1636. In 1646 it was named Breucklen (Dutch: ‘marshland’) after a town in Holland. The village of Brooklyn (now anglicized) and several nearby villages were incorporated as a city in 1834; it became a borough of New York City in 1898. Brooklyn is the seat of several colleges including the Polytechnic University (1854), State University of New York Health Science Center (1858), Saint Francis College (1884), Pratt Institute (1887), Brooklyn Law School (1901), Long Island University (1926), and Brooklyn College (1930) of the City University of New York.

Brooklyn Bridge has attracted the attention of poets as various as Walt Whitman, Hart Crane, Marianne Moore, and Vladimir Mayakovsky.