Brooklyn Park, city (1990 pop. 56,381), Hennepin co., SE Minn., a suburb of Minneapolis; chartered as a city 1969. Manufacturing includes machinery, wood and metal products, tools, feeders, and medical and pharmaceutical supplies.

Brooklyn Museum of Art, museum in the borough of Brooklyn, N.Y. Its predecessors were the Brooklyn Apprentices' Library (1823), the Brooklyn Institute (1843), and the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences (1890). Opened in 1897, the museum is located in a Beaux-Arts building designed by McKim, Mead, and White that has been substantially added to over the ensuing years, including a sweeping glass-roofed entrance pavilion (2004). The museum is particularly famous for its large collection of ancient Egyptian art and its Egyptological library. It also has a fine collection of American decorative arts, with 27 completely furnished period rooms. Among the other important features are the collections of Greek and Roman, Middle Eastern, Asian, and African art; American and European costumes; a comprehensive collection of American painting and sculpture; and a major print collection. The museum also presents a variety of special exhibitions and has a large art library and auditorium.

Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, cultural and educational institution founded in 1823 in Brooklyn, N.Y., as the Brooklyn Apprentices' Library Association. The scope was broadened in 1843 and the name changed to The Brooklyn Institute. In 1890 the institution was reorganized and reincorporated under its present name. The forerunner of the Brooklyn Museum of Art (est. 1897), it also included the Brooklyn Academy of Music (est. 1859), Brooklyn Children's Museum (est. 1899), and Brooklyn Botanic Garden (est. 1910).

Brooklyn College: see New York, City University of.

Brooklyn Center, city (1990 pop. 28,887), Hennepin co., SE Minn., a residential suburb of Minneapolis; inc. 1911. It has light industry and has been marked by suburban and economic growth since the 1970s.

Brooklyn Bridge, vehicular suspension bridge, New York City, southernmost of the bridges across the East River, between lower Manhattan and Brooklyn; built 1869-83. The achievement of J. A. Roebling and his son W. A. Roebling, it has a span of 1,595.5 ft (487 m). It was the first steel-wire suspension bridge in the world and was the world's longest suspension bridge at the time of its completion.

Brooklyn Academy of Music, performing arts center located in the borough of Brooklyn, N.Y. and popularly known as BAM. Founded in 1859 and opened in 1861, it is the oldest such institution still in operation in the United States. It moved to its neo-Italianate building in downtown Brooklyn in 1907. The Academy presently has four major performance areas-the Opera House, the Playhouse, the Leperq space, and the BAM Rose Cinemas. The Academy has long presented concerts, plays, ballet, and lectures, and it is now home to the Brooklyn Philharmonic. Since 1967 it has expanded into a center for experimental theater, new opera, contemporary and ethnic music and dance, independent films, and multimedia productions. An avant-garde showplace, it is also the venue for the artistically adventurous Next Wave Festival, an annual 10-week series of events that originated in 1981.

Brooklyn, borough of New York City (1990 pop. 2,300,664), 71 sq mi (184 sq km), coextensive with Kings co., SE N.Y., at the western extremity of Long Island; an independent city from 1834, it became a New York borough in 1898. Brooklyn has the largest population of the city's five boroughs. Among its manufactures are machinery, textiles, paper products, and chemicals; it is also a center of foreign and domestic commerce and has extensive waterfront facilities. The Brooklyn (1883), Manhattan, and Williamsburg bridges span the East River, connecting Brooklyn with Manhattan; beneath the river are the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel (vehicular) and subway tunnels. The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge connects the borough with Staten Island.

Neighborhoods and Points of Interest

Brooklyn is a borough of well-defined neighborhoods, from the gentrified brownstone communities of Park Slope and Cobble Hill to Bedford-Stuyvesant, the largest African-American neighborhood in the city. Brighton Beach has a large community of Russian Jews, and there are also neighborhoods of Caribbean blacks, Hispanics, Italians, Poles, Hasidic Jews, Arabs, Chinese, and others.

Among educational institutions in the borough are Brooklyn College of the City Univ. of New York, Polytechnic Univ., Pratt Institute, St. Joseph's College, and Long Island Univ. Near Prospect Park, scene of fighting in the American Revolution (see Long Island, battle of), is the main building of the Brooklyn Public Library. Nearby are the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and the renowned, innovative Brooklyn Academy of Music.

In the "City of Churches," the Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims, where Henry Ward Beecher preached, is perhaps best known. Other points of interest include Coney Island, with its beach, amusement park, and New York Aquarium; Green-Wood Cemetery; and the Lefferts Homestead (1777). Fort Hamilton (1831) overlooks the Narrows of New York Bay. Marine Park and parts of Jamaica Bay are included in Gateway National Recreation Area.

History

The Dutch and English settled the area (previously home to the Canarsie) in 1636 and 1637; about nine years later Dutch farmers established the hamlet of Brueckelen, near the present Borough Hall. By 1664, six towns had been established: Breuckelen (later anglicized to Brooklyn), Bushwick, Flatbush, Nieuw Amersfoort (Flatlands), Gravesend, and New Utrecht. Kings county was established in 1683; the Brooklyn Ferry area was incorporated as the village of Brooklyn in 1816, and the entire town was chartered as a city in 1834. In the 1830s Brooklyn Heights became perhaps the first modern suburb, accessible to New York City by ferry.

Brooklyn steadily absorbed neighboring settlements. After annexing Williamsburg and Bushwick in 1854, it became the third largest city in the United States, and continued to absorb other towns, including Flatbush, New Utrecht, and Gravesend, until it became coextensive with Kings County in 1896. In 1898, when it became a New York City borough, its population was 830,000. Immigration doubled its population in the next twenty years.

The New York Naval Shipyard (popularly, the Brooklyn Navy Yard) was located on the East River from 1801 until its closing in the late 1960s, when Brooklyn was declining as a port. The Daily Eagle, published in Brooklyn from 1841 until 1955, had Walt Whitman as one of its early editors. The borough is also famed as home to the Brooklyn Dodgers (at Ebbets Field), until the baseball team moved to Los Angeles in 1957.

Suspension bridge built (1869–83) over the East River to link Brooklyn to Manhattan island. It was designed by the cable manufacturer John A. Roebling and his son Washington. A brilliant feat of 19th-century engineering, the bridge was the first to use steel for cable wire and the first in which explosives were used inside a pneumatic caisson during construction. In 1869 John was killed in one of at least 27 fatal construction accidents; his son saw the project to completion. The bridge's main span of 1,595 ft (486 m) was the longest in the world to date. It opened to such fanfare that within 24 hours an estimated quarter-million people crossed over it, using an elevated walkway designed to give pedestrians a dramatic view of the city.

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Borough (pop., 2000: 2,465,326), New York, New York, U.S. Separated from Manhattan by the East River, it is bordered to the south by the Atlantic Ocean. Brooklyn is connected to Manhattan by bridges (including the Brooklyn Bridge), a vehicular tunnel, and rapid transit services. The first settlement in the area by Dutch farmers in 1636 was soon followed by other villages, including Breuckelen (1645). The Battle of Long Island was fought in Brooklyn in 1776. It became a borough of New York City in 1898. Brooklyn is both residential and industrial and also handles considerable oceangoing traffic. Among its educational institutions is Pratt Institute. Coney Island is located there.

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