BROOKLYN, N. Y., the second largest of the five boroughs of New York city, includes the entire area of the county of Kings and was, until 1898, when it was consolidated with New York, the fourth largest city in point of popu lation in the United States. It covers the western extremity of Long Island, in lat. 40° 41' 50" N., long. 73° 59' 50 W., and has an area of 77.52 square miles, extending from the East River, an arm of the sea which separates it from the borough of Manhattan (the old city of New York), to the Atlantic Ocean and to Newtown Creek and Queens County on the east. Its extreme length from Newtown Creek to Brigh ton Beach, on the Atlantic shore, is 11 miles, and its average width is over seven miles. So many natural advantages are rarely to be found within a similar area for the building up of a great industrial and commercial community. The island of Manhattan is the centre of the business activity of the American metropolis, but its restricted area limits its capacity and forbids its expansion. The tendency has been to expand skyward and to utilize to the utmost the ground area of the island by the erection of lofty buildings, many of them exceeding 20 stories in height, but there is a limit to expan sion in this direction, and there seems no possi bility of adding to the amount of Manhattan water front available for purposes of commerce, while the high price of land caused by the im perious demands of trade compels those en gaged in business in Manhattan to seek their homes elsewhere. Brooklyn profited during the greater part of its history from this compul sion, and its population increased at a con stantly accelerated ratio as the demands of busi ness made property more valuable in the older portion of the city. After 1860 Brooklyn ad vanced in population more rapidly than any other American city. The period of its most rapid growth dates from the opening of the first bridge across the East River in 1883, from Park Row, Manhattan, to Sands and Washing ton streets. Since then the Williamsburg Bridge from Clinton street, Manhattan, to Havemeyer street, and the Manhattan Bridge from the Bowery and Canal street, Manhattan, to Nassau street have been built, and with the East River tunnel of the Interborough Rapid Transit System expedite communication with all parts of the metropolis. Brooklyn's large territorial area keeps the cost of a home within the resources of people of moderate means, especially as regards the outlying sections, which are thoroughly covered by electric sur face, elevated and subway railroads. The char acter of the soil and the freedom from any rocky hills makes nearly every foot of ground admirably suited to building purposes. The greater part of the borough is situated at a considerable elevation above tide-water. A low range of sand-hills, from 50 to 200 feet high, runs north and east through its centre, which slopes gently down on both sides to the East River and the Atlantic Ocean.
The natural configuration of the site sim plifies drainage and other similar municipal problems to a material extent, while the loca tion of the borough, between ocean, river and bay, mitigates the extremes of winter cold and 'summer heat, and makes it a desirable place of residence throughout the year.
Its advantages as a centre of commerce and industry are no less than those which made it famous as a city of homes before its consolidi tion with the metropolis. Its water-front avail able for shipping comprises two miles on New town Creek, including its basins, and nearly 10 miles on the East River and New York Bay. The construction of large docks, such as those of the Atlantic and Erie basins — the latter being the chief point of entry of the canal barges that bring great cargoes of grain from the dis tributing centre at Buffalo to the Brooklyn grain-elevators — have largely increased the wharfage facilities of the borough.
Most large cities grow by the absorption of outlying suburbs and adjacent villages, and in this respect the experience of Brooklyn has been striking. The name of Brooklyn, which was derived from the town of Breucklen in Hol land, the home from which came most of the earliest settlers, was first attached to a small trading-village that grew up on the shores of the East River near what is now the Fulton ferry to Manhattan. There were several other villages in the county which for a long time retained their individuality and developed along their own lines. Across the Wallabout swamp, to the eastward —"Wallabouto being derived from a settlement of Walloons— a village was laid out in 1827 which was incorporated under the name of Williamsburg and in 1851 became incorporated as a city. Then Williamsburg swallowed up the older and adjacent villages of Bushwick and Greenpoint, just as Brooklyn had already swallowed up Bedford and Go wanus. In 1854 Brooklyn and Williamsburg were consolidated. The town of New Lots, including the village of East New York, came next, and the work of absorption, as far as Brooklyn was concerned, was completed in 1894, when the towns of Flatbush, New Utrecht, Gravesend and Flatlands were made part. of the city, the corporate limits of which then included all of Kings County. It was a natural process, but usually, when a large city is sur rounded by suburbs that are destined to absorp tion, the lines of development of the suburbs are indicated and set in accordance with their inevitable destiny, and annexation entails no confusion. It was different with Brooklyn. Williamsburg, Flatbush, Canarsie, Bushwick and East New York — more than 20 villages and hamlets all told, that are now a part of the borough of Brooklyn — had each its own plan and its own system of nomenclature. The result has been hopeless and to a large extent irremediable confusion. Duplication of street names may be corrected by the substitution of new names for the old, and much has already been done in that direction, but the confusion resulting from the multiplicity of independent plans on which the various parts of the borough were originally laid out have never been wholly corrected, and Brooklyn will continue to be a puzzle to strangers and even to old residents.