Downtown Brooklyn | |
|---|---|
 Skyline of Downtown Brooklyn seen fromLower Manhattan | |
 Location in New York City | |
| Coordinates:40°41′38″N73°59′14″W / 40.69389°N 73.98722°W /40.69389; -73.98722 | |
| Country |  United States |
| State | New York |
| City | New York City |
| Borough | Brooklyn |
| Community District | Brooklyn 2[1] |
| Area | |
• Total | 0.433 sq mi (1.12 km2) |
| Population (2020) | |
• Total | 23,493 |
| • Density | 54,300/sq mi (20,900/km2) |
| Economics | |
| • Median income | $110,436 |
| Time zone | UTC−5 (Eastern) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC−4 (EDT) |
| Zip Codes | 11201, 11217 |
| Area code | 718, 347, 929, and917 |
Downtown Brooklyn is the third-largestcentral business district inNew York City (afterMidtown andLower Manhattan[2]), and is located in the northwestern section of theborough ofBrooklyn. The neighborhood is known for its office and residential buildings, such asseveral of Brooklyn's tallest buildings and theMetroTech Center office complex.
Since therezoning of Downtown Brooklyn in 2004, the area has been undergoing a transformation, with $9 billion of private investment and $300 million in public improvements underway. The area is a growing hub for education. In 2017,New York University announced that it would invest over $500 million to renovate and expand theNYU Tandon School of Engineering and its surrounding Downtown Brooklyn-based campus.[3]
Downtown Brooklyn is part ofBrooklyn Community District 2 and its primaryZIP Codes are 11201 and 11217.[1] It is patrolled by the 84th and 88th Precincts of theNew York City Police Department.[4]
This area was originally inhabited byLenapeNative Americans, until the 17th century. The area close to theWallabout Bay was called Rinnegokonk.[5] At that time the Dutch arrived, gained control of the land, and called it Breuckelen. The waterfront area being sold by Indians toJoris Jansen Rapelje, who used the land for farm purposes. Until 1814, Downtown Brooklyn andBrooklyn Heights remained sparsely populated.Robert Fulton's new steam ferry then began to offer an easycommuting option to and from downtown Manhattan. It made Brooklyn Heights Manhattan's firstsuburb, and put Downtown Brooklyn on its way to becoming a commercial center, and the heart of theCity of Brooklyn.
The city was home to many prominentabolitionists at a time when most of New York was indifferent to slavery. Many Brooklyn churches agitated against legalized slavery in the 1850s and 1860s and some acted as safehouses as part of theUnderground Railroad movement.Walt Whitman was fired from his job as a reporter at the Brooklyn Eagle due to his support for theWilmot Proviso when he lived at Willoughby andMyrtle Avenues. A group of buildings at 223, 225, 227, 231, 233, and 235 Duffield Street, in addition to the African Wesleyan Methodist Episcopal Church located in MetroTech Center, were believed to be among the safehouses.[6]
The middle 19th century growth of the Port of New York caused shipping to spill over into the City of Brooklyn; many buildings now used for other purposes were built as warehouses and factories. Manufacturing intensified with the building of theBrooklyn andManhattan Bridges; buildings from that time include the 1915Sperry Gyroscope Company building, now known as the Howard Building of theNew York City College of Technology.[7] New, extensive infrastructure served theBrooklyn Bridge trolleys.
FollowingWorld War II, theCity Planning Commission, in conjunction with the Borough President's Office, presented and adopted a Master Plan for the Civic Center, which included an ambitious public improvements program. The program included plans for new buildings for City and State agencies, significant street widening and major housing construction in adjacent areas. A study conducted eight years later highlighted the progress made, emphasizing the widening of Adams Street (and later Boerum Place), which created a long and sweeping approach to Downtown Brooklyn from a modernized Brooklyn Bridge.
By the late 1960s, the patterns of transition that affected much of urban America initiated concern to protect the borough's Central Business District from deterioration. In 1969, a comprehensive plan for the entire city was completed and in the report the City Planning Commission stated, "Downtown Brooklyn's economy is vital to the borough and important to the entire metropolitan region."[citation needed] In reaffirming Downtown Brooklyn's central role and identifying its problems, the Plan was optimistic that a combination of public and private efforts would stimulate office and commercial construction. A 23-story privately financed office tower at Boerum Place and Livingston Street opened in 1971 and the anticipated growth of theBrooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) succeeded far beyond expectations, giving this cultural institution an important role as a symbolic anchor amid increasing decay during the following decade.
After suffering with the rest of New York through the fiscal crisis of the mid-1970s, Borough PresidentHoward Golden, first elected in 1977, moved forward with a more aggressive economic development program to revitalize Downtown Brooklyn. He identified the need for greater equity in resource allocation between Manhattan and the city's other boroughs. An important moment in the history of Downtown Brooklyn came in 1983 with the release of a Regional Plan Association report for the area. According to the document, Downtown Brooklyn could become the city's third-largest business district because of its proximity to Lower Manhattan (closer by subway than Midtown). It also could serve as a prime location for high technology industries and new market-rate housing. TheState Street Houses Historic District was listed on theNational Register of Historic Places in 1980.[8]
Historically, Downtown Brooklyn was primarily a commercial and civic center, with relatively little residential development. Housing included a few apartment buildings on Livingston Street, and seven 15-story buildings that make up the over 1,000 unit Concord Village co-op development on Adams Street, at the borders of bothBrooklyn Heights andDumbo.
Since the rezoning of parts of Downtown Brooklyn in 2004 to allow for denser residential development, the area has seen the arrival of new condominium towers, townhouses, and office conversions. In all, 14,000 residential units were planned for Downtown Brooklyn at that time.[citation needed] A New York Sun article from November 7, 2007, reports on the arrival of Downtown Brooklyn as a 24/7 community, estimating that 35,000 residents will come to the area in the next five years.[9] In January 2008, residents started moving into the new residential buildings, according to a New York Sun article.[10]TheNew York City Department of City Planning approved another, significant rezoning for portions of Downtown Brooklyn, including theFulton Mall area, which resulted in significant expansion of office space and ground-floor retail, such as those atCity Point.[6] The rezoning consists of "zoning map and zoning text changes, new public open spaces, pedestrian and transit improvements, urban renewal, [and] street mappings".[11] The City Planning initiative also seeks to improve the connections between Downtown and the adjacent neighborhoods ofCobble Hill,Boerum Hill, andFort Greene.
As of March 2012[update], the rezoning of Downtown Brooklyn had caused gentrification in nearby neighborhoods.[6] Affordable housing was created in the area after the 2004 rezoning, with 420 affordable units in 2014. The housing increase has also resulted in positive effects on other aspects of Downtown Brooklyn's economy as well, with revenues for the area's hospitality industry having tripled since 2004.[12]
Some of this gentrification was controversial, however. In 2007, the city government was to acquire the houses at 223–235 Duffield Street viaeminent domain, then demolish the houses and replace them with 500 new hotel rooms, 1,000 units ofmixed-income housing, more than 500,000 square feet of retail space, and at least 125,000 square feet of new office space in the area; however, only 231 Duffield Street was replaced by a hotel.[6] Still, this caused historians to protest over the planned demolition of the historic houses because of their importance to abolitionists during theAmerican Civil War.[13]
Downtown Brooklyn is the civic and commercialdowntown center of the formerCity of Brooklyn, which, as of 2020, has more than 2.7 million residents. Alongside immediately adjacent neighborhoods, the general area encompassesBrooklyn Borough Hall, theJustice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Municipal Building, theKings County New York State Courthouse and theEastern District of New York'sTheodore Roosevelt United States Courthouse. Attractions within the area include theFulton Mall, theBrooklyn Academy of Music, theNew York Transit Museum andBarclays Center.
Three days a week the Borough HallGreenmarket, featuring fresh produce from local farmers, operates on the plaza fronting Borough Hall. Formerly called Supreme Court Plaza, the location was renamed as Columbus Park in 1986.
MetroTech Center, a business and educational center, lies betweenFlatbush Avenue and Jay Street, above theJay Street – MetroTech subway station, north of theFulton Street Mall, and south of the busy Tillary Street.[14][15]
The original location ofJunior's, which was founded by Harry Rosen in 1950,[16] is located at the corner of DeKalb Avenue and Flatbush Avenue Extension. The restaurant is 17,000 square feet of red-and-white-striped menus, flashbulb-adorned signs, rust-colored booths, and a wooden bar. A shrine to the Brooklyn of old, it has become a must-visit for politicians from borough presidents to PresidentBarack Obama, who bought two cheesecakes and a couple of black-and-white cookies during an October 2013 visit withBill de Blasio.[17]
9 DeKalb Avenue is a residential skyscraper adjacent to theDime Savings Bank of New York. Upon completion, it became the first supertall building in Brooklyn and the tallest structure in New York City outside of Manhattan.[18][19]
Cadman Plaza Park, named for the historically prominent (and Brooklyn-based)liberal Protestant clergyman/broadcasterS. Parkes Cadman, provides 10 acres (40,000 m2) of green space in the neighborhood, and was recently renovated by the New York City Parks Department. These and other parks form a long mall from Borough Hall to Brooklyn Bridge. A new park is also planned for the area, known as the Willoughby Square Park.[20][21]
At the northeastern corner of Downtown Brooklyn is Bridge Plaza, bounded byFlatbush Avenue Extension andManhattan Bridge on the west, Tillary Street on the south, and theBrooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) on the north and east.[22][23] The newer termRAMBO, anacronym forRight Around The Manhattan Bridge Overpass[24][25][26][27] is sometimes applied to the area, comparing it toDUMBO. The neighborhood was connected toVinegar Hill until the 1950s, when construction of the BQE effectively isolated it from surrounding areas.
Downtown Brooklyn is served by twoZIP Codes: 11201 north of DeKalb Avenue and 11217 south of DeKalb Avenue.[28] TheUnited States Postal Service operates the Brooklyn Main Post Office at 271 Cadman Plaza East.[29]
Downtown Brooklyn is connected withManhattan by theBrooklyn andManhattan Bridges.
The neighborhood has extensive public transportation accessibility; it is served by theNew York City Subway and many bus lines. All but oneManhattan trunk line inLower Manhattan has a direct connection to Downtown Brooklyn. From south to north, theIRT Lexington Avenue Line (4 and 5 trains) via theJoralemon Street Tunnel, theBMT Broadway andBMT Nassau Street Lines (N, R, and W trains) via theMontague Street Tunnel, theIRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line (2 and 3 trains) via theClark Street Tunnel and theIND Eighth Avenue Line (A and C trains) via theCranberry Street Tunnel provide that service. Slightly farther north, theManhattan Bridge (B, D, N, and Q trains) andRutgers Street Tunnel (F and <F> trains) also feed subway trains from theLower East Side into Downtown Brooklyn.
Major stations in the neighborhood are:
A $130 million capital project to connectLawrence Street–MetroTech (N, R, and W trains) andJay Street–Borough Hall (A, C, and F and <F> trains), which also included renovation of both stations, was completed on December 10, 2010.[30] It features an underground corridor on Willoughby Street connecting both stations, which includes new escalator and elevator access to Lawrence Street.
TheLong Island Rail Road stops at theAtlantic Terminal, located at the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues.
Public schools are operated by theNew York City Department of Education.
In 2021 the private schoolGerman School of Brooklyn moved all levels to its permanent site at 9 Hanover Place in Downtown Brooklyn.[31] TheKhalil Gibran International Academy High School opened in September 2024.[32]
Schools situated within or in the immediate periphery of the district includeBrooklyn Technical High School (one of the city's nine selectivespecialized high schools),Brooklyn Friends School,Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School,St. Francis College,St. Joseph's College,Brooklyn Law School,New York University'sTandon School of Engineering andCenter for Urban Science and Progress, theNew York City College of Technology,Adelphi University's Brooklyn Center andLong Island University'sLIU Brooklyn campus.
Places adjacent to Downtown Brooklyn | |
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