Brooklyn

“ Brooklyn has had a deep sympathy with your fair city in this tremendous enterprise, and has watched with keen interest and satisfaction your success in overcoming the many difficulties that lay in your way. Brooklyn herself has awakened from her sleep of almost ten years, and the sound of the hammer and the saw and the ring of the trowel are heard on every hand. ”

“ Beyond the East river and its bridges—the last of these far to the north and barely discernible—is Brooklyn, and beyond Brooklyn—this time to the south—is a shimmering slender horizon of silver that the man beside you tells you is the ocean. ”

“ At a point in the landscape much nearer us rises to view the city of New York with its canopy of perpetual haze,—its hundred spires, and encircling forests of masts, while in still closer vicinage we can trace the East River, with all its busy show of commerce, and see Brooklyn sitting like a bridal queen upon this shore of the island. ”

“ But Brooklyn cannot be dismissed so easily. She is too big, too close, and, for all her timidity, too contented. Her people come under the head of those who ought to know better and do not try. Thus, while living in New Jersey is a matter of taste, and living in the Bronx is a matter of necessity, living in Brooklyn is a matter of habit.
And a fine, rich, ripe old habit it is, and a precious thing in a modern, shouting world that has no habits but only impulses and vices. Let me confess: I like Brooklyn, and I like to dream of going to live there some day. ”

“ A most uninteresting city, this city of Brooklyn, some people affirm; even those of us who love it best cannot claim that it is great in anything but “bigness” but there are homes there we will match against homes the world over, not for show or for luxury, but for pure and transcendent comfort. It is only a corner of the wide-spreading city of which we are speaking, and a little corner at that, but the charm of it lies in the fact that many of the streets open right to the harbor, and that many of the houses, as well, command the same glorious view. ”

“ We have slipped into history because we have wanted you to understand why Brooklyn today is just what she is. The submerging of these little Dutch villages with their individual customs and traditions has done its part in the making of the customs and traditions of the Brooklyn of today. For Brooklyn today remains a congregation of separate communities. You may slip from one to the other without realizing that you have done more than pass down a compactly built block of houses or crossed a crowded street. ”

“ The special pride of Brooklyn is Prospect Park, one of the finest in America, where art and the landscape gardener have assisted rather than thwarted nature in her efforts to produce beauty. It is situated on an elevated ridge on the southeastern borders of the city, and from certain localities commands broad views of Brooklyn, New York, the inner and outer harbor, and the Jersey shore. It contains five hundred and fifty acres, which embrace broad, green lawns, grassy slopes, groves, wooded hills, beautiful with ferns and wild flowers, lakes and rocky dells. ”

“ The Brooklyn's guns.
Our ruthless cannon o'er the flood
Roar and draw nigh;
Spain's ensign stained with gold and blood,
Falls from on high.
The world she gave the World has passed—
Gone, with her power—
Dead, 'neath the Brooklyn's thunder-blast,
In one great hour.
The bannered Brooklyn! gallant crew,
And gallant Schley!
[637] Proud is the flag his sailors flew
Along the sky.
Proud is his country: for each star
Our Union wears,
The fighting Brooklyn shows a scar—
So much he dares.
God save us war upon the seas ”

“ Brooklyn is as quiet as New York is bewildering and noisy: it is built upon the heights of Long Island; has glorious views over the wide harbour, and quiet broad streets, planted on each side with acanthus trees, a kind of Chinese tree, and I believe of the acacia family, which has a leaf like our ash, only much broader, and which bears long pods. There is also another kind of tree, with a taller stem, which gives shade and a peaceful and rural character to the streets. It is said that the merchants of New York go over to Brooklyn, where they have their house and home, to sleep. ”

“ Because Brooklyn don't seem to be like any other place on earth. Once let a man grow up amidst Brooklyn's cobblestones, with the odor of Newton Creek and Gowanus Canal ever in his nostrils, and there's no place in the world for him except Brooklyn. ”

“ Early in the spring of 1868 we removed to Brooklyn Heights near the Ferry, much nearer my husband's office in Liberty Street. New York had not then stretched an arm across East River and taken into its bosom Brooklyn—already the third city in the Union. The two cities, now one in name, were practically one in interest as early as 1867. A great multitude of the dwellers of Brooklyn crossed the ferry every morning on their way to their daily work in New York. Brooklyn was a huge, overgrown village; a city of churches, a city of homes, and of children innumerable. ”

“ Loyal to Brooklyn have been Grout, Swanstrom and Littleton, and thus inspired, has Brooklyn proved loyal to herself and faithful to her traditions.
"Brooklyn is a gigantic borough. She is three times as large as Buffalo, the home of the Pan-American Exposition. She is twice as large as St. Louis, the home of the present Exposition. Brooklyn territorially is large enough and properly adapted to hold a population of 7,000,000, and still remain less congested than the present borough of Manhattan. Brooklyn is devoid of many of the characteristics that mark other great cities. ”

“ But in Brooklyn the ways are narrow, and they lead to the Heavenly City of content. Central Park: there you are—the centre of things, hemmed in by walls of pride. Now how much better is Prospect Park, giving a fair view over the hills of humility! There is no hope for New Yorkers, for they glory in their skyscraping sins; but in Brooklyn there is the wisdom of the lowly."
"So you think that if I had been a governess in Brooklyn I should have been so contented that I would never have come with Andrew and compiled my anthology of 6,000 loaves of bread and the lesser lyrics?" ”

“ Life did not seem to be the same desperate venture it appears round about Broadway and Wall Street. Who can describe the settled amiability of those rows of considerable brown houses, with their heavy oak doors, their pots of daisies on the stoop, their clear window panes, and now and then the face of a benignant grandmother peeping from behind lace curtains. The secret of Brooklyn, perhaps, is contentment, and its cautious residents do not want the rest of us to know too much about it, lest we all flock over there in swarms. ”

“ Brooklyn is the shire-town of King’s County, and by this time, probably, is second in population only to New York. Land there, has risen in value to an enormous extent within the last few years; and it has become the fashion for business-men of New York to build and live on the fine and healthy heights above the river, where they are nearer their business, and much better situated than in the outskirts of the city itself. The town of Brooklyn is built on the summit and sides of an elevation springing directly from the bank of the river, and commanding some of the finest views in America. ”

“ Half the East Side swarmed over it with shrieks of delight, and carried the mayor and the city government, who had come to see the show, fairly off their feet. And now "we are seven," or will be when the one in Brooklyn has been built,—great, handsome structures, seven hundred feet long, some of them, with music every night for mother and the babies, and for papa, who can smoke his pipe there in peace. The moon shines upon the quiet river, and the steamers go by with their lights. The street is far away with its noise. The young people go sparking in all honor, as it is their right to do. ”

“ In Brooklyn there are people, churches, baby-carriages, bay-windows, butchers' boys carrying baskets and whistling, policemen who misdirect strangers, vacant lots where boys play baseball, small tradesmen, overhead trolleys, quiet streets tucked away between parallel lines of clanging elevated railway, an Institute of Arts, and old gentlemen who write letters to the newspapers. ”

“ IF YOU are ever in Brooklyn, that borough of superb sunsets and magnificent vistas of husband-propelled baby-carriages, it is to be hoped you may chance upon a quiet by-street where there is a very remarkable bookshop. ”

“ Yet Brooklyn in any other locality would be a city of the first importance, ranking, as she does, the third in the Union as to size and population, and numbering not less than six hundred thousand inhabitants. Practically New York and Brooklyn are but one city, with identical commercial interests, and a great deal else in common. Many of the most prominent business men of the former city find their homes in the latter; and by means of the numerous ferries and the great Suspension Bridge there is a constant interchange of people between them. ”

“ During that time she has been a dependent borough within the great city of New York. Many thought that when that transition took place Brooklyn would lose her old-time spirit, her pride would be humbled and she would sink into the slough of despair, but we are here to-day to make known to these United States that Brooklyn's old-time courage is as high, her spirit is as heavily charged with municipal energy and her pride is the same pride as of old.
"Brooklyn is a peculiar community. She differs from all others. The wits have long fed upon her. ”

“ Brooklyn has developed the home life of America to a greater extent than any other city has done. She has few palaces. She has few hovels. She has a great army of American mothers and fathers that are bringing up the next generation of men and women, and she is rearing them in thousands of comfortable homes, where body develops with mind and where the spiritual welfare is an important factor. ”

“ The son had spoken of the pleasant places in Brooklyn, out Flatbush way. "Yerra, is it Brooklyn?" What impression he had of that worthy borough is hard to imagine, but he spoke with devastating contempt.
The truth was, the old man was wedded to Twenty-fourth Street. He was like some of his race who have ancient, uncomely wives whom they despise and hate but without whom they cannot live. There was the place it was fated for him to be. There was the shop where he got shaved every morning. ”

“ Brooklyn's right to the title of the City of Homes, rather than to that of the City of Churches, is excellently supported by a study of its social life; and in no phase is this peculiarity more apparent than in the club life of the city, which is distinctly in harmony with the general social life of the city. ”

“ Brooklyn is a village of over twelve hundred inhabitants, and wears the impress of success. There are several grain elevators, foundries, flour mills and business houses of all kinds; also graded schools, banks, and daily and weekly papers. The streets are clean and well paved, which is more than can be said for its Eastern namesake. The surrounding farms are large and well cultivated, and the country presents a most attractive appearance. ”

“ The fact that we are here in body and that she is here in spirit clearly shows that the old courage is still in her heart. Brooklyn may be only a borough, she may be only an 'abutment for bridges,' as President Littlejohn once feared she would become, but she is to-day the same independent Brooklyn she was back in her cityhood, and she is as proud of the things that make her great as many of the cities of the things that make them merely flashy. ”

“ The problems of the Brooklyn of tomorrow are not to be carelessly dismissed. Nor is the problem of Brooklyn's future in any way hopeless. The changing of conditions, the changing of habits, the changing of institutions does not of necessity spell utter ruin. Cosmopolitanism does not mean the end of all things. We have called her dull and emotionless and provincial, and yet many of her residents are quick and appreciative—well-traveled and well-read—anxious to meet the new conditions, to solve the problems that have been entailed. ”

“ That Brooklyn will gain in numbers and in wealth with accelerated speed is a foregone conclusion. Whether this gain shall in any wise be at the expense of New York is a matter in regard to which the great metropolis does not concern herself. Her citizens are content with the knowledge that she exists and grows with the growth of the whole country, of whose progress and prosperity she is but the exponent and the index. Will the bridge lead, as has been forcibly suggested, and in some quarters hopefully anticipated, to the union of the two cities under one name and one government? ”

“ Our Brooklyn friends insisted that though Brooklyn was a borough of New York and only separated from Manhattan by the East River, Brooklyn people were so accustomed to apartments running through from front to rear that they would not rent rear apartments, and indeed, that the social distinction between families who could afford to live in the front apartment, and those who would be forced to live in the rear apartment, was so great that they would not rent apartments in the same house. ”

“ A smart western town of twenty-five thousand population can center more energy and secure for itself precisely what it wishes more rapidly and more precisely than can this great borough of nearly two million population. Brooklyn has not yet learned the lesson of concentrated effort.
Now consider these communities of old Kings county once again. We have touched upon their location and their growth; let us see the manner of folk who made them grow. About the second decade of the last century a virtual hegira of New England folk began to move toward New York City. ”