195 Montague St.
Brooklyn, New York 11201-3631
U.S.A.
History of Brooklyn Union Gas
Brooklyn Union Gas supplies natural gas to the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Staten Island and to a portion of the borough of Queens. Through its subsidiaries, the company also sells gas appliances and energy-related equipment, explores for and develops natural gas reserves, recovers methane from landfill sites, and distributes liquefied petroleum gas.
Incorporated in 1895 as the successor to a group of competing gas lighting companies, the utility traces its roots to 1824 when enterprising Brooklynites launched the idea of lighting their village's streets with methane. In 1825 these entrepreneurs sought and gained approval from the New York State legislature for the establishment of the Brooklyn Gas Light Company. The fledgling company soon formed a board of directors and sold stock. Unfortunately for investors, the young village felt it was not ready for street lighting and would not sign a contract. With no business, the company bought back its stock and folded.
Not long for the mothballs, Brooklyn Gas Light was revived in the mid-1840s and in 1847 signed a contract to light the streets of Brooklyn. Since natural gas from underground deposits was not then available, the company built a gas manufacturing plant on the East River by the Brooklyn Navy Yard. In that plant, it heated coal until it became coke and captured the methane that was released in the process. This was known as the coke-oven-gas method. By 1849 methane was coursing through six-and-a-half miles of mains and lighting the village's most prosperous areas.
In 1850 a similar operation was launched in the neighboring town of Williamsburg, and by the 1890s there were at least 15 gas lighting companies operating in Brooklyn and Queens. Brooklyn Gas Light's first major head-to-head competitor, Citizen Gas Light, began serving the Brooklyn public in 1858. Other utilities followed and Brooklyn soon became the scene of intense and sometimes violent competition. Most often a new company would buy an unserved territory from an older competitor. Then, once established, the new company would begin battling with the older company for customers in the more prosperous areas--often laying parallel gas lines and competing on a door-to-door basis. In a speech before the Newcomen Society, former chairman Elwin S. Larson described the late 1800s as an 'age of territory claiming and customer seizing carried out by street crews who introduced the term 'gas-house gang' to our American lexicon. [It] was a little like ... the wild West of the same period.'
In 1879 the Fulton Municipal Gas Company entered the Brooklyn gas lighting market. Unlike the small companies that had preceded it, Fulton did not buy a small territory for itself before competing with the more established companies. Instead, it brashly began by laying long mains in the most prosperous, most populated areas of the borough. In Brooklyn Gas Light's territory alone, it laid 34 miles of mains. Fulton's strategy was to put the heat on smaller companies and then offer to sell them gas wholesale. According to Larson, 'Quite legally, if not quite congenially, Fulton had most of Brooklyn at its mercy.' Pressed like the others, Brooklyn Gas Light fought back and by the mid-1880s the two companies were engaged in a debilitating price war.
In the face of low profits because of price wars and stiff competition from electric light, Brooklyn, Fulton, and five other gas companies combined to form the Brooklyn Union Gas Company. Incorporated in 1895, the new company, which served 106,650 customers in Brooklyn and 1,400 in Queens, also included Citizens Gas Light Co., Metropolitan Gas Light Co., Nassau Gas Light Co., Peoples Gas Light Co., and Williamsburg Gas Light Co.
The first president of Brooklyn Union Gas, Brooklyn Gas Light veteran George W. Young, began with $30 million in capital, eight gas manufacturing plants, and a capacity of 26 million cubic feet per day. But Young served just one year before the board of directors--which included William Rockefeller of Standard Oil--replaced him with former Civil War general and former Fulton president James Jourdan, who consolidated Brooklyn Union Gas's various predecessor companies and moved the company's focus from light to heat. Before retiring in 1910 he tripled manufacturing capacity and quadrupled storage. Customer accounts, which had been 108,000 in 1896, grew to 387,000 in his final year. Between 1895 and 1897 General Jourdan led the company through the purchase of six small gas lighting companies, four of which were in Queens. Operated as subsidiaries, the Flatbush Gas Co., the Newtown Gas Co., the Jamaica Gas Light Co., the Woodhaven Gas Light Co., and the Richmon Hill & Queens County Gas Light Companies were finally integrated into Brooklyn Union Gas in 1927.
In the early 1900s the New York State legislature created the New York Public Service Commission, which began regulating rates. In 1906 the Public Service Commission established the '80-Cent Gas Law' which reduced the price of gas by 20 percent. Brooklyn Union Gas fought the law all the way to the Supreme Court but lost--regulation was there to stay. The 80-Cent Gas Law was followed by the Dollar Gas Law in 1923 and by other regulated rates in subsequent years.
Upon General Jourdan's retirement in 1910, his son James H. Jourdan was elected president and presided over an era when the old lighting business was hastily disappearing and the company was advancing in new markets of water heating and industrial processes.
During the teens and twenties the use of methane for heating and cooking grew rapidly in Brooklyn. Once perceived as a luxury, gas stoves were becoming a necessity to many. In 1914 the company built and moved into new corporate headquarters on Remsen Street in downtown Brooklyn. In 1925 it sold the electric distribution system and electric franchises of the Flatbush Gas Co. to Brooklyn Edison. And in 1926 a new Public Service Commission ruling set the price of methane at $1.15 per 100,000 cubic feet but allowed price adjustments for volume users, which enabled the company to pursue large accounts who had previously found gas uneconomical.
Between 1910 and 1926 business virtually doubled. To meet the demand, Brooklyn Union Gas constructed a vast new coal-gasification plant at Greenpoint. Opened in 1928, the new Greenpoint Works replaced five older plants at 60 percent of the cost. Built on 115 acres of land on Newtown Creek, the Greenpoint Works used both the coke-oven method and the water-gas method to produce new supplies.
Although the future looked rosy, the Depression affected Brooklyn Union Gas deeply. Customers who months previously saw gas stoves as a necessity now saw them once again as a luxury. Revenues--which had climbed steadily, reaching an all-time high of $25 million in 1929--fell to $19 million in 1935, James H. Jourdan's last year as president. In 1935 the board of directors named a new president, Clifford Paige, who wooed customers back to gas by offering promotional rates to industrial users and giving deals to customers who used gas for water heating. Under Paige, Brooklyn Union Gas also developed and promoted new industrial uses for its product and sold refrigerators and other gas appliances. The company also made inroads in the home heating market, moving from 726 gas-heated homes in 1935 to more than 20,000 by the end of World War II.
Paige's efforts were largely successful. By 1941, the company had more than regained the sales it had lost during the first half of the Depression. It had come back from the brink, seasoned by the crisis. In his Newcomen speech Larson said, 'It was during this period from 1935 to 1941 that Brooklyn Union matured as a company and solidified its standing as a creative and aggressive marketing operation.'
In the inflationary era of the late 1940s the company sought and received three significant rate increases in two years. But while rate increases kept Brooklyn Union Gas profitable, the company's main problem was supply. Brooklyn was going through a period of expansion, and the company did not have enough gas to satisfy what it foresaw as upcoming demand. To supplement what it could manufacture at Greenpoint and other plants, Brooklyn Union and other area utilities helped finance the Transcontinental Pipeline, which began in Texas in 1948 and ended 1,840 miles and two years later in Brooklyn. Brooklyn Union Gas, with Consolidated Edison and the Long Island Lighting Company, also established the New York Facilities system, a common high-pressure gas-transportation system that receives pipeline gas and delivers it across various waterways in the area.
The original plan was to mix the so called 'natural' gas with what Brooklyn Union Gas was making in its plants. But natural gas was so cheap that by 1952 the company ended manufacturing and switched over to natural gas completely. By 1952, ten percent rate reductions were already in effect. Cheap and readily available, the low price of natural gas allowed the utility to reduce rates 27 times between 1952 and 1969.
In 1953, John Heyke succeeded Clifford Paige as chief executive officer. Heyke expanded the company in two ways. First, he dove headlong into the home-heating market--doubling Brooklyn Union Gas's share to more than 34 percent of all houses by the early 1960s. Second, he made a series of acquisitions that added 260,000 customers to the more than 800,000 already on the company rolls. In 1957, Heyke made two acquisitions: the New York and Richmond Gas Company, which covered the entire Borough of Staten Island, and the Kings County Lighting Company, which served the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn. In 1959, Heyke acquired the Coney Island-based Brooklyn Borough Gas Company. With this last acquisition, the company reached its present service area of 187 square miles, including the entire borough of Brooklyn, all of Staten Island, and about two-thirds of Queens.
But while Brooklyn Union Gas expanded geographically, Brooklyn fell into economic decline. The shipyards closed and manufacturing weakened. Some residents sank into poverty. In the 1960s, the company responded to Brooklyn's economic crisis with a series of economic development programs. Through the Cinderella Program it renovated old buildings and showcased the possibilities of Brooklyn life. At the same time it ran an ongoing business development program that helped businesses find locations, arranged financing, and cut red tape. Finally, soon after crossing the $100 million mark in revenues in 1961, the company built a new headquarters on Montague Street.
In the late 1960s, Gordon Griswald, who had become president in May of 1968, saw that the post-war period of abundant natural gas was ending. With this in view, he and chief executive officer John Heyke took steps to insure an uninterrupted supply for Brooklyn Union Gas's customers. The company built two liquefied-natural-gas (LNG) storage tanks at the site of the old Greenpoint works and in 1971 began construction of a synthetic-natural-gas (SNG) plant on the same turf. The LNG tanks would hold Algerian natural gas to be used during peak winter demand while the SNG plant would convert naptha into gas for regular use.
Griswald was right about supply problems. In 1970, the Transcontinental Pipeline Company (Transco) began curtailing deliveries. In response, the Public Service Commission restricted new sales to all but residential customers and prohibited utilities from promoting or advertising natural gas. Despite this, Brooklyn Union Gas's share of the home heating market grew past 50 percent by the time longtime executive John Heyke died in October of 1974.
Supply problems eased by the mid-1970s. Despite some obstacles, Algerian liquefied natural gas was being delivered and in November of 1974 the company completed its synthetic natural gas plant. Within its first two years, the Greenpoint plant was producing 50 million to 60 million cubic feet of gas daily--approximately 10 to 15 percent of total demand.
In 1975 Gene Luntey became chief executive officer. Luntey saw methane as a vast and renewable resource whose supply had been depressed by federal price controls. Luntey's view was borne out in the 1980s when the effects of the Natural Gas Policy Act of 1978 began to be felt. But it was Brooklyn Union Gas's own ingenuity that had eased the supply situation in the mid-1970s; and in 1976 the Public Service Commission restored Brooklyn Union Gas's selling rights in all markets.
In the late 1970s Luntey began diversifying. He created Fuel Resources Inc., an exploration company that invested in gas and oil fields throughout the United States. Fuel Resources was followed in 1981 by the Methane Development Corporation, a joint venture with Getty Synthetic Fuels which gathers methane from a garbage landfill at Fresh Kills on Staten Island. The same year, the company acquired Gas Energy Inc., which markets gas-related equipment, and Star Enterprises, Inc., which distributes liquefied petroleum gas and propane.
By 1983, deregulation was effecting the supply of gas. Higher wellhead prices had led to increased drilling, which in turn had led to a glut and low prices. Despite this glut executives felt Brooklyn Union Gas was overly dependent on gas from the South. To remedy the situation, the company joined--as the largest shareholder--a consortium called Boundary Gas, which began to import gas from Canada in 1984. The supply situation freed up further in 1985 when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission began allowing distribution companies like Brooklyn Union Gas to negotiate directly with producers rather than mandating that they buy from pipeline companies like Transco.
With a competitively priced product, Brooklyn Union Gas competed to heat apartment houses and large commercial and industrial buildings. Using a 'temperature controlled rate' the utility pegged the price of gas to the price of the oil most of these customers used. For large commercial customers, the company created an Energy Systems Department to promote cogeneration, an efficient system in which gas produces electricity as well as heat and hot water.
In 1986, Gene Luntey retired and was replaced by Elwin S. Larson. On taking the post, Larson, who called himself a 'realistic optimist,' told the Wall Street Journal that Brooklyn Union Gas 'intended to play a leading role in the development of downtown Brooklyn as a major business location.' Larson negotiated directly with producers and replaced half the high cost gas the company was getting from Transco with market sensitive gas from Enron and Shell, as well as gas from Canada. Further, in 1986, he announced that the company was joining with at least three other northeast distributors to build a $400 million pipeline to bring natural gas from Canada to markets in the Northeast. A Brooklyn Union Gas executive told the Wall Street Journal in 1986 that the new Iroquois pipeline, scheduled to open in 1992, would provide 'a major new incremental supply to meet needs in the future.'
By 1989 it appeared that supply might again become a problem. Gas was becoming extremely popular. Brooklyn Union was supplying 75 percent of one- and two-family residences and 33 percent of apartments. Other gas utilities were making similar gains while electrical utilities were beginning to use gas to generate electricity. It seemed there might not be enough pipeline facilities to supply the Northeast. 'We're right at the edge of deliverability right now,' Edward Sondey, Brooklyn Union's vice president told the Wall Street Journal. 'Iroquois helps us out, but not enough.' To respond to the situation, Brooklyn Union Gas and its regional partners hope to expand existing pipelines to allow an additional 500 million cubic feet of gas a day to reach New York by 1995.
In June of 1991 Robert B. Catell replaced Elwin Larson as chief executive officer. Catell is committed to selling gas for comparatively new uses such as fuel for cars and air conditioners. As part of a demonstration project Brooklyn Union Gas is providing natural gas for 10 UPS delivery vans and 15 Parks Department trucks.
Incorporated in 1895 as the union of seven competing Brooklyn gas lighting companies, Brooklyn Union Gas began by making a series of small acquisitions while recasting itself as a provider of gas for cooking and home heating. It weathered the Depression by promoting new uses for methane, and during the 1950s it participated in a pipeline project that laid the groundwork for two decades of growth. Supply problems in the early 1970s led the company to build large liquefied natural gas storage tanks and a synthetic natural gas plant. Still making inroads in the home-heating and apartment market, Brooklyn Union Gas is pursuing cogeneration ventures and working to promote the manufacture and use of natural gas-powered vehicles.
Principal Subsidiaries: Fuel Resources, Inc.; Fuel Resources Production and Development Co., Inc.; Methane Development Corp. (50%); Brooklyn Union Exploration Co., Inc. (82%); Brooklyn Interstate Natural Gas Corp.; Gas Energy, Inc.; Star Energy, Inc.; Gas Energy Cogeneration, Inc.; North East Transmission Co., Inc.
Related information about Brooklyn
40属40N 73属58W, pop (2000e) 2 465 300. Borough of
New York City, co-extensive with Kings Co, New York State, USA;
area 182 km族/70 sq mi; incorporated into New York
City, 1898; a major port, at the SW corner of Long Island; linked
to Staten I by the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, and to Manhattan by
the Brooklyn Bridge; Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences
(1823); New York Naval Shipyard (1801), now in civilian use; Long
Island University (1926).
Infobox New York City borough
Brooklyn is one of the five
boroughs of New
York City. An independent city until its consolidation with New
York in 1898, Brooklyn is New York's most populous borough, with
nearly 2.5 million residents.
The borough of Brooklyn is coterminous with Kings County,
which is also the most populous county in New York State. It was named in honor of King Charles II of
England, which is the source of Brooklyn's nickname as the
"City of Kings."
In spite of its consolidation with New York, Brooklyn maintains a
strongly distinct character of its own. Variously called the "City
of Trees," "City of Homes," or the "City of Churches" in the
19th century,
Brooklyn is now often styled the "Borough of Homes and Churches" or
even sometimes called "The Planet," popularized by Guru from the rap duo
Gangstarr, for its
diversity, large
population, and size.
As a promotional gesture by the current borough administration,
distinctive traffic signs are posted along major traffic arteries
at Brooklyn?s border crossings.
History
The Dutch were the first Europeans to settle the area in the
1620s on the western edge
of Long Island,
which was then largely inhabited by the Canarsie Native
American tribe. The Village of Breuckelen, which preceded the
City of Nieuw
Amsterdam (which became New York City) by some 7 years, was
authorized by the Dutch West India Company in 1646 and became the first municipality in what is
now New York State. At the time Breuckelen was part of New Netherland.
The Dutch lost Breuckelen in the British conquest of New Netherland
in 1664. In 1683, the British reorganized the
Province of New
York into 12 counties, each of which was sub-divided into
towns. Kings County was one of the original 12 counties, and
Brooklyn, the Anglicized name of Breuckelen, was one of the
original six towns within Kings County.
In August and September 1776 Brooklyn was the staging ground for the Battle of Brooklyn
(also known as the Battle of Long Island), the first major battle
in the American Revolutionary War following the Declaration of
Independence, and the largest battle of the entire conflict.
New York, and Brooklyn along with it, gained independence from the
British with the Treaty of Paris in 1783.
The first half of the 19th century saw urban areas grow along the economically
strategic East River waterfront, across from New York City. It took
until 1896 for Brooklyn to
annex all other parts of Kings County.
Taking a 30-year break from municipal expansionism, the
well-situated coastal city of Brooklyn established itself as the
third-most-populous American city for much of the 19th
century.
The building of rail
links such as the Brighton Beach Line in 1878 heralded explosive growth,
and in the space of a decade the City of Brooklyn annexed the Town
of New Lots in 1886, the Town of Flatbush, the Town of Gravesend,
and the Town of New Utrecht in 1894, and the Town of Flatlands in
1896. The question was now whether it was prepared to engage in the
still-grander process of consolidation now developing throughout
the region.
In 1898, Brooklyn residents voted by a slight majority to join with
Manhattan, The Bronx, Queens and Richmond (later Staten
Island) as the five boroughs to form modern New York City. The westernmost
section of this boundary is defined by Newtown Creek, which flows
into the East River.
Brooklyn's waterfront faces different bodies of water. Northern
Brookyn's coast is defined by the East River, while middle Brooklyn
adjoins Upper New
York Bay. At its south westernmost section, Brooklyn is
separated from Staten
Island by the Narrows, where Upper and Lower New York Bay
meet.
Brooklyn's southern coast includes the peninsula on which stretch
Coney Island,
Brighton Beach
and Manhattan Beach. The southeastern coast lies on
island-dotted Jamaica
Bay.
The highest point in Brooklyn is the area around Prospect
Park and Green-Wood Cemetery, rising approximately 200 feet above
sea level. There is also a minor elevation in Downtown Brooklyn
known as Brooklyn
Heights.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the County has a
total area of 251.0 km族 (96.9 mi族). Borough Park is largely Orthodox Jewish;
Bedford-Stuyvesant is one of New York City's most
notable African-American neighborhoods; Bensonhurst
historically is Italian-American; Since 1990, Brooklyn has seen a rise
in new immigration to neighborhoods like Sunset Park,
home to flourishing Hispanic and Chinese American communities.
Downtown
Brooklyn is the third-largest central business district in New
York City, after Midtown Manhattan and Lower Manhattan. The northwestern neighborhoods
between DUMBO, by the
Brooklyn Bridge, to Park
Slope, adjacent to Prospect Park, are characterized by many
gracious 19th century brownstone houses. Gentrification has rapidly transformed much of
Williamsburg, DUMBO, and Red Hook. Redevelopment has moved eastward away
from the waterfront along the L 14th
Street subway line, which has come to be known colloquially as
the Hipster Express(www.theburg.tv).
Government
Since consolidation with New York City in 1898, Brooklyn has been
governed by the New York City Charter that provides for a "strong"
mayor-council system. The centralized New York City
government is responsible for public education, correctional
institutions, libraries, public safety, recreational facilities,
sanitation, water supply, and welfare services in Brooklyn.
The office of Borough President was created in the consolidation of
1898 to balance centralization with local authority. In 1989 the
Supreme Court of the United States declared the Board of
Estimate unconstitutional on the grounds that Brooklyn, the most
populous borough, had no greater effective representation on the
Board than Staten Island, the least populous borough, a violation
of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection
Clause pursuant to the high court's 1964 "one man, one vote"
decision.Cornell Law School
Supreme Court Collection: Board of Estimate of City of New York v.
Morris, accessed June
12, 2006
Since 1990 the Borough President has acted as an advocate for the
borough at the mayoral agencies, the City Council, the New York
state government, and corporations. Brooklyn's Borough President is
Marty Markowitz,
elected as a Democrat in 2001 and re-elected in 2005.
The Democratic Party holds the majority of public offices. The most
controversial political issue is over the proposed Brooklyn Nets Arena,
a large development project.
Each of the city's five counties (coterminous with each borough)
has its own criminal court system and District Attorney, the
chief public prosecutor who is directly elected by popular vote.
Community Boards are representative bodies that field complaints
and serve as advocates for local residents.
Brooklyn has not voted for a Republican in a national presidential election in the last 50 years. In the 2004
presidential election Democrat John Kerry received 74.9% of the vote in Brooklyn and
Republican George W.
Bush received 24.3%.
The 11th Congressional District encompassing Park
Slope, Crown Heights, Flatbush, Brownsville and Prospect Heights
was created by the 1965 Voting Rights Act with the intention of increasing
African-American representation in the United States
Congress. In 1968 the district elected Shirley Chisholm, the
first African-American woman to hold a seat in the Congress and a
founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus. Written in the
Dutch language,
it is inspired by the motto of the United Dutch
Provinces and translated as In Unity, There is Strength.
The motto is displayed on the borough seal and flag, which also feature a young
robed woman bearing fasces, a traditional emblem of republicanism.fotw.vexillum.com/flags/us-ny-bk.html Brooklyn's
official colors are blue and gold.Borough of Brooklyn.[ blue and gold.
Economy
Brooklyn's job market is driven by three main factors: the
performance of the national/city economy, population flows, and the
borough's position as a convenient back office for New York's
businesses.New York State Department of Labor Brooklyn Report,
April 2006. www.bedc.org/statistics/Dept_Labor_Brookyn_Report_april_2006.html
Forty-four percent of Brooklyn's employed population, or 410,000
people, work in the borough; www.bedc.org/statistics/Dept_Labor_Brookyn_Report_april_2006.html
In recent years Brooklyn has benefited from a steady influx of
financial back office operations from Manhattan, the rapid growth
of a high-tech/entertainment economy in DUMBO, and strong growth in
support services such as accounting, personal supply agencies and
computer services firms.New York State Department of Labor Brooklyn
Report, April 2006. www.bedc.org/statistics/Dept_Labor_Brookyn_Report_april_2006.html
Jobs in the borough have traditionally been concentrated in
manufacturing, but since 1975, Brooklyn has shifted from a
manufacturing-based economy to a service-based economy. Although
manufacturing has declined, a substantial base has remained in
apparel and niche manufacturing concerns such as furniture,
fabricated metals, and food products.New York City Economic
Development Corporation, Brooklyn Borough Update March
2004.www.bedc.org/statistics/mfrg_employment_data.htm The
pharmaceutical company Pfizer has a manufacturing plant in Brooklyn that
employs 990 workers.
Construction and services are the fastest growing sectors.New York
State Dept of Labor www.bedc.org/statistics/employbyind.htm Most employers
in Brooklyn are small businesses. www.bedc.org/statistics/firmsbyemployees.htm
The unemployment rate in Brooklyn in March 2006 was 5.9%.
Demographics
www.empire.state.ny.us/nysdc/StateCountyPopests/05C2.pdfWere it
still a separate city and not a borough, Brooklyn would be the
fourth largestcity in the United States after New York
City, Los
Angelesand Chicago.
The population density was 13,480/km族 (34,920/mi族). There were
930,866 housing units at an average density of 5,090/km族
(13,180/mi族).
In 2000, 41.20% of Brooklyn residents were white;
People of Hispanicor Latino origin, who may be of any race,
comprised 19.79% of the population.
Of the 880,727 households in Brooklyn, 38.6% were married couples
living together, 22.3% had a female householder with no husband
present, and 33.7% were non-families. About 22% of families and
25.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 34%
of those under age 18 and 21.5% of those age 65 or over.
Brooklyn has long been a magnet for immigrants, and presently has
substantial populations from many countries, including China,
Jamaica, Pakistan and Russia. Of these, most come from Chicago,
San
Francisco, Washington DC/Baltimore, Boston, and
Seattle.
Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy Report, 2002.[www.bedc.org/statistics/domestic_migration.htm
Residents of Brooklyn are known as Brooklynites, and their
sometimes distinctive Brooklyn accentis
colloquially known as Brooklynese. Walt Whitmanwrote of the Brooklyn waterfront in his
classic poem Crossing Brooklyn Ferry. More recently,
Brooklyn-born author Jonathan Lethemhas written several books about growing
up in the borough, including Motherless
Brooklynand The
Fortress of Solitude.The neighborhood of Park Slopeis home to many
contemporary writers, including Jonathan Safran
Foer, Jhumpa
Lahiri, Jonathan Franzen, Rick Moody, Jennifer Egan, Kathryn Harrison, Paul Auster, Nicole Krauss, Colson Whitehead, Darin Strauss, Siri Hustvedtand Suketu Mehta, among others. In the late 1980s Brooklyn
achieved a new cultural prominence with the films of Spike Lee, whose She's Gotta Have
Itand Do The Right Thingwere shot in Brooklyn
neighborhoods. The 2005 film The Squid and the
Whale, by Noah
Baumbach, the son of novelist Jonathon Baumbach and Village
Voicefilm critic Georgia Brown, examined the family life of the
Park Slope intelligentsia.
The Brooklyn
Museum, opened in 1897, is among the world's premier art
institutions with a permanent collection that includes more than
1.5 million objects, from ancient Egyptian masterpieces to
contemporary art. Artists who have presented their works there
include Philip
Glass, Peter
Brook, Laurie
Anderson, Lee
Breuer, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Steve Reich, Robert
Wilson, Ingmar
Bergman, The Whirling Dervishesand the Kirov Operadirected and
conducted by Valery
Gergievamong others.
Brooklyn has a rich African-American cultural history. The Weeksville
Heritage Centerin Bedford-Stuyvesant was an important 19th
century free black community, whose residents established schools,
churches and benevolent associations and were active in the
abolitionist
movement. The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts(MoCADA) in
Fort Greene presents work by contemporary black artists.
Media
Brooklyn has three local newspapers, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle,
the Brooklyn Paperand Courier-Life
Publications.
Courier-Life Publications is Brooklyn's largest chain of
newspapers, with a weekly readership exceeding more than one
million. Brooklyn is also served by the major New York dailies,
including The
New York Times, The New York Daily News, and The New York
Post.
Brooklyn has a thriving ethnic press. Over 60 ethnic groups,
writing in 42 languages, publish some 300 non-English language
magazines and newspapers in New York City.
The City of New York also has an official television station, run
by the NYC Media
Group, which features programming based in Brooklyn. There is
also Brooklyn Cable Access Television, the borough's public access
channel.
Tourism
Southern Brooklyn was once the premier resort destination for
New York City. Coney Island also hosts the annual Nathan's
Hot Dog Eating Contest.
Green-Wood
Cemetery, founded by the social reformer Henry Evelyn
Pierrepoint in 1838, is both one of the most significant cemeteries
in the United States and an expansive green space encompassing 478
acres of rolling hills and dales, several ponds, and a baroque
chapel. "Boss" Tweed(1823-1878), notorious boss of the New York
political machine.
The New York
Transit Museumis a museum which displays historical artifacts
of the New York City Subway and bus systems; It has been home to
many famous sports figures such as Joe Paterno, Joe Torre, Larry
Brown, Mike
Tyson, Paul Lo
Duca, Michael
Jordanand Vince
Lombardi. Parks throughout the borough such as Prospect Park, Marine Park, and the
community sports complex at Floyd Bennett Fieldprovide residents an
opportunity to practice and hone their sports skills and
talents.
Brooklyn's most famous team, the Dodgers, played at
Ebbets Fieldand was
named for "trolley dodgers," a reference to the many streetcar
lines that once criss-crossed the borough. The Dodgers greatest
achievement came in 1947when Jackie Robinsontook the field in a Dodgers uniform, the
first Major League African American player of the modern era. In
1955, the Dodgers won their first and only World Seriesin Brooklyn
against their rival, the New York Yankees. Just two years later, the Dodgers
moved to Los Angeles, causing a widespread sense of betrayal.
After a 43-year hiatus, baseball returned to the borough in 2001 in
the form of the Brooklyn Cyclones, a minor leagueteam
that began playing in Coney Island.
Developer Bruce
Ratnerannounced in 2004that he had purchased the New Jersey
Netsbasketball team. He hopes to move the Nets to a proposed
20,000-seat Brooklyn Nets Arenaas part of a controversial housing
development.
An American Basketball Association(ABA) expansion team was
announced in 2005. Many
New York City
Subwaylines run through the borough, including the 2, 3, 4, 5,
A, C, B, D, F, J, M, N, R, Q, L, and G (running from Brooklyn to
Queens) trains. There are three commuter rail stations in Brooklyn,
including East New York station, Nostrand
Avenue station, and Atlantic
Terminal, the terminus station of the Atlantic Avenue
Branchof the Long Island Railroad. Atlantic Terminal is a major
intermodal transit hub with several connecting subway lines.
Brooklyn is connected to Manhattan by the Williamsburg Bridge,
Manhattan
Bridge, Brooklyn
Bridgeand the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. The portion of the highway
running through the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and south to the
Verrazano
Narrows Bridge(which connects Brooklyn to Staten Island) is
known as the Gowanus Expressway.
Historically Brooklyn's waterfront was a major shipping port,
especially at the Brooklyn Army Terminal in Sunset Park. Public
schools in the borough are managed by the New
York City Department of Education, the largest public school
system in the United States. Private schools range from the elite
Poly
Prep Country Day Schoolto religious schools run by Roman
Catholic Diocese of Brooklynand Jewish organizations. The
Satmar
Jewish communityof Brooklyn operates its own network of
schools, which is the fourth largest school system in New York
state.
Brooklyn
Collegeis a senior college of the City University
of New York, and was the first public co-ed liberal arts
collegein New York City. According to the Leiter Report, a
compendium of law school rankings published by Brian Leiter, Brooklyn Law
School places 31st nationally for quality of students.Leiter's Law
School Rankings. www.leiterrankings.com
SUNY
Downstate Medical Center, originally founded as the Long Island
College Hospital in 1860, is the oldest hospital-based medical
school in the United States. The College of Medicine has the
highest percentage of minority students of any medical school in
New York State.
Long Island
Universityis a private university in Downtown Brooklyn with
6,417 undergraduate students. In Fort Greene/Clinton Hill, the
Pratt
Instituteis one of the leading art schools in the United States
and offers programs in art, architecture, fashion design, design,
creative writing, library science, and other area
disciplines.
As an independent system, separate from the New York City and
Queens libraries, the Brooklyn Public Libraryoffers thousands of public
programs, millions of books, and use of more than 850 free
Internet-accessible computers.
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