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84-607: Betty Comden was born Basya Cohen in Brooklyn, New York in 1917, the younger child of Leo Cohen (originally Astershinsky), a lawyer, and Rebecca ( née Sadvoransky) Cohen, an English teacher. Both were Russian immigrants and observant Jews. She had an older brother, Nathaniel ("Nat"), born c.  1915 . Basya "attended Erasmus Hall High School and studied drama at New York University , graduating in 1938," according to The New York Times . In 1938, mutual friends introduced her to Adolph Green , an aspiring actor. Along with

168-496: A Pakistani enclave. Brooklyn's most populous racial group, white, declined from 97.2% in 1930 to 46.9% by 1990. The borough attracts people previously living in other cities in the United States. Of these, most come from Chicago , Detroit , San Francisco , Washington, D.C. , Baltimore , Philadelphia , Boston , Cincinnati , and Seattle . Given New York City's role as a crossroads for immigration from around

252-567: A humid subtropical climate ( Cfa ), with partial shielding from the Appalachian Mountains and moderating influences from the Atlantic Ocean . Brooklyn receives plentiful precipitation all year round, with nearly 50 in (1,300 mm) yearly. The area averages 234 days with at least some sunshine annually, and averages 57% of possible sunshine annually, accumulating 2,535 hours of sunshine per annum. Brooklyn lies in

336-535: A 14-block area in 1890. On the southwestern waterfront of Kings County, railroads and industrialization spread to Sunset Park (then coterminous with the city's sprawling, sparsely populated Eighth Ward) and adjacent Bay Ridge (hitherto a resort-like subsection of the Town of New Utrecht ). Within a decade, the city had annexed the Town of New Lots in 1886; the Towns of Flatbush , Gravesend and New Utrecht in 1894; and

420-449: A few weeks after the musical's Broadway closing. Many of the cast members returned for this short revival, including Morse, Matt Mattox, Mitchell Gregg and Elliott Gould; and joining the company were Orson Bean (Jack Jordan), Mindy Carson (Irene Lovelle), David Atkinson (Rudy Lorraine), Betsy von Furstenberg (Frankie Jordan) and Jack Waldron (Schatzie Harris). This run closed on March 8, 1959, after only 16 performances. The play

504-651: A fully orchestrated original cast recording of the score, leading many to conclude that Say, Darling was actually a musical . Reviewing the original Broadway production, Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times called it "hardly more than a clever college show" and a "higgledy-piggledy yarn." In the New York Daily News , critic John Chapman said the play could be "fixed up," but called Morse "splendid" and praised Wayne's and Blaine's performances. The New York City Center Light Opera Company's production of Say, Darling opened on February 25, 1959,

588-458: A hill near the west end of present-day Atlantic Avenue , was reported to have emotionally exclaimed: "What brave men I must this day lose!". The fortified American positions at Brooklyn Heights consequently became untenable and were evacuated a few days later, leaving the British in control of New York Harbor . While Washington's defeat on the battlefield cast early doubts on his ability as

672-508: A land area of 69.38 square miles (179.7 km ) and a water area of 27.48 square miles (71.2 km ), Kings County is the state of New York's fourth-smallest county by land area and third smallest by total area. Brooklyn was founded by the Dutch in the 17th   century and grew into a busy port city on New York Harbor by the 19th   century. On January   1, 1898, after a long political campaign and public-relations battle during

756-748: A longstanding cultural lineage include Canarsie , Sea Gate , and Crown Heights , home to the Chabad world headquarters. Neighborhoods with largely defunct yet historically notable Jewish populations include central Flatbush, East Flatbush, Brownsville, East New York, Bensonhurst and Sheepshead Bay (particularly its Madison subsection). Many hospitals in Brooklyn were started by Jewish charities, including Maimonides Medical Center in Borough Park and Brookdale Hospital in East Flatbush. According to

840-568: A major role in supplying troops and materiel for the American Civil War . The best-known regiment to be sent off to war from the city was the 14th Brooklyn "Red Legged Devils" . They fought from 1861 to 1864, wore red the entire war, and were the only regiment named after a city. President Abraham Lincoln called them into service, making them part of a handful of three-year enlisted soldiers in April 1861. Unlike other regiments during

924-540: A separate mayor, elected a Borough President . In 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was completed, transportation to Manhattan was no longer by water only, and the City of Brooklyn's ties to the City of New York were strengthened. The question became whether Brooklyn was prepared to engage in the still-grander process of consolidation then developing throughout the region, whether to join with the county of Richmond and

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1008-509: A variation of the place name " Canarsie ". Bands were associated with place names, but the colonists thought their names represented different tribes. The Breuckelen settlement was named after Breukelen in the Netherlands ; it was part of New Netherland . The Dutch West India Company lost little time in chartering the six original parishes (listed here by their later English town names): The colony's capital of New Amsterdam , across

1092-592: A variety of Jewish businesses. Adjacent to Borough Park, the Kensington area housed a significant population of Conservative Jews (under the aegis of such nationally prominent midcentury rabbis as Jacob Bosniak and Abraham Heller) when it was still considered to be a subsection of Flatbush; many of their defunct facilities have been repurposed to serve extensions of the Borough Park Hasidic community. Other notable religious Jewish neighborhoods with

1176-441: A water meter magnate and close friend of President Grover Cleveland ), with nearby Crown Heights gradually fulfilling an analogous role for the city's Jewish population as development continued through the early 20th century. Northeast of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Bushwick (by now a working class, predominantly German district) established a considerable brewery industry; the so-called "Brewer's Row" encompassed 14 breweries operating in

1260-450: Is a three-act comic play by Abe Burrows and Richard and Marian Bissell about the creation of a Broadway musical . While the play featured nine original songs with lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Jule Styne , all the songs are presented as either rehearsal or audition material . In a case of art imitating life not once, but twice, the show is an adaptation of Richard Bissell's semi- autobiographical novel of

1344-566: Is derived from the original Dutch town of Breukelen . The oldest mention of the settlement in the Netherlands is in a charter of 953 by Holy Roman Emperor Otto I as Broecklede . This form is made up of the words broeck , meaning bog or marshland , and lede , meaning small (dug) water stream, specifically in peat areas. Breuckelen on the American continent was established in 1646, and the name first appeared in print in 1663. Over

1428-507: Is water (27%); the borough is the second-largest by land area among the New York City's boroughs. However, Kings County, coterminous with Brooklyn, is New York State's fourth-smallest county by land area and third-smallest by total area. Brooklyn lies at the southwestern end of Long Island, and the borough's western border constitutes the island's western tip. Brooklyn's water borders are extensive and varied, including Jamaica Bay ;

1512-412: The 2020 United States census , the population stood at 2,736,074, making it the most populous of the five boroughs of New York City, the most populous county in the state. Brooklyn, at 37,339.9 inhabitants per square mile (14,417.0/km ), is the second most densely populated county in the U.S. after Manhattan (New York County), as of 2022. Had Brooklyn remained an independent city, it would now be

1596-617: The Atlantic Ocean ; The Narrows , separating Brooklyn from the borough of Staten Island in New York City and crossed by the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge ; Upper New York Bay , separating Brooklyn from Jersey City and Bayonne in the U.S. state of New Jersey ; and the East River , separating Brooklyn from the borough of Manhattan in New York City and traversed by the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel ,

1680-617: The Brighton Beach Line in 1878 heralded the end of this isolation. Sports in Brooklyn became a business. The Brooklyn Bridegrooms played professional baseball at Washington Park in the convenient suburb of Park Slope and elsewhere. Early in the next century, under their new name of Brooklyn Dodgers, they brought baseball to Ebbets Field , beyond Prospect Park. Racetracks, amusement parks , and beach resorts opened in Brighton Beach , Coney Island , and elsewhere in

1764-682: The Brooklyn Bridge , the Manhattan Bridge , the Williamsburg Bridge , and numerous routes of the New York City Subway . To the east of Brooklyn lies the borough of Queens, which contains John F. Kennedy International Airport in that borough's Jamaica neighborhood, approximately two miles from the border of Brooklyn's East New York neighborhood. Under the Köppen climate classification , Brooklyn experiences

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1848-481: The Brooklyn Fire Department (BFD) also gave way to the new Metropolitan Fire District. Throughout this period the peripheral towns of Kings County, far from Manhattan and even from urban Brooklyn, maintained their rustic independence. The only municipal change seen was the secession of the eastern section of the Town of Flatbush as the Town of New Lots in 1852. The building of rail links such as

1932-549: The Middle Colonies of nascent British America . On November 1, 1683, Kings County was partitioned from the West Riding of York Shire, containing the six old Dutch towns on southwestern Long Island, as one of the "original twelve counties" . This tract of land was recognized as a political entity for the first time, and the municipal groundwork was laid for a later expansive idea of a Brooklyn identity. Lacking

2016-646: The New Netherland colony in 1664, a prelude to the Second Anglo-Dutch War . New Netherland was taken in a naval action, and the English renamed the new capture for their naval commander, James, Duke of York , brother of the then monarch King Charles II and future king himself as King James II . Brooklyn became a part of the West Riding of York Shire in the Province of New York , one of

2100-451: The USDA plant hardiness zone 7b . Brooklyn's neighborhoods are dynamic in ethnic composition. For example, the early to mid-20th century, Brownsville had a majority of Jewish residents; since the 1970s it has been majority African American. Midwood during the early 20th century was filled with ethnic Irish , then filled with Jewish residents for nearly 50 years, and is slowly becoming

2184-510: The automobile and commuter rail -driven vogue for more remote prewar suburban communities, such as Garden City, New York and Montclair, New Jersey . The rapidly growing population needed more water, so the City built centralized waterworks, including the Ridgewood Reservoir . The municipal Police Department, however, was abolished in 1854 in favor of a Metropolitan force covering also New York and Westchester Counties. In 1865

2268-406: The fourth most populous American city after the rest of New York City, Los Angeles , and Chicago . Named after the Dutch town of Breukelen in the Netherlands, Brooklyn shares a border with the borough of Queens . It has several bridge and tunnel connections to the borough of Manhattan, across the East River , and is connected to Staten Island by way of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge . With

2352-522: The patroon and tenant farmer system established along the Hudson River Valley , this agricultural county unusually came to have one of the highest percentages of slaves among the population in the "Original Thirteen Colonies" along the Atlantic Ocean eastern coast of North America . On August 27, 1776, the Battle of Long Island (also known as the 'Battle of Brooklyn') was fought,

2436-640: The " Little Fuzhou ( 小福州 )" of Brooklyn. Many Chinese restaurants can be found throughout Sunset Park, and the area hosts a popular Chinese New Year celebration. Since the 2000s going forward, the growing concentration of the Cantonese speaking population in Brooklyn have dramatically shifted to Bensonhurst/Gravesend and Homecrest creating newer Chinatowns of Brooklyn and these newer Brooklyn Chinatowns are known as "Brooklyn's Little Hong Kong/Guangdong" due to their Chinese populations being overwhelmingly Cantonese populated. Say, Darling Say, Darling

2520-608: The 'h' from its name. By 1841, with the appearance of The Brooklyn Eagle, and Kings County Democrat published by Alfred G. Stevens, the growing city across the East River from Manhattan was producing its own prominent newspaper. It later became the most popular and highest circulation afternoon paper in America. The publisher changed to L. Van Anden on April 19, 1842, and the paper was renamed The Brooklyn Daily Eagle and Kings County Democrat on June 1, 1846. On May 14, 1849,

2604-842: The 1883 poem, " The New Colossus " by Emma Lazarus , which appears on a plaque inside the Statue of Liberty . The poem calls New York Harbor "the air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame". As a twin city to New York, it played a role in national affairs that was later overshadowed by decades of subordination by its old partner and rival. During this period, the affluent, contiguous districts of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill (then characterized collectively as The Hill) were home to such notable figures as Astral Oil Works founder Charles Pratt and his children, including local civic leader Charles Millard Pratt ; Theosophical Society co-founder William Quan Judge ; and Pfizer co-founders Charles Pfizer and Charles F. Erhart . Brooklyn Heights remained one of

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2688-422: The 1890s and despite opposition from Brooklyn residents, Brooklyn was consolidated in and annexed (along with other areas) to form the current five-borough structure of New York City in accordance to the new municipal charter of " Greater New York ". The borough continues to maintain some distinct culture . Many Brooklyn neighborhoods are ethnic enclaves . With Jews forming around a quarter of its population,

2772-577: The 1950s included Two on the Aisle , starring Bert Lahr and Dolores Gray , with music by Jule Styne ; Wonderful Town , a musical adaptation of the play My Sister Eileen , with music by Bernstein; and Bells Are Ringing , which reunited them with Judy Holliday and Jule Styne. The score, including the standards " Just in Time ", "Long Before I Knew You", and " The Party's Over ", proved to be one of their richest. The duo contributed additional lyrics to

2856-513: The 1954 musical Peter Pan , translated and streamlined Die Fledermaus for the Metropolitan Opera , and collaborated with Styne on songs for the play-with-music Say, Darling . In 1958, they appeared on Broadway in A Party with Betty Comden and Adolph Green , a revue that included some of their early sketches. It was a critical and commercial success, and they brought an updated version back to Broadway in 1977. The pair wrote

2940-536: The 19th century and two-thirds of the 20th century. The first center of urbanization sprang up in the Town of Brooklyn, directly across from Lower Manhattan , which saw the incorporation of the Village of Brooklyn in 1816. Reliable steam ferry service across the East River to Fulton Landing converted Brooklyn Heights into a commuter town for Wall Street . Ferry Road to Jamaica Pass became Fulton Street to East New York . Town and Village were combined to form

3024-630: The 19th century and was consolidated in 1898 with New York City (then confined to Manhattan and the Bronx ), the remaining rural areas of Kings County, and the largely rural areas of Queens and Staten Island , to form the modern City of New York. The Dutch were the first Europeans to settle Long Island's western edge, which was then largely inhabited by the Lenape , an Algonquian-speaking American Indian tribe often referred to in European documents by

3108-652: The 19th century. The waterfront from Gowanus to Greenpoint was developed with piers and factories. Industrial access to the waterfront was improved by the Gowanus Canal and the canalized Newtown Creek . USS  Monitor was the most famous product of the large and growing shipbuilding industry of Williamsburg. After the Civil War , trolley lines and other transport brought urban sprawl beyond Prospect Park (completed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux in 1873 and widely heralded as an improvement upon

3192-593: The American Civil War, the 14th wore a uniform inspired by the French Chasseurs , a light infantry used for quick assaults. As a seaport and a manufacturing center, Brooklyn was well prepared to contribute to the Union's strengths in shipping and manufacturing. The two combined in shipbuilding; the ironclad Monitor was built in Brooklyn. Brooklyn is referred to as the twin city of New York in

3276-570: The American Jewish Population Project in 2020, Brooklyn was home to over 480,000 Jews. In 2023, the UJA-Federation of New York estimated that Brooklyn is home to 462,000 Jews, a large decrease compared to the 561,000 estimated in 2011. The predominantly Jewish, Crown Heights (and later East Flatbush)-based Madison Democratic Club served as the borough's primary "clubhouse" political venue for decades until

3360-524: The East River, obtained its charter in 1653. The neighborhood of Marine Park was home to North America's first tide mill . It was built by the Dutch, and the foundation can be seen today. But the area was not formally settled as a town. Many incidents and documents relating to this period are in Gabriel Furman 's 1824 compilation. Present-day Brooklyn left Dutch hands after the English captured

3444-459: The Heights, the less exclusive South Brooklyn was home to longtime civic leader James S. T. Stranahan , who became known (often derisively) as the " Baron Haussmann of Brooklyn" for championing Prospect Park and other public works. Economic growth continued, propelled by immigration and industrialization , and Brooklyn established itself as the third-most populous American city for much of

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3528-819: The New York metropolitan area's most august patrician redoubts into the early 20th century under the aegis of such figures as abolitionist clergyman Henry Ward Beecher , Congregationalist theologians Lyman Abbott and Newell Dwight Hillis (who followed Beecher as the second and third pastors of Plymouth Church , respectively), financier John Jay Pierrepont (a grandson of founding Heights resident Hezekiah Pierrepont ), banker/art collector David Leavitt , educator/politician Seth Low , merchant/banker Horace Brigham Claflin , attorney William Cary Sanger (who served for two years as United States Assistant Secretary of War under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt ) and publisher Alfred Smith Barnes . Contiguous to

3612-398: The Town , a musical about three sailors on leave in New York City that was an expansion of a ballet entitled Fancy Free on which Bernstein had been working with choreographer Jerome Robbins . Comden and Green wrote the book and lyrics, which included sizable parts for themselves (as "Claire" and "Ozzie"). Their next musical, Billion Dollar Baby in 1945, with music by Morton Gould

3696-490: The Town of Flatlands in 1896. Brooklyn had reached its natural municipal boundaries at the ends of Kings County. Low's time in office from 1882 to 1885 was marked by a number of reforms: Brooklyn elected a mayor from 1834 until 1898, after which it was consolidated into the City of Greater New York , whose own second mayor (1902–1903), Seth Low, had been Mayor of Brooklyn from 1882 to 1885. Since 1898, Brooklyn has, in place of

3780-559: The area, and afterward the British generally enjoyed a dominant Loyalist sentiment from the residents in Kings County who did not evacuate, though the region was also the center of the fledgling—and largely successful— Patriot intelligence network , headed by Washington himself. The British set up a system of prison ships off the coast of Brooklyn in Wallabout Bay . More American patriots died there than in combat on all

3864-533: The area. It is called "Brooklyn's Chinatown" and originally it was a small Chinese enclave with Cantonese speakers being the main Chinese population during the late 1980s and 1990s, but since the 2000s, the Chinese population in the area dramatically shifted to majority Fuzhounese Americans , which contributed immensely to expanding this Chinatown, and bestowing the nicknames " Fuzhou Town ( 福州埠 ), Brooklyn" or

3948-1017: The ascendancy of Meade Esposito 's rival, Canarsie-based Thomas Jefferson Democratic Club in the 1960s and 1970s, playing an integral role in the rise of such figures as Speaker of the New York State Assembly Irwin Steingut ; his son, fellow Speaker Stanley Steingut ; New York City Mayor Abraham Beame ; real estate developer Fred Trump ; Democratic district leader Beadie Markowitz; and political fixer Abraham "Bunny" Lindenbaum. Many non-Orthodox Jews (ranging from observant members of various denominations to atheists of Jewish cultural heritage) are concentrated in Ditmas Park and Park Slope , with smaller observant and culturally Jewish populations in Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Brighton Beach, and Coney Island. Over 200,000 Chinese Americans live throughout

4032-525: The audience - with an education about what goes on behind-the scenes on the Great White Way , from auditions to rehearsals , to rewrites in hotel rooms to feuds among cast members, all under the watchful eye of veteran stage producer/director Richard Hackett ( Jerome Cowan ), loosely based on George Abbott , and a very young fledgling co-producer, Ted Snow ( Robert Morse ) whose financial acumen greatly outweighs his show business savvy. Actor Morse

4116-690: The battlefield engagements of the American Revolutionary War combined. One result of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 was the evacuation of the British from New York City , which was celebrated by New Yorkers into the 20th century. The first half of the 19th century saw the beginning of the development of urban areas on the economically strategic East River shore of Kings County, facing the adolescent City of New York confined to Manhattan Island. The New York Navy Yard operated in Wallabout Bay (border between Fort Greene and Williamsburg) during

4200-464: The borough has been described as "the most Jewish spot on Earth". Brooklyn's official motto, displayed on the borough seal and flag , is Eendraght Maeckt Maght , which translates from early modern Dutch as ' Unity makes strength '. Educational institutions in Brooklyn include the City University of New York 's Brooklyn College , Medgar Evers College , and College of Technology . In

4284-651: The cast included Johnny Desmond (Rudy Lorraine), Jerome Cowan (Richard Hackett), Horace McMahon (Schatzie Harris), and Constance Ford (Frankie Jordan). Eddie Albert replaced Wayne later in the run. Appearing in small roles as chorus performers were Elliott Gould and Virginia Martin . Morse was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play and won the Theatre World Award for his performance. The original 1957 Broadway production featured only two pianos, but RCA Victor released

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4368-460: The characters of Lester and Lily, a husband-and-wife musical-writing team, were patterned after themselves. As with Singin' in the Rain , the real-life team did not write the songs. They were Oscar -nominated twice, for their screenplays for The Band Wagon and It's Always Fair Weather . Both films also received Screen Writers Guild Awards ; On the Town did too. Comden and Green's stage work of

4452-524: The commander, the tactical withdrawal of all his troops and supplies across the East River in a single night is now seen by historians as one of his most brilliant triumphs. The British controlled the surrounding region for the duration of the war, as New York City was soon occupied and became their military and political base of operations in North America for the remainder of the conflict. The Patriot residents largely fled or were cleared from

4536-417: The day shift and another 12 on the night shift. Every time a rash of burglaries broke out, officials blamed burglars from New York City. Finally, in 1855, a modern police force was created, employing 150 men. Voters complained of inadequate protection and excessive costs. In 1857, the state legislature merged the Brooklyn force with that of New York City. Fervent in the Union cause, the city of Brooklyn played

4620-535: The earlier Central Park ) into the center of the county, as evinced by gradual settlement in the comparatively rustic villages of Windsor Terrace and Kensington in the Town of Flatbush. By century's end, Dean Alvord 's Prospect Park South development (adjacent to the village of Flatbush) would serve as the template for contemporaneous " Victorian Flatbush " micro-neighborhoods and the post-consolidation emergence of outlying districts, such as Midwood and Marine Park . Along with Oak Park, Illinois , it also presaged

4704-467: The first decades of the 21st   century, Brooklyn has experienced a renaissance as a destination for hipsters , with concomitant gentrification , dramatic house-price increases, and a decrease in housing affordability. Some new developments are required to include affordable housing units. Since the 2010s, parts of Brooklyn have evolved into a hub of entrepreneurship, high-technology startup firms , postmodern art , and design. The name Brooklyn

4788-575: The first major engagement fought in the American Revolutionary War after independence was declared , and the largest of the entire conflict. British troops forced Continental Army troops under George Washington off the heights near the modern sites of Green-Wood Cemetery , Prospect Park , and Grand Army Plaza . Washington , viewing particularly fierce fighting at the Gowanus Creek and Old Stone House from atop

4872-412: The first, kernel incarnation of the City of Brooklyn in 1834. In a parallel development, the Town of Bushwick, farther up the river, saw the incorporation of the Village of Williamsburgh in 1827, which separated as the Town of Williamsburgh in 1840 and formed the short-lived City of Williamsburgh in 1851. Industrial deconcentration in the mid-century was bringing shipbuilding and other manufacturing to

4956-651: The long-running sit-com Frasier in the episode entitled "Burying a Grudge." Comden and Green were a creative partnership, not a romantic couple. In 1942, Comden married Siegfried Schutzman, a designer and businessman, who changed his name to Steven Kyle. He died in 1979 of acute pancreatitis . They had two children, a daughter, Susanna, and a son, Alan, who died in 1990. She never remarried. Betty Comden died of heart failure following an undisclosed illness of several months at New York Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan on Thanksgiving Day, November 23, 2006, aged 89. She

5040-399: The loss of Brooklyn's separate identity as a city was met with consternation by some residents at the time. Many newspapers of the day called the merger the "Great Mistake of 1898", and the phrase still elicits Brooklyn pride among old-time Brooklynites. Brooklyn is 97 square miles (250 km ) in area, of which 71 square miles (180 km ) is land (73%), and 26 square miles (67 km )

5124-562: The lyrics for Do Re Mi , and the book and lyrics for Subways Are For Sleeping , Fade Out – Fade In , and Hallelujah, Baby! Their Hallelujah, Baby! score won a Tony Award. Comden and Green wrote the libretto for the 1970 musical Applause , an adaptation of the film All About Eve , and wrote the book and lyrics for 1978's On the Twentieth Century , with music by Cy Coleman . Comden also played Letitia Primrose in that musical when original star Imogene Coca left

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5208-410: The name that its origin has been debated; some have claimed breuckelen means "broken land". The current name, however, is the one that best reflects its meaning. The history of European settlement in Brooklyn spans more than 350 years. The settlement began in the 17th century as the small Dutch-founded town of "Breuckelen" on the East River shore of Long Island , grew to be a sizeable city in

5292-470: The name was shortened to The Brooklyn Daily Eagle ; on September 5, 1938, it was further shortened to Brooklyn Eagle . The establishment of the paper in the 1840s helped develop a separate identity for Brooklynites over the next century. The borough's soon-to-be-famous National League baseball team, the Brooklyn Dodgers , also assisted with this. Both major institutions were lost in the 1950s:

5376-454: The nation. Brooklyn contains dozens of distinct neighborhoods representing many of the major culturally identified groups found within New York City. Among the most prominent are listed below: Over 600,000 Jews , particularly Orthodox and Hasidic Jews , have become concentrated in such historically Jewish areas as Borough Park , Williamsburg , and Midwood , where there are many yeshivas , synagogues , and kosher restaurants, as well as

5460-433: The northern part of the county. Each of the two cities and six towns in Kings County remained independent municipalities and purposely created non-aligning street grids with different naming systems. However, the East River shore was growing too fast for the three-year-old infant City of Williamsburg; it, along with its Town of Bushwick hinterland, was subsumed within a greater City of Brooklyn in 1855, subsequently dropping

5544-449: The novel of Patrick Dennis , was more like a movie script in its pile-up of pictorial business and its multiplicity of scenes. The invitation to expansion was hand-engraved in the play. Now it has been accepted by screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green and by the director, Morton DaCosta , who has reveled in the greater physical range. Comden and Green's Broadway work in the 1960s included four collaborations with Jule Styne. They wrote

5628-498: The paper closed in 1955 after unsuccessful attempts at a sale following a reporters' strike, and the baseball team decamped for Los Angeles in a realignment of Major League Baseball in 1957. Agitation against Southern slavery was stronger in Brooklyn than in New York, and under Republican leadership, the city was fervent in the Union cause in the Civil War . After the war the Henry Ward Beecher Monument

5712-511: The past two millennia, the name of the ancient town in Holland has been Bracola , Broccke , Brocckede , Broiclede , Brocklandia , Broekclen , Broikelen , Breuckelen, and finally Breukelen . The New Amsterdam settlement of Breuckelen also went through many spelling variations, including Breucklyn , Breuckland , Brucklyn , Broucklyn , Brookland , Brockland , Brocklin , and Brookline/Brook-line . There have been so many variations of

5796-437: The real Garbo either could not be located or would refuse flatly to appear in a cameo. They asked a known associate of Garbo to ask the great actress if she would appear in the film, but received no response. So, Comden was asked to appear in the film for the brief, pivotal "over-the-shoulder" scenes. Comden and Green received Kennedy Center Honors in 1991. In 1994, Comden and Green were guest callers, "Linda" and "Walter", on

5880-510: The request of Arthur Freed , who did not care for the Bernstein score. The duo reunited with Gene Kelly for their most successful project, the classic Singin' in the Rain , about Hollywood in the final days of the silent film era. Comden and Green provided the story and screenplay; the songs were hits from the late 1920s and early 1930s by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown . They followed this with another hit, The Band Wagon , in which

5964-399: The same name which chronicled his experience adapting his novel 7½ Cents for The Pajama Game : namely, a stage adaptation of a novel, which itself concerns the musical adaptation of a book. It focuses on Jack Jordan ( David Wayne ), who is brought to Broadway to help develop his best-seller into a musical for leading lady Irene Lovelle ( Vivian Blaine ). His journey provides him - and

6048-419: The screenplay for Auntie Mame in 1958. The New York Times movie review from that year lays it out as follows: In its superficial racing across several strata of rich society, it does catch some glimpses of behavior that flash a few glints of irony. The picture is every bit as potent, if not a good deal more so, than the play. Actually, the stage play, as written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee from

6132-483: The show. Comden and Green's final musical hit was 1991's The Will Rogers Follies , providing lyrics to Cy Coleman 's music. The duo's biggest failure was 1982's A Doll's Life , an attempt to figure out what Nora did after she abandoned her husband in Henrik Ibsen 's A Doll's House , which ran for only five performances, although they received Tony Award nominations for its book and score. In 1980, Comden

6216-638: The southern part of the county. Toward the end of the 19th century, the City of Brooklyn experienced its final, explosive growth spurt. Park Slope was rapidly urbanized, with its eastern summit soon emerging as the city's third "Gold Coast" district alongside Brooklyn Heights and The Hill; notable residents of the era included American Chicle Company co-founder Thomas Adams Jr. and New York Central Railroad executive Clinton L. Rossiter. East of The Hill, Bedford-Stuyvesant coalesced as an upper middle class enclave for lawyers, shopkeepers, and merchants of German and Irish descent (notably exemplified by John C. Kelley,

6300-537: The southern parts of Brooklyn, primarily concentrated in Sunset Park , Bensonhurst , Gravesend , and Homecrest . Brooklyn is the borough that is home to the highest number of Chinatowns in New York City . The largest concentration is in Sunset Park along 8th Avenue, which has become known for its Chinese culture since the opening of the now-defunct Winley Supermarket in 1986 spurred widespread settlement in

6384-560: The western portion of Queens County , and the county of New York , which by then already included the Bronx , to form the five boroughs of a united City of New York. Andrew Haswell Green and other progressives said yes, and eventually, they prevailed against the Daily Eagle and other conservative forces. In 1894, residents of Brooklyn and the other counties voted by a slight majority to merge, effective in 1898. Kings County retained its status as one of New York State's counties, but

6468-421: The world, Brooklyn has evolved a globally cosmopolitan ambiance of its own, demonstrating a robust and growing demographic and cultural diversity with respect to metrics including nationality, religion, race, and domiciliary partnership . In 2010, 51.6% of the population was counted as members of religious congregations. In 2014, there were 914 religious organizations in Brooklyn, the 10th most of all counties in

6552-603: The young Judy Holliday and Leonard Bernstein , Comden and Green formed a troupe called the Revuers, which performed at the Village Vanguard , a club in Greenwich Village . Due to the act's success, the Revuers appeared in the 1944 film Greenwich Village , but their roles were so small they were barely noticed, and they returned to New York. Comden and Green's first Broadway show was in 1944, with On

6636-440: Was built downtown to honor a famous local abolitionist . A great victory arch was built at what was then the south end of town to celebrate the armed forces; this place is now called Grand Army Plaza . The number of people living in Brooklyn grew rapidly early in the 19th century. There were 4,402 by 1810, 7,175 in 1820 and 15,396 by 1830. The city's population was 25,000 in 1834, but the police department comprised only 12 men on

6720-588: Was buried in Mount Carmel Cemetery in Glendale , New York . Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn is a borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the State of New York . Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County , one of twelve original counties established under British rule in 1683 in the then Province of New York . As of

6804-625: Was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame . And, in 1981, she was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame . In the early 1980s, Comden acted in Wendy Wasserstein 's play Isn't It Romantic , portraying the lead character's mother. In 1984, filmmaker Sidney Lumet directed a film about Greta Garbo , Garbo Talks , starring Anne Bancroft and Ron Silver . The producers of the film were sure that

6888-410: Was not a success, and their 1947 show Bonanza Bound closed out-of-town and never reached Broadway. Comden and Green headed to California and soon found work at MGM. They wrote the screenplays for Good News and The Barkleys of Broadway (which reunited Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers ), and then adapted On the Town for Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly , scrapping most of Bernstein's music at

6972-546: Was revived Off-Broadway at the West End Theatre in New York City for 16 performances in May through June 1996 under the direction of Robert Armin. An original cast recording was released by RCA Victor with orchestrations and musical direction by Sid Ramin . The 2008 CD release on DRG Records was re-edited from the first-generation master recording and interpolated five dialogue lead-ins that were not included on

7056-658: Was widely thought to be imitating producer Harold Prince , who had co-produced The Pajama Game , because of their similar physical appearance. The Broadway production, directed by Burrows and choreographed by Matt Mattox , opened on April 3, 1958 at the ANTA Playhouse , transferring to the Martin Beck Theatre for the last five weeks of its 332-performance run, where it closed on January 17, 1959. In addition to David Wayne as Jack Jordan, Vivian Blaine as Irene Lovelle, and Robert Morse as Ted Snow,

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