Brooklyn Bridge in the context of "David B. Steinman"

Brooklyn is the most populous of the five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located at the westernmost end of Long Island and formerly an independent city, Brooklyn shares a land border with the borough and county of Queens. It has several bridge and tunnel connections to the borough of Manhattan, across the East River, including the architecturally significant Brooklyn Bridge, and is connected to Staten Island by the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge.

The borough, as Kings County, 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), and the most populous county in the state, as of 2022. In the 2020 United States census, the borough had a population of 2,736,074. Had Brooklyn remained an independent city on Long Island, it would now be the fourth most populous American city after the rest of New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. With 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, one of the twelve original counties established under British rule in 1683 in the then-province of New York, is the state of New York's fourth-smallest county by land area and third smallest by total area.

The Financial District of Lower Manhattan, also known as FiDi, is a neighborhood located on the southern tip of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by the West Side Highway on the west, Chambers Street and City Hall Park on the north, Brooklyn Bridge on the northeast, the East River to the southeast, and South Ferry and the Battery on the south.

The City of New York was created in the modern-day Financial District in 1624, and the neighborhood roughly overlaps with the boundaries of the New Amsterdam settlement in the late 17th century. The district comprises the offices and headquarters of many of the city's major financial institutions, including the New York Stock Exchange and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Anchored on Wall Street in the Financial District, New York City has been called both the leading financial center and the most economically powerful city of the world, and the New York Stock Exchange is the world's largest stock exchange by total market capitalization. Several other major exchanges have or had headquarters in the Financial District, including the New York Mercantile Exchange, NASDAQ, the New York Board of Trade, and the former American Stock Exchange.

A cable-stayed bridge is a type of bridge that has one or more towers (or pylons), from which cables support the bridge deck. A distinctive feature are the cables or stays, which run directly from the tower to the deck, normally forming a fan-like pattern or a series of parallel lines. This is in contrast to the modern suspension bridge, where the cables supporting the deck are suspended vertically from the main cables, which run between the towers and are anchored at both ends of the bridge. The cable-stayed bridge is optimal for spans longer than cantilever bridges and shorter than suspension bridges. This is the range within which cantilever bridges would rapidly grow heavier, and suspension bridge cabling would be more costly.

Cable-stayed bridges found wide use in the late 19th century. Early examples, including the Brooklyn Bridge, often combined features from both the cable-stayed and suspension designs. Cable-stayed designs fell from favor in the early 20th century as larger gaps were bridged using pure suspension designs, and shorter ones using various systems built of reinforced concrete. It returned to prominence in the later 20th century when the combination of new materials, larger construction machinery, and the need to replace older bridges all lowered the relative price of these designs.

The written history of New York City begins with the arrival of the first European explorer to the area, Italian Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1528 and his brief interactions with the Indigenous Lenape. European settlement began with the Dutch in 1608 and New Amsterdam was founded with the assistance of the Lenape in 1624.

The "Sons of Liberty" campaigned against British authority in New York City, and the Stamp Act Congress of representatives from throughout the Thirteen Colonies met in the city in 1765 to organize resistance to Crown policies. The city's strategic location and status as a major seaport made it the prime target for British seizure in 1776. General George Washington lost a series of battles from which he narrowly escaped (with the notable exception of the Battle of Harlem Heights, his first victory of the war), and the British Army occupied New York and made it their base on the continent until late 1783, attracting Loyalist refugees.

40°42′46″N 74°00′21″W / 40.71278°N 74.00583°W / 40.71278; -74.00583

The Civic Center is an area and neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, that encompasses New York City Hall, One Police Plaza, the courthouses in Foley Square, the Metropolitan Correctional Center, and the surrounding area. The district is bound on the west by Tribeca at Broadway, on the north by Chinatown at Worth Street or Bayard Street, on the east by the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge at South Street, and on the south by the Financial District at Ann Street.

The Fulton Ferry was the first steam ferry route connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn, New York City, United States, joining Fulton Street, Manhattan, and Fulton Street, Brooklyn, across the East River. It revolutionized travel between the then City of New York on Manhattan Island and the Village of Brooklyn and the rest of Long Island. Robert Fulton's steam Fulton Ferry Company in 1814 established his name on the ferry service. After the Brooklyn Bridge was built, ridership declined, and the ferry ceased operation on January 19, 1924. NYC Ferry now serves a very similar route.

Brooklyn Heights is a residential neighborhood within the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Old Fulton Street near the Brooklyn Bridge on the north, Cadman Plaza West on the east, Atlantic Avenue on the south, and the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway or the East River on the west. Adjacent neighborhoods are Dumbo to the north, Downtown Brooklyn to the east, and Cobble Hill and Boerum Hill to the south.

Originally referred to as Brooklyn Village, it has been a prominent area of Brooklyn since 1834. The neighborhood is noted for its low-rise architecture and its many brownstone rowhouses, most of them built prior to the Civil War. It also has an abundance of notable churches and other religious institutions. Brooklyn's first art gallery, the Brooklyn Arts Gallery, was opened in Brooklyn Heights in 1958. In 1965, a large part of Brooklyn Heights was protected from unchecked development by the creation of the Brooklyn Heights Historic District, the first such district in New York City. The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1966.