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What is Foster Care?

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How to Explain Foster Care to a Child? In Spanish subtitles | Jeanette Yoffe foster care expert

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A Foster Care Tale

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How to Write a Letter

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Someone To...

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Someone to... Experiences of children in foster care

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Perspective Taking

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"Peace covers everything, Little Brother. Everything."

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"The one true thing for today-sometimes people say something about you and no matter how hard you try not to believe it, you still do."

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"I want the Mama I used to have and the Mama I got now. I don't want to have one or not have the other."

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"Sometimes when all the real big things feel all hard and crazy
I close my eyes and cover my ears
And think real hard
About the little things."

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"This kid is cool, Jenkins said, pointing to me. You think I don't know that? Rodney said. All the living me and him been doing."

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"And sometimes it feels like I'm just gonna fall right down under all that weight. But I don't, Lili. I stay standing. I stay standing."

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"Peace is the good stuff
That happens to all of us
Sometimes."

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This is the result of the best of intentions gone awry. Actress Alisha Gaddis has written and self-published her first book, based on her experiences as a stepparent.

Zoey is a young girl whose parents are divorced and her father has since remarried. She now has two homes, however this book focuses mostly on her time at her father's house with her new stepmother. Together, they go to the grocery store, set up a lemonade stand, and go to yoga class. When she falls off her bike, her stepmother is t...more

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This is the result of the best of intentions gone awry. Actress Alisha Gaddis has written and self-published her first book, based on her experiences as a stepparent. Zoey is a young girl whose parents are divorced and her father has since remarried.

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-K-6
-This book introduces those involved in foster care and explains the process. This makes the process simpler to understand. Foster Care is confusing for adults and children. This book also touches on how the child may be feeling. Although it may be confusing there are a lot of people around them trying to protect them. For children in foster care, this book can help explain that in some situations you can be happy and sad at the same time as well as safe but scared for example. Read this boo...more

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K-6-This book introduces those involved in foster care and explains the process. This makes the process simpler to understand. Foster Care is confusing for adults and children. This book also touches on how the child may be feeling. Although it may be confusing there are a lot of people around them trying to protect them.

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Calvin is in foster care, and he wants to trust someone, anyone, but is afraid to open his heart. He has lived in a lot of houses, but he...

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Johnson and his sister Beebee have to take care of themselves after their mother leaves. Then they re moved to the Aunt Gracie s house and things start getting

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This story is narrated by a spirited young girl who is living with her Aunt Dane (not her real aunt) for a while, until her mother is abl...

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My Adopted Family book. Read 11 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. My Adopted Family is the story of a normal day in Adam's life. Wh...

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Most of these self-help books for kids don't work that well for me. I'm an adult, so I should be able to get something out of them. But, often, the message is confusing or weak, and I'm left feeling rather unsatisfied.

This book was written and illustrated by the same team that did The Water Princess, which I really liked. But I'm afraid I Am Peace fell a bit flat for me, for a number of reasons. First, the illustrations aren't as good. The Water Princess had beautiful backgrounds; in this book,...more

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Most of these self-help books for kids don't work that well for me. I'm an adult, so I should be able to get something out of them. But, often, the message is confusing or weak, and I'm left feeling rather unsatisfied.

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Lonnie and his sister Lili are in foster care after the death of their parents. They live with separate families and this book is Lonnie's letters to Lili that he writes to stay connected to her and as he says "to be the rememberer" while they are living separately.

Where it takes place:

In Brooklyn.

Where I wrote it:

In Brooklyn and also parts were written on planes as I traveled.

Why I wrote it:

I wanted Lonnie and Lili to find peace - within themselves and in the bigger world. The book started out being about one kind of peace and then became about the many ways we search for and eventually all kinds of peace.

Awards

SLJ Best Book

Chicago Public Library's Best of the Best Book

State Lists

New York (nominee)

Sunshine State Young Reader's Award Master List for 2011-2012, Awarded by Florida State

Tennessee Volunteer State Book Award

Pennsylvania Young Reader's Choice Awards

Keystone to Reading Book Award

North Carolina Children's Book Award

Kansas State Reading Circle

Capitol Choices, Virginia

Maryland Black-Eyed Susan Book Award

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Lonnie and his sister Lili are in foster care after the death of their parents. They live with separate families and this book is Lonnie's letters to Lili that he writes to stay connected to her and as he says "to be the rememberer" while they are living separately.

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Brooklyn is the most populous borough of New York City, with a Census-estimated 2,636,735 residents in 2015. It borders the borough of Queens at the southwestern end of Long Island. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, the most populous county in the U.S. state of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, after the county of New York (which is coextensive with the borough of Manhattan).

With a land area of 71 square miles (180 km ²) and water area of 26 square miles (67 km ²), Kings County is New York's fourth-smallest county by land area and third-smallest by total area, though it is the second-largest among the city's five boroughs. Today, if New York City dissolved, Brooklyn would rank as the third-most populous city in the U.S., behind Los Angeles and Chicago.

Brooklyn was an independent incorporated city (and previously an authorized village and town within the provisions of the New York State Constitution) until January 1, 1898, when, after a long political campaign and public relations battle during the 1890s, according to the new Municipal Charter of "Greater New York", Brooklyn was consolidated with the other cities, boroughs, and counties to form the modern "City of New York," surrounding the Upper New York Bay with five constituent boroughs. The borough continues, however, to maintain a distinct culture. Many Brooklyn neighborhoods are ethnic enclaves. 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".

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 sizable city in the 19th century, and was consolidated in 1898 with New York City (then confined to Manhattan and part of 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.

Colonial era

Six Dutch towns

Gravesend: in 1645, settled under Dutch patent by English followers of the Anabaptist, Lady Deborah Moody, possibly after Gravesend, England, or 's-Gravenzande, Netherlands

Brooklyn Heights: as "Breuckelen" in 1646, after the town now spelled "Breukelen", Netherlands

Flatlands: as "New Amersfoort" in 1647

Flatbush: as "Midwout" in 1652

New Utrecht: in 1657, after the city of Utrecht, Netherlands

Bushwick: as "Boswijck" in 1661

The colony's capital, New Amsterdam, across the East River, obtained its charter later than the village of Brooklyn did, in 1653. The neighborhood of Marine Park was home to North America's first tidal mill. It was built by the Dutch, and the foundation can be seen today. However, the area was not formally settled as a town. Many incidents and documents relating to this period are in Gabriel Furman's early (1824) compilation.

Six townships in an English province

The English reorganized the six old Dutch towns on southwestern Long Island as Kings County on November 1, 1683, one of the "original twelve counties" then established in New York Province. 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 Brooklyn identity.

Revolutionary War

On August 27, 1776 was fought the Battle of Long Island (also known as the 'Battle of Brooklyn'), 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 from atop a hill near the west end of present-day Atlantic Avenue, was famously reported to have emotionally exclaimed: "What brave men I must this day lose!".

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 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-American intelligence network, headed by Washington himself.

Post-colonial era

Urbanization

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 Brooklyn and Williamsburgh) for the entire 19th century and two-thirds of the 20th century.

In parallel development, the Town of Bushwick, a little 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 mid-century was bringing shipbuilding and other manufacturing to 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 Williamsburgh; it, along with its Town of Bushwick hinterland, was subsumed within a greater City of Brooklyn in 1854.

By 1841, with the appearance of the 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 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: 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.

The city had a population of 25,000 in 1834, but the police department only comprised 12 men on the day shift and another 12 at night. Every time a rash of burglaries broke out, officials blamed burglars coming in 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 a major role in supplying troops and materiel for the American Civil War. The most well-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 Lincoln called them into service personally, making them part of a handful of three-year enlisted soldiers in April 1861. Unlike other regiments during the American Civil War, the 14th wore a uniform inspired by that of the French Chasseurs, a light infantry used for quick assaults on the enemy.

As both 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 a twin city of New York in 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 its century-old submergence into its old partner and rival.

Economic growth continued, propelled by immigration and industrialization, and Brooklyn established itself as the third-most populous American city for much of the 19th century. The waterfront from Gowanus Bay to Greenpoint was developed with piers and factories. Industrial access to the waterfront was improved by the Gowanus Canal and the canalized Newtown Creek. The USS Monitor was only 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 and into the center of the county.

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 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 the Brighton Beach Line in 1878 heralded the end of this isolation.

Toward the end of the 19th century, the City of Brooklyn experienced its final, explosive growth spurt. Railroads and industrialization spread to Bay Ridge and Sunset Park. In the space of a decade, the city annexed the Town of New Lots in 1886, the Town of Flatbush, the Town of Gravesend, the Town of New Utrecht in 1894, and the Town of Flatlands in 1896. Brooklyn had reached its natural municipal boundaries at the ends of Kings County.

Mayors of the City of Brooklyn

New York City borough

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 New York, the county of Richmond and the western portion of Queens County to form the five boroughs of a united City of New York. Andrew Haskell 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 the loss of Brooklyn's separate identity as a city was met with consternation by some residents at the time. The merger was called the "Great Mistake of 1898" by many newspapers of the day, and the phrase still denotes Brooklyn pride among old-time Brooklynites.

Brooklyn totals 97 square miles (250 km ²) in area, of which 71 square miles (180 km ²) is land (73%), and 26 square miles (67 km ²) is water (27%); the borough is the second-largest in land area among the boroughs of New York City. 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; the Atlantic Ocean; The Narrows, separating Brooklyn from the borough of Staten Island in New York City and crossed by the Verrazano-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, 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 Howard Beach neighborhood, approximately two miles from the border of the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn.

Boroughscape

Under the Köppen climate classification, using the 32 °F (0 °C) coldest month (January) isotherm, Brooklyn experiences 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 the USDA 7b plant hardiness zone.

Demographics

Since 2010, the population of Brooklyn was estimated by the United States Census Bureau to have increased 5.3% to 2,636,735, as of 2015 - Brooklyn's estimated population represented 30.8% of New York City's estimated population of 8,550,405; 33.6% of Long Island's population of 7,838,722; and 13.3% of New York State's population of 19,795,791.

2010 Census

According to the 2010 United States Census, Brooklyn's population was 42.8% White, including 35.7% non-Hispanic White; 34.3% Black, including 31.9% non-Hispanic black; 10.5% Asian; 0.5% Native American; 0.0% (rounded) Pacific Islander; 3.0% Multiracial American; and 8.8% from Other races. Hispanics and Latinos made up 19.8% of Brooklyn's population.

In 2010, Brooklyn had some neighborhoods segregated based on race, ethnicity, and religion. Overall, the southwest half of Brooklyn is racially mixed although it contains few black residents; the northeast section is mostly black and Hispanic/Latino.

Brooklyn has a high degree of linguistic diversity. As of 2010, 54.12% (1,240,416) of Brooklyn residents ages 5 and older spoke English at home as a primary language, while 17.16% (393,340) spoke Spanish, 6.46% (148,012) Chinese, 5.31% (121,607) Russian, 3.47% (79,469) Yiddish, 2.75% (63,019) French Creole, 1.35% (31,004) Italian, 1.20% (27,440) Hebrew, 1.01% (23,207) Polish, 0.99% (22,763) French, 0.95% (21,773) Arabic, 0.85% (19,388) various Indic languages, 0.70% (15,936) Urdu, and African languages were spoken as a main language by 0.54% (12,305) of the population over the age of five. In total, 45.88% (1,051,456) of Brooklyn's population ages 5 and older spoke a mother language other than English.

Neighborhoods

Brooklyn's neighborhoods are dynamic in ethnic composition. For example, during 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 a Pakistani enclave. Brooklyn's most populous racial group, white, declined from 97.2% in 1930 to 46.9% by 1990.

Community diversity

Given New York City's role as a crossroads for legal and illegal immigration from around the world, Brooklyn has evolved a globally cosmopolitan ambience of its own, demonstrating a robust and growing demographic and cultural diversity with respect to metrics including nationality, religion, race, and domiciliary partnership. 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:

Jewish American

Chinese American

Over 200,000 Chinese Americans live throughout the southern parts of Brooklyn, in Sunset Park, Bensonhurst, Gravesend, and Homecrest. The largest concentration is in Sunset Park along 8th Avenue, which is known for Chinese culture. It is called "Brooklyn's Chinatown" and its Chinese population is composed in majority by Fuzhounese Americans, rendering this Chinatown with the nicknames Fuzhou Town (福州埠), Brooklyn (布鲁克林) or 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.

Caribbean and African American

Latino American

Bushwick is the largest hub of Brooklyn's Latino American community. Like other Latino neighborhoods in New York City, Bushwick has an established Puerto Rican presence, along with an influx of many Dominicans, South Americans, Central Americans, Mexicans, as well as a more recent influx of Puerto Ricans. As nearly 80% of Bushwick's population is Latino , its residents having created many businesses to support their various national and distinct traditions in food and other items. Sunset Park's population is 42% Latino, made up of these various ethnic groups. Brooklyn's main Latino groups are Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Dominicans, and Panamanians; they are spread out throughout the borough. Puerto Ricans and Dominicans are predominant in Bushwick, Williamsburg, and East New York, while Mexicans are predominant in Sunset Park and Panamanians in Crown Heights.

Russian and Ukrainian American

Brooklyn is also home to many Russians and Ukrainians, who are mainly concentrated in the areas of Brighton Beach and Sheepshead Bay. Brighton Beach features many Russian and Ukrainian businesses and has been nicknamed Little Russia and Little Odessa, respectively. Originally these communities were mostly Jewish; however, the non-Jewish Russian and Ukrainian communities of Brighton Beach now also represent various aspects of Russian and Ukrainian culture.

Polish American

Italian American

Muslim American

Today, Arab Americans and Pakistani Americans along with other Muslim communities have moved into the southwest portion of Brooklyn, particularly to Bay Ridge, where there are many Middle Eastern restaurants, hookah lounges, halal shops, Islamic shops and mosques. Coney Island Avenue is home to Little Pakistan as Church Avenue is to Bangladeshis. Jay Street Borough Hall (Downtown Brooklyn) is little Arabia. Pakistani Independence Day is celebrated every year with parades and parties on Coney Island Avenue. Earlier, the area was known predominately for its Irish, Norwegian, and Scottish populations. There are also many Middle Eastern, particularly Yemeni, businesses, mosques, and restaurants on Atlantic Avenue west of Flatbush Avenue, near Brooklyn Heights.

Irish American

Irish Americans can be found throughout Brooklyn, in low to moderate concentrations in the neighborhoods of Bay Ridge, Marine Park, Gerritsen Beach, and Vinegar Hill. Many moved east on Long Island in the mid-twentieth century.

Greek American

Brooklyn's Greek Americans live throughout the borough, but their businesses today are concentrated in Downtown Brooklyn near Atlantic Avenue. Greek-owned diners are also found throughout the borough, but many Greeks have re-located off of Atlantic Avenue due to demographic shift.

Same-sex couples

Brooklyn is home to a large and growing population of same-sex couples. Same-sex marriages in New York were legalized on June 24, 2011 and were authorized to take place beginning 30 days thereafter. The Park Slope neighborhood spearheaded the popularity of Brooklyn among lesbians, and numerous neighborhoods have since become home to LGBTQ communities.

Artists-in-residence

Brooklyn has played a major role in various aspects of American culture including literature, cinema, and theater. The Brooklyn accent has often been portrayed as the "typical New York accent" in American media, although this accent and stereotype are supposedly fading out. Brooklyn's official colors are blue and gold.

Cultural venues

Brooklyn hosts the world-renowned Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and the second largest public art collection in the United States, housed in the Brooklyn Museum.

Local periodicals

Brooklyn has several local newspapers: The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Bay Currents (Oceanfront Brooklyn), Brooklyn View, The Brooklyn Paper, and Courier-Life Publications. Courier-Life Publications, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, is Brooklyn's largest chain of newspapers. 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.

The borough is home to the bi-weekly cultural guide The L Magazine and the arts and politics monthly Brooklyn Rail, as well as the arts and cultural quarterly Cabinet. Hello Mr. is also published in Brooklyn.

Brooklyn Magazine is one of the few glossy magazines about Brooklyn. Several others, that are now defunct, include: BKLYN Magazine (a bimonthly lifestyle book owned by Joseph McCarthy, that saw itself as a vehicle for high-end advertisers in Manhattan and was mailed to 80,000 high-income households), Brooklyn Bridge Magazine, The Brooklynite (a free, glossy quarterly edited by Daniel Treiman), and NRG (edited by Gail Johnson and originally marketed as a local periodical for Clinton Hill and Fort Greene, but expanded in scope to become the self-proclaimed "Pulse of Brooklyn" and then the "Pulse of New York").

Ethnic press

Brooklyn has a thriving ethnic press. El Diario La Prensa, the largest and oldest Spanish-language daily newspaper in the United States, maintains its corporate headquarters at 1 MetroTech Center in downtown Brooklyn. Major ethnic publications include the Brooklyn-Queens Catholic paper The Tablet, Hamodia, an Orthodox Jewish daily and The Jewish Press, an Orthodox Jewish weekly. Many nationally distributed ethnic newspapers are based in Brooklyn. Over 60 ethnic groups, writing in 42 languages, publish some 300 non-English language magazines and newspapers in New York City. Among them the quarterly "L'Idea", a bilingual magazine printed in Italian and English since 1974. In addition, many newspapers published abroad, such as The Daily Gleaner and The Star of Jamaica, are available in Brooklyn. Our Time Press published weekly by DBG Media covers the Village of Brooklyn with a motto of "The Local paper with the Global View".

Television

The City of New York has an official television station, run by the NYC Media Group, which features programming based in Brooklyn. Brooklyn Community Access Television is the borough's public access channel.

The annual Coney Island Mermaid Parade (mid-to-late June) is a costume-and-float parade.

Coney Island also hosts the annual Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest (July 4).

The annual Labor Day Carnival (also known as the Labor Day Parade or West Indian Day Parade) takes place along Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights.

Parks and other attractions

Brooklyn Botanic Garden: located adjacent to Prospect Park is the 52-acre (21 ha) botanical garden, which includes a cherry tree esplanade, a one-acre (0.4 ha) rose garden, a Japanese hill and pond garden, a fragrance garden, a water lily pond esplanade, several conservatories, a rock garden, a native flora garden, a tree collection, and children's gardens and discovery exhibits.

Coney Island developed as a playground for the rich in the early 1900s, but it grew as one of America's first amusement grounds and attracted crowds from all over New York. The Cyclone rollercoaster, built in 1927, is on the National Register of Historic Places. The 1920 Wonder Wheel and other rides are still operational. Coney Island went into decline in the 1970s, but has undergone a renaissance.

Floyd Bennett Field: the first municipal airport in New York City and long closed for operations, is now part of the National Park System. Many of the historic hangars and runways are still extant. Nature trails and diverse habitats are found within the park, including salt marsh and a restored area of shortgrass prairie that was once widespread on the Hempstead Plains.

Green-Wood Cemetery, founded by the social reformer Henry Evelyn Pierrepont in 1838, is an early Rural cemetery. It is the burial ground of many notable New Yorkers.

Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge: a unique Federal wildlife refuge straddling the Brooklyn-Queens border, part of Gateway National Recreation Area

New York Transit Museum displays historical artifacts of Greater New York's subway, commuter rail, and bus systems; it is located at Court Street, a former Independent Subway System station in Brooklyn Heights on the Fulton Street Line.

Prospect Park is a public park in central Brooklyn encompassing 585 acres (2.37 km²). The park was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, who created Manhattan's Central Park. Attractions include the Long Meadow, a 90-acre (36 ha) meadow, the Picnic House, which houses offices and a hall that can accommodate parties with up to 175 guests; Litchfield Villa, Prospect Park Zoo, the Boathouse, housing a visitors center and the first urban Audubon Center; Brooklyn's only lake, covering 60 acres (24 ha); the Prospect Park Bandshell that hosts free outdoor concerts in the summertime; and various sports and fitness activities including seven baseball fields. Prospect Park hosts a popular annual Halloween Parade.

Brooklyn's major professional sports teams are the NBA's Brooklyn Nets and the NHL's New York Islanders. The Nets and Islanders moved into the borough in 2012 and 2015, respectively, and both play their home games at Barclays Center in Prospect Heights. Previously, the Nets had played in Uniondale, New York and in New Jersey, while the Islanders had played in Uniondale since their inception.

Brooklyn once had a National Football League team named the Brooklyn Lions in the 1920s, who played at Ebbets Field.

Transportation

Public transport

About 57 percent of all households in Brooklyn were households without automobiles. The citywide rate is 55 percent in New York City.

Atlantic Avenue - Barclays Center

Broadway Junction

DeKalb Avenue

Jay Street - MetroTech

Coney Island - Stillwell Avenue

Proposed New York City Subway lines never built include a line along Nostrand or Utica Avenues to Marine Park, as well as a subway line to Spring Creek.

Brooklyn was once served by an extensive network of streetcars, many of which were replaced by the public bus network that covers the entire borough. There is also daily express bus service into Manhattan. New York's famous yellow cabs also provide transportation in Brooklyn, although they are less numerous in the borough. There are three commuter rail stations in Brooklyn: East New York, Nostrand Avenue, and Atlantic Terminal, the terminus of the Atlantic Branch of the Long Island Rail Road. The terminal is located near the Atlantic Avenue - Barclays Center subway station, with ten connecting subway services.

A streetcar line connecting Brooklyn with Queens was proposed by the city in February 2016, with the planned timeline calling for service to begin around 2024.

Brooklyn is connected to Manhattan by three bridges, the Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Williamsburg bridges; a vehicular tunnel, the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel (formerly the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel); and several subway tunnels. The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge links Brooklyn with the more suburban borough of Staten Island. Though much of its border is on land, Brooklyn shares several water crossings with Queens, including the Kosciuszko Bridge (part of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway), the Pulaski Bridge, and the JJ Byrne Memorial Bridge, all of which carry traffic over Newtown Creek, and the Marine Parkway Bridge connecting Brooklyn to the Rockaway Peninsula.

Brooklyn was long a major shipping port, especially at the Brooklyn Army Terminal in Sunset Park. Most container ship cargo operations have shifted to the New Jersey side of New York Harbor, while the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in Red Hook is a focal point for New York's growing cruise industry. The Queen Mary 2, one of the world's largest ocean liners, was designed specifically to fit under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, the longest suspension bridge in the United States. She makes regular ports of call at the Red Hook terminal on her transatlantic crossings from Southampton, England.

Brooklyn Public Library

As an independent system, separate from the New York and Queens public library systems, the Brooklyn Public Library offers thousands of public programs, millions of books, and use of more than 850 free Internet-accessible computers. It also has books and periodicals in all the major languages spoken in Brooklyn, including English, Russian, Chinese, Spanish, Hebrew, and Haitian Kreyòl, as well as French, Yiddish, Hindi, Bengali, Polish, Italian, and Arabic. The Central Library is a landmarked building facing Grand Army Plaza.

There are 58 library branches, placing one within a half mile of each Brooklyn resident. In addition to its specialized Business Library in Brooklyn Heights, the Library is preparing to construct its new Visual & Performing Arts Library (VPA) in the BAM Cultural District, which will focus on the link between new and emerging arts and technology and house traditional and digital collections. It will provide access and training to arts applications and technologies not widely available to the public. The collections will include the subjects of art, theater, dance, music, film, photography and architecture. A special archive will house the records and history of Brooklyn's arts communities.

Partnerships with districts of foreign cities

Images for kids

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Brooklyn is the most populous borough of New York City, with a Census-estimated 2,636,735 residents in 2015. It borders the borough of Queens at the southwestern end of Long Island. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, the most populous county in the U.S.