Meet the Black Brooklynites who defined New York City’s most populous borough through their search for social justice Before it was a borough, Brooklyn was our nation’s third largest city. Its free Black community attracted people from all walks of life—businesswomen, church leaders, laborers, and writers—who sought to grow their city in a radical anti-slavery vision. The residents of neighborhoods like DUMBO, Fort Greene, and Williamsburg organized and agitated for social justice. They did so even as their own freedom was threatened by systemic and structural racism, risking their safety for the sake of their city. Brooklynites recovers the lives of these remarkable citizens and considers their lasting impact on New York City’s most populous borough. This cultural and social history is told through four ordinary families from Brooklyn’s nineteenth-century free Black community: the Crogers, the Hodges, the Wilsons, and the Gloucesters. The book illustrates the depth and scope of their activism, cementing Brooklyn’s place in the history of social justice movements. Their lives offer valuable lessons on freedom, democracy, and family—both the ones we’re born with and the ones we choose. Their powerful stories continue to resonate today, as borough residents fill the streets in search of a more just city. This is a story of land, home, labor, of New Yorkers past, and the legacy they left us. This is the story of Brooklyn.

"Brooklyn is the conscience of New York. While Manhattan tears everything down and changes everything, Brooklyn does a similar thing, but fails miserably at it. It is a crazy quilt of a place. A mongrel place of sorts. It mixes old and modern in a haphazard way. It represents a tiny microcosm of the world-functional utopia." -Jonathan Lethem A complex and quixotic urban animal found ranging across southeast New York City, the Brooklynite has obtained a sort of mythological status, representing the "you tawkin' to me?" attitude for which the city is world-renowned. For over three years, writer Anthony LaSala and photographer Seth Kushner trekked tirelessly across the borough, documenting these charismatic characters in The Brooklynites, a collection of images, interviews, and essays. Kushner and LaSala, native Brooklynites themselves, sought out the famous and the nameless, current residents and former inhabitants, providing a profoundly comprehensive portrait of both the metropolis and its denizens. Featuring the likes of Paul Auster, Spike Lee, Steve Buscemi, Rosie Perez, Sufjan Stevens, John Turturro, Casey Spooner, Steve Schirripa, Matisyahu, and Jonathan Lethem-as well as local heroes-The Brooklynites features figures from the widely diverse neighborhoods of the city's most populous borough: Brooklyn Heights, Bay Ridge, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Bensonhurst, Boerum Hill, Brighton Beach, Brownsville, Bushwick, Canarsie, Carroll Gardens, Clinton Hill, Coney Island, DUMBO, Dyker Heights, East New York, Flatbush, Flatlands, Fort Greene, Gowanus, Gravesend, Greenpoint, Manhattan Beach, Marine Park, Midwood, Mill Basin, Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Red Hook, Sheepshead Bay, Sunset Park, and Williamsburg. With a population of 2.5 million people, Brooklyn is one of the most celebrated locales in all the world. Its landmarks (The Brooklyn Bridge, Greenwood Cemetery), renowned neighborhoods (Coney Island, Park Slope), history (The Brooklyn Dodgers) and institutions (Brooklyn Academy of Music, Prospect Park) are recognized in every corner of the globe while its stories and legends have been recounted in hundreds of famous novels (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Motherless Brooklyn, Last Exit to Brooklyn), television shows (The Cosby Show), theater productions (BKLYN the musical) and films (Saturday Night Fever, Crooklyn). The Brooklynites gives readers an all-inclusive tour of the "home to everyone from everywhere": Brooklyn, New York.

From Bedford-Stuyvesant to Williamsburg, Brooklyn's historic names are emblems of American culture and history. These pages take readers on a stroll through the streets and places of this thriving metropolis to reveal the borough's textured past. Over 500 of Brooklyn's most prominent place names are organized alphabetically by region. Photos & maps.

"Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua traces Brooklyn's transformation from a freedom village into a residential commuter satellite that supplied cheap labor to the city and the region.".

Lavishly illustrated with prints, paintings, memorabilia, and objects from The Brooklyn Historical Society's unparalleled collection, Brooklyn! will bring every reader closer to the Brooklyn of legend and fact.

The never-before-told story of Brooklyn’s vibrant and forgotten queer history, from the mid-1850s up to the present day. ***An ALA GLBT Round Table Over the Rainbow 2019 Top Ten Selection*** ***NAMED ONE OF THE BEST LGBTQ BOOKS OF 2019 by Harper's Bazaar*** "A romantic, exquisite history of gay culture." —Kirkus Reviews, starred “[A] boisterous, motley new history...entertaining and insightful.” —The New York Times Book Review Hugh Ryan’s When Brooklyn Was Queer is a groundbreaking exploration of the LGBT history of Brooklyn, from the early days of Walt Whitman in the 1850s up through the queer women who worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard during World War II, and beyond. No other book, movie, or exhibition has ever told this sweeping story. Not only has Brooklyn always lived in the shadow of queer Manhattan neighborhoods like Greenwich Village and Harlem, but there has also been a systematic erasure of its queer history—a great forgetting. Ryan is here to unearth that history for the first time. In intimate, evocative, moving prose he discusses in new light the fundamental questions of what history is, who tells it, and how we can only make sense of ourselves through its retelling; and shows how the formation of the Brooklyn we know today is inextricably linked to the stories of the incredible people who created its diverse neighborhoods and cultures. Through them, When Brooklyn Was Queer brings Brooklyn’s queer past to life, and claims its place as a modern classic.

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A celebration of Brooklyn features more than one hundred original articles that tap into the life of "America's Hometown."