Residency Training Program in General Pediatrics
Introduction to Brooklyn — a great place to be
Background
The Dutch chartered the settlement of Brooklyn in 1657. In 1898, Brooklyn became a borough of Greater New York City, but without stubbornly losing the identity it maintains today - that of a great energetic, exciting city in its own right. Much of Brooklyn's experience is unique. Brooklyn has had its own industries and philanthropists, shipbuilders, oil refiners, iron masters, brewers and others. These people have shaped the older neighborhoods and did much to bring such institutions as the Brooklyn Museum, the Public Library, the Academy of Music, Polytechnic Institute, the Long Island Historical Society, and Pratt Institute to this borough. Recreational opportunities in Brooklyn are also superb. In more recent years, Brooklyn has increasingly become a destination for writers, artists, performers, designers, tech specialists, entrepreneurs and many types of professionals while continuing to be a portal of entry into the Unites States for immigrants from throughout the world. All together, this has amplified the energy, excitement and pulse of Brooklyn. Thus, Brooklyn is a vibrant and dynamic place with all the institutions that make for a variety of cultural and recreational opportunities in a self-sufficient urban center, with easy access to everything else available throughout the rest of New York City.
Housing
"Unrivaled diversity" is the only fitting description for housing choices in Brooklyn. Unlike Queens or the Bronx, Brooklyn was a city before it became a borough. As a city, it had its wealthy industrialists who built substantial mansions, brownstones and townhouses in areas such as Brooklyn Heights, Carroll Gardens, Park Slope, Clinton Hill, Crown Heights, and Prospect-Lefferts Gardens. A middle class inhabited the smaller brownstones that predominate within the borough. There are also many historic survivals, with pre-Civil War frame houses and early 19th-century Federal houses among them.
Of course there are other alternatives. Some may prefer the spacious, well kept, "turn key" homes of Flatbush built in the 1920s and 1930s or the Victorian homes of Ditmas Park and Kensington. Here the best of the homes are substantial, elegant six to eight bedroom properties on tree-shaded lots. Midwood also has many homes of this type, though generally smaller. Sheepshead Bay, Manhattan Beach, Mill Basin, and Canarsie offer modern split-level homes, small and large one-family houses, two-family houses, and lavish waterfront properties. Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, Sheepshead Bay and much of Midwood offer a mix of private homes and apartment buildings. Co-operative apartments are available in most areas as there is active conversion of older rental buildings. Many rental apartments are also available. Now going through a building boom, new homes and apartment buildings are being constructed throughout Brooklyn in new developments as well as in gentrified communities and an extensive building boom of apartments (rentals, co-ops and condos) remains in progress in many neighborhoods including here in East Flatbush.
Education
Many newcomers are surprised at the rich educational resources that Brooklyn offers. The borough has a wealth of educational institutions and an impressive record of academic achievement among its students. In broad historic terms, the building of public schools followed and reflected the opening up of new sections of the borough as the population moved into them. Today, in cohesive, stable areas - Bay Ridge, Flatbush, Midwood, Bensonhurst, Marine Park, and Sheepshead Bay among them - a long tradition of superior public education continues to be strong. In these areas, as well as "brownstone restoration" areas, which include Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights, the presence of many young professionals ensures that parents play an active, supportive role in their local schools. Private schools also have a significant presence in Brooklyn, especially in the Brooklyn Heights-Cobble Hill area. Catholic parochial schools and schools that emphasize the Jewish heritage are also numerous.
Higher education is particularly well served in Brooklyn by the presence of 11 accredited colleges. Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute now the NYU Tandon School of Engineering founded in 1853, has played a very substantial role in the development of many of today's key technologies and is now a partner in the development of Downstate's Biotechnology Center. The Pratt Institute, founded in 1878, emphasizes a science, architecture and engineering curriculum. Long Island University's main campus is in Brooklyn. Brooklyn Law School has its campus in downtown Brooklyn. St. Joseph's College places emphasis on early childhood education. The City University of New York operates Brooklyn College, a four year school on a 45 acre campus in Flatbush. There are also several community colleges: Kingsborough Community College, Medgar Evers College, and New York City Technical College. And, of course, the State University of New York operates the Health Science Center at Brooklyn (formerly Downstate Medical Center) with its Graduate Program, School of Public Health and Colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Public Health, and Health Related Professions located in the geographic center of the borough.
Parks and Recreation
Of the five boroughs of New York City, Brooklyn has the most shoreline - over 200 miles of it - and much of that bounty of fresh air and open ocean front is protected within the Gateway National Recreation Area and the immense Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. In addition, there are 5,958 acres of public parks and playgrounds for the enjoyment of young and old alike.
After designing Manhattan's Central Park, in 1866, Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted completed the plans for their masterpiece, Brooklyn's Prospect Park. In addition to meadows and glades, it offers areas of rising, rocky, tree-clad terrain, a 60-acre lake, and an open-air bandshell for concerts and recitals. Among the activities available are baseball, football, soccer, bicycling, boating, horseback riding, ice-skating, novice skiing, and sledding. The adjacent Brooklyn Parade Grounds offers large level areas within which are many ball fields (where children and adolescent's soccer teams have replaced the baseball teams of the past), indoor/outdoor tennis courts, handball and paddleball courts, basketball courts and a jogging track. The Prospect Park Zoo completed a major renovation and conversion into a modern open-space children's zoo. The Brooklyn Botanic Garden is across from Prospect Park and offers 50 acres of carefully selected and tended plantings, with three Japanese Gardens, a Shakespeare garden, an arboretum, a tropical conservatory, multiple greenhouses and a pavilion in which several climates and ecosystems are recreated.
Jamaica Bay Park and Wildlife Refuge contains thousands of acres of sheltered bay, marshlands, and hundreds of channels and creeks. One of New York's largest parks is the Salt Marsh and Wildlife Preserve at Marine Park. Of course, beaches and marinas abound given Brooklyn's extensive coast line. Best known are Brighton Beach, Manhattan Beach and Coney Island. The famous and revitalized amusement area is home to the New York Aquarium, the nation's oldest, featuring a wide range of contemporary exhibits and MCU Stadium, home to the Brooklyn Cyclones minor league baseball team. Virtually all outdoor and beach activities imaginable can be enjoyed within the miles of park and shore land including horseback riding, sailing, jet skiing, deep sea fishing, to name a few. Throughout the borough, smaller parks within neighborhoods provide local recreational opportunities. Among these are waterfront parks such as Shore Park in Bay Ridge, offering spectacular views of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and New York harbor, and the Esplanade in Brooklyn Heights, with its unparalleled panoramic view of the lower Manhattan skyline. Brooklyn is also home to two large golf courses at Marine Park and Dyker Heights Park. Then there are also high school athletic facilities, open to neighborhood residents after school hours.
Cultural Resources
As befits a borough that is older and larger than many of the nation's top cities, Brooklyn is rich in long-established museums, performing arts centers, and other cultural institutions, 180 of them. Best known among these are probably the Brooklyn Museum and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The Museum near the Botanic Garden, occupying a magnificent Neo-Classical building which recently completed a major modernization and expansion, has an unrivaled Egyptian collection as well as extensive and highly regarded Far Eastern Art, Islamic Art and anthropological holdings. The Brooklyn Academy of Music has highlighted the performing arts for over a century. Its stage has featured such internationally famous artists as Enrico Caruso, Geraldine Farrar, Rachmaninov, Kreisler, Heifetz, and Casals to name a few. The Academy is also home to the Brooklyn Philharmonic. Film programs and theatrical performances are also highlighted at the Academy, known to Brooklynites as BAM. The Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College is a second major forum for live performances presenting high quality programs and complementing the Academy by hosting many smaller and newer performance groups. Music and drama is available at many more venues including Bargemusic at Fulton Landing, The Brooklyn Conservatory of Music in Park Slope and at St. Ann's Warehouse in Dumbo. There are also summer concerts in the parks throughout the borough. The Children's Museum has a unique collection of over 50,000 objects, and it has been on the forefront of developing participatory environments that encourage "hands on" learning experiences. Other specialized museums include the New Muse Community Museum, the Harbor Defense Museum of New York City, the National Maritime Historical Society/Fulton Ferry Museum, and the New York City Public Transit Museum. Brooklyn also has several rapidly increasing number of art galleries, including the Pratt Institute Gallery.
Shopping and Dining
Brooklyn shopping facilities fall into three broad categories. There are the neighborhood convenience stores providing everyday necessities. Local commercial areas consisting of "shopping avenues" have stores that sell everything from newspapers to groceries to electronics to appliances to designer clothing to building supplies, etc. Regional shopping centers such as downtown Brooklyn with the Fulton Mall and the Atlantic Center and the recently opened City Point mall, the Triangle Mall at the Nostrand and Flatbush Avenue Junction housing the nation's largest Target store, and in southern Brooklyn the Kings Plaza shopping mall with over 200 stores have shops that sell just about everything one could want. Gateway at Spring Creek is Brooklyn's newest shopping scene addition featuring multiple megastores. Meanwhile, the country's largest IKEA opened on the shore in Red Hook with an exceptional Fairway culinary market nearby and other developments planned.
The most noticeable characteristics of Brooklyn shopping are the late hours that stores keep and the wide range of goods, dining, clubs and pubs available in many commercial areas. Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights entrances the most casual browser; 86th Street in Bay Ridge will whet the appetite of all who enjoy the fine meats and fish of Scandinavia, Italian, Middle-Eastern, and Greek food; while browsing antique stores on Atlantic Avenue or clothes shopping on Kings Highway, those yearning for Middle Eastern foods such as hummus, falafel, shish-kebabs or baklava may be tempted; 13th Avenue in Borough Park will prove irresistible to those seeking true Jewish and kosher delicacies; Smith Street and Court Street in Cobble Hill/Gowanus are the home to many new trendy restaurants and bistros with Bedford Avenue and surrounding streets in Williamsburg having grown substantially in trendy popularity too; in Flatbush, the shops on Church Avenue serve West Indian and Caribbean delights such as roti, jerk chicken and curry; in Bensonhurst the stores along 18th Avenue will prove a gourmet's dream to all who like Italian food; on Kings Highway in Midwood or on Brighton Beach Avenue, under the "el" (the elevated train), Little Odessa will satisfy the cravings of anyone desiring Russian treats and trinkets; for those who like their fish fresh from the sea, Sheepshead Bay will provide fulfillment; and in Brooklyn there are even two Asian centers rivaling Manhattan's Chinatown, one on 8th Avenue in Sunset Park and the other on Avenue U in Gravesend. In summary, when it comes to shopping and dining, Brooklyn is a borough of diverse ethnic groups- catering to all tastes, considerable variety and availability of products, and convenience in hours and location.
Transportation
Until 1883, it wasn't easy to get to Brooklyn. In 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge, a marvel of design, grace, and durability, was completed. It was joined by the Williamsburg Bridge in 1903 and the Manhattan Bridge in 1912. The more recent Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel (1950), Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (1964), as well as a number of subway linkages and bus routes has added to the range of options that today's residents have for leaving from or returning to Brooklyn. In 2016 NYC established a new ferry system linking several areas in Brooklyn and Manhattan by water through NY Harbor and the East River.
Travel within Brooklyn is generally convenient and easy. Ten major subway lines fan out from a core in downtown Brooklyn and stretch out like extended fingers into the outer reaches of the borough. A few lines extend eastward to Queens while most extend northwards into Manhattan, taking riders from lower to mid Manhattan, upper Manhattan, the Bronx and Queens. Brooklyn also has extensive local bus service which extends into neighboring boroughs, as well as a system of express bus services to Manhattan. Nearly 60 different local bus routes and half a dozen express bus routes form a readily accessible and extensive network which criss-crosses the borough.
Yellow and Green taxi's, car services, and app=based services such as Uber, Lyft and VIA are readily available. Automobile travel to Queens, Long Island, Manhattan and New Jersey is made simple via a number of expressways, highways, parkways and boulevards. For example, the Belt Parkway, starting in Northeastern Queens, passes along the Brooklyn shoreline offering unmatched views of New York Bay, the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, and the Statue of Liberty. Also, there is the Jackie Robinson (formerly Interboro) Parkway, Ocean Parkway, the Prospect Expressway, and a number of other boulevards that stretch across the borough.
Some of the content of the preceding text was derived from Brooklyn, More than a Borough - A City in Itself, a publication formerly provided by the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce.