DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN
Geographic Setting
Bounded by Schermerhorn Street to the south and York Street to the north, with its western edge traced along Cadman Plaza and Court Street, and its irregular eastern perimeter running south along Navy Street to Flushing Avenue, east to Prince Street, south to Myrtle Avenue, west along Ashland Place to DeKalb Avenue, and then north again to Flushing Avenue, Downtown Brooklyn forms the civic and commercial heart of the borough—a dense, dynamic landscape where the urban fabric of Manhattan’s sister city still beats with history, ambition, and constant reinvention.
The neighborhood occupies a ridge between the Brooklyn Navy Yard and Boerum Hill, bridging the East River waterfront to the cultural corridor of Fort Greene. Once defined by its government buildings, department stores, and elevated train lines, Downtown Brooklyn today is an engine of vertical modernity—home to residential towers, universities, courts, transit hubs, and theaters. Its main arteries—Fulton Street, Flatbush Avenue, Jay Street, and Court Street—pulse with a mix of old and new: brownstone-era churches beside glass skyscrapers, family-owned jewelers beside tech startups, and street vendors beneath luxury condos.
From the landscaped promenades of Cadman Plaza Park to the spires of Brooklyn Borough Hall and the campus of Long Island University, the neighborhood encapsulates Brooklyn’s identity as both borough and city—a place where commerce, culture, and civic life have intertwined since the 19th century.
Etymology and Origins
The name Downtown Brooklyn emerged organically in the mid-19th century, when the City of Brooklyn—then independent from New York—established its municipal core here. Prior to that, this area was part of the original Dutch village of Breuckelen, founded in the 1640s along the ferry route to Manhattan. Its central hilltop location, known as “Brooklyn Heights Plateau,” made it an ideal site for public buildings and marketplaces as the town expanded inland from the East River.
After the Revolutionary War, the area became the administrative center of Kings County. The construction of Brooklyn Borough Hall (1848), originally the City Hall of Brooklyn, formalized its civic role. Streets were widened, cobbled, and lined with banks, law offices, and municipal agencies. By the 1850s, horse-drawn omnibuses and ferries connected Downtown Brooklyn to Manhattan’s South Street piers, cementing its role as a bustling counterpart to the island across the river.
The Neighborhood
19th Century: Civic Ambition and Commercial Rise
During the 1800s, Downtown Brooklyn evolved into a self-contained metropolis—the third-largest city in America by the time of its consolidation with New York in 1898. Fulton Street, then Brooklyn’s Broadway, teemed with dry-goods emporiums, theaters, and restaurants. Institutions like Abraham & Straus (1865), Loeser’s Department Store (1887), and the Dime Savings Bank (1859) turned the area into one of the nation’s premier shopping districts.
Civic grandeur matched commercial success. Brooklyn Borough Hall stood as the city’s neoclassical centerpiece, surrounded by the Kings County Supreme Court, the Surrogate’s Court, and the Post Office and Federal Building (1892). Public squares such as Cadman Plaza and Columbus Park created open-air forums for parades and protests, while Bridge Street and Sands Street thrived as gateways to the Brooklyn Bridge, completed in 1883.
Architecturally, the neighborhood embodied late-19th-century eclecticism: brownstone Italianate facades beside Beaux-Arts marble and early cast-iron storefronts. Churches such as St. Ann & the Holy Trinity (1847) and Our Lady of Lebanon (1844) reflected both faith and civic pride. The nearby Academy of Music (1859), on Montague Street, made Brooklyn a cultural rival to Manhattan long before the era of the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).
Early–Mid 20th Century: The Borough’s Downtown
The early 20th century saw Downtown Brooklyn cement its reputation as the borough’s civic and transportation hub. The expansion of the New York City Subway—with major interchanges at Borough Hall, Jay Street, and Hoyt–Schermerhorn Streets—turned the area into one of the most accessible districts in the city. The population boom following the Brooklyn Bridge (1883) and Manhattan Bridge (1909) integrated the borough into Greater New York’s economy, and Downtown Brooklyn flourished as a retail and office district.
By the 1920s, Flatbush Avenue Extension connected the area southward to Grand Army Plaza, while the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower (1929)—Brooklyn’s tallest building for eight decades—rose as its Art Deco crown. The intersection of Fulton and Bond Streets pulsed with commerce, department stores, and movie palaces such as the Paramount and the Brooklyn Fox Theatre, where performers like Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Frank Sinatra once graced the stage.
The mid-century era, however, brought both renewal and disruption. Postwar suburbanization and the rise of automobile culture led to a decline in local retail. Urban renewal projects under Robert Moses transformed the neighborhood’s landscape: entire blocks of 19th-century buildings were razed to make way for Cadman Plaza Park (1950s) and the Brooklyn Civic Center, which housed new courthouses and government offices. While these projects modernized infrastructure, they also erased much of the fine-grained urban texture that once connected Downtown Brooklyn to its residential neighbors.
Late 20th Century: Decline, Institutions, and the Seeds of Revival
By the 1970s–1980s, Downtown Brooklyn had entered a period of flux. The department stores closed or consolidated, leaving behind a mix of discount retailers and office tenants. Yet the area remained vital as a center of government, transit, and education. The presence of institutions such as Brooklyn Law School, Polytechnic Institute (now NYU Tandon), LIU Brooklyn, and Borough of Manhattan Community College’s Brooklyn branch sustained daily life and commerce.
Despite economic challenges, the neighborhood’s proximity to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade and the resurgence of nearby Boerum Hill and Fort Greene hinted at its potential. The Fulton Mall, established in 1977, sought to preserve retail life through pedestrianization—a controversial experiment that eventually succeeded in maintaining the area’s commercial vitality, especially among Black- and immigrant-owned businesses.
Meanwhile, cultural anchors like The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) and the Mark Morris Dance Group in adjacent Fort Greene set the stage for a larger renaissance. Artists and entrepreneurs saw opportunity in the aging warehouses and office buildings, transforming them into studios, cafés, and creative spaces.
21st Century: Renaissance and Vertical Transformation
The Downtown Brooklyn Redevelopment Plan (2004) ignited one of the most dramatic urban transformations in modern New York. Zoning changes encouraged high-density residential and mixed-use development, resulting in a skyline of glass towers rising over the old civic core. Buildings such as The Hub, AVA DoBro, and Brooklyn Point reshaped the skyline once dominated by the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower.
Today, Downtown Brooklyn is a nexus of education, technology, culture, and commerce. The Downtown Brooklyn Partnership promotes the area as a hub for “Tech Triangle” innovation alongside DUMBO and the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The district now houses more than 60,000 residents, a population unimaginable just two decades ago. Cafés and galleries fill ground floors once occupied by fabric shops; plazas like Willoughby Square Park and Albee Square provide public gathering spaces; and the Fulton Mall remains one of New York’s most diverse and successful retail corridors.
Cultural landmarks—BAM, the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA), and the Center for Fiction—anchor the area’s creative life. The historic courthouses, Borough Hall, and the Dime Savings Bank continue to stand as architectural counterpoints to the new vertical city rising around them.
Spirit and Legacy
Downtown Brooklyn’s legacy is that of Brooklyn itself—a city within a city, continually reshaping its identity while preserving the civic heart that made it great. From colonial village to independent metropolis, from retail capital to residential skyline, it has absorbed every wave of change without losing its role as the borough’s crossroads.
New York City
Use this custom Google map to explore where every neighborhood in all five boroughs of New York City is located.
The Five Boroughs
One of New York City’s unique qualities is its organization in to 5 boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, and Staten Island. These boroughs are part pragmatic administrative districts, and part vestiges of the region’s past. Each borough is an entire county in New York State - in fact, Brooklyn is, officially, Kings County, while Staten Island is, officially Richmond County. But that’s not the whole story …
Initially, New York City was located on the southern tip of Manhattan (now the Financial District) that was once the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. Across the East River, another city was rising: Brooklyn. In time, the city planners realized that unification between the rapidly rising cities would create commercial and industrial opportunities - through streamlined administration of the region.
So powerful was the pull of unification between New York and Brooklyn that three more counties were pulled into the unification: The Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island. And on January 1, 1898, the City of New York unified two cities and three counties into one Greater City of New York - containing the five boroughs we know today.
But because each borough developed differently and distinctly until unification, their neighborhoods likewise uniquely developed. Today, there are nearly 390 neighborhoods, each with their own histories, cultures, cuisines, and personalities - and each with residents who are fiercely proud of their corner of The Big Apple.
