1. In 1797, Brooklyn’s population was a lean 1,603.
2. On July 4, 2001 the unimposing-looking Japanese competitive eater Takeru Kobayashi ate 50 hot dogs in 12 minutes at the annual Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island, completely annihilating the previous record of 25.
3. 38 percent of Brooklyn residents were born outside of the United States.
4. Rappers Jay-Z, DMX, Busta Rhymes, and Notorious BIG all spent time attending downtown Brooklyn’s George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School.
5. In “Annie Hall,” Woody Allen’s character Alvy Singer lives under the Thunderbolt, an early Coney Island rollercoaster. There was actually a house directly under the Thunderbolt: it was built as the Kensington Hotel in 1895, and in 1925 the coaster was built on top of it.
6. Before settling on “Dodgers” in 1932, Brooklyn’s professional baseball team went through seven different names.
7. With around 2.6 million residents, Brooklyn would be the fourth largest city in the country if it were considered independent of New York City.
8. It’s also the most populated borough of New York. Queens is second (2.3 million), followed by Manhattan (1.6 million), the Bronx (1.4 million), and Staten Island (.5 million).
9. Pinball was banned in New York City, and by extension Brooklyn, between the 1940 and the 1970s. Mayor Fiorello La Guardia issued the ban, claiming the game robbed school kids “of nickels and dimes given to them as lunch money."
10. The first ever building to be equipped with air conditioning was 1040 Metropolitan Ave. in Williamsburg.
11. Landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux designed both Central Park and Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. Central Park is certainly better known; however, they’re said to have considered Prospect Park their masterpiece.
12. Turn-of-the-century scam artists George C. Parker, William McCloundy, Reed C. Waddell, and Charles and Fred Gondorf have all been accused of the same audacious crime: attempting to sell the Brooklyn Bridge to gullible onlookers.
13. Midwood’s Di Fara Pizza has been called the best pizza place in New York by the likes of Anthony Bourdain, New York Magazine and Zagats. No wonder, since all the pizzas are hand-made by chef and owner Domenico DeMarco.
14. Hot dog chain Nathan’s Famous got it’s start in Coney Island in 1916. Early on Nathan’s had items ranging from chow mein to frog’s legs on the menu.
15. In 1884, about a year after the Brooklyn Bridge’s opening, famed circus owner P. T. Barnum led a parade of 21 elephants over the bridge to help quell doubts about the structure’s integrity.
16. Brooklyn’s Ditmas Park neighborhood is known for its 127 large Victorian and Queen Anne-style houses. When the neighborhood was built between 1902 and 1914 the developer instructed that no two of the houses should look the same.
17. Brooklyn was originally a separate city than New York, and didn’t officially join the other boroughs until 1898.
18. In recent years, Williamsburg has become synonymous with hipster culture. However, the neighborhood also has a significant Hasidic community of some 73,000.
19. Brooklyn’s Flatbush National Bank issued the first credit card in 1947.
20. Brooklyn was originally made up of six Dutch towns during the 17th century: Gravesend, Breuckelen, New Amersfoort, Midwout, Utrecht and Boswijck. Breuckelen would eventually evolve in common English as “Brooklyn.”
21. Back in the 1840s some folks thought that Coney Island was too naturally beautiful to be developed and should be preserved as a nature sanctuary.
22. Twizzlers were initially developed at Brooklyn’s National Licorice Company.
23. Before breaking out on Saturday Night Live, Eddie Murphy was raised in Bushwick, where he started writing and performing at 15.
24. Although the Brooklyn Bridge is much more famous, the Williamsburg Bridge, completed in 1903, is actually longer by 4.5 feet.
25. The first ever Teddy Bear was stitched in Brooklyn by shop owners Morris and Rose Michtom in 1902. The Mitchoms were inspired by a “Washington Post” cartoon that depicted then-President Theodore Roosevelt on a hunting trip.
27. Fort Greene arts institution and venue the Brooklyn Academy of Music was founded in 1861. However, the original venue, located on Montague Street, burned to the ground in 1903. The incident was caught by an early film camera, and released by BAM on YouTube in 2012.
28. In 1861, First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln attended one of the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s very first performances: the opera Il Giuramento by Saverio Mercadante.
29. Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill Tunnel beneath Atlantic Avenue was the world’s first subway tunnel. It was built between 1844 and 1845, and was closed in 1861. It wasn’t “rediscovered” until 1981, when a teen named Robert Diamond crawled down a manhole to enter it and eventually began giving tours.
30. In Brooklyn, as in all of New York, it’s illegal for business owners not to provide a spittoon. It also must be cleaned every day.
31. Peregrine falcons are known to nest in the towers of the Brooklyn Bridge. The once critically-endangered peregrine is the fastest animal on earth, capable of speeds up to 200 mph. The bridge towers make for great spots for the birds to scout out their prey.
32. Roughly 52.6% of Brooklyn residents are women.
33. It’s called Governor’s Island for a reason. The Brooklyn-adjacent 172 acre island is completely surrounded by water. But up until the Revolutionary War the area between Brooklyn and the island used to be walkable at low tide. Apparently, cows were grazed in the channel.
34. Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field famously housed the Dodgers between 1913 and 1957. Fewer people know that Ebbets was actually used for football as well: professional teams the New York Brickley Giants, the Brooklyn Lions and the Brooklyn Tigers all used the field at one point.
35. The first major battle of the Revolutionary War, the Battle of Long Island, took place in Brooklyn. The battle occurred on August 27, 1776 and was the largest battle of the entire war in terms of army sizes.
36. When the Brooklyn Bridge first opened in 1883, it cost a single cent to walk across on foot, five cents on horseback and ten cents for a wagon. These days, driving, riding a bike, and walking across the bridge are all free.
37. In June, the Morbid Anatomy Museum, dedicated to “exploring the intersections of death, beauty, and that which falls between the cracks” opened in the Gowanus neighborhood.
38. Throughout Brooklyn there are buildings that look more or less normal from the outside, but inside are completely barren: they’re used as ventilation and maintenance areas for the subway system.
39. Brooklyn used to be home to a booming marijuana biz. In 1951, roughly 17,000 pounds of the green was grown in the borough.
40. Prior to Ebbets Field, Park Slope was home to Washington Park, one of the oldest professional baseball stadiums in the country. It seated 2,500 and had standing room for an additional 2,000.
41. In 1917, famed French stage and film actress Sarah Bernhardt performed six times in three days at the Brooklyn Academy of Music at the age of 73. At the time, Bernhardt had just one leg, having lost the other to gangrene in 1915 after a stage accident.
42. The Carroll Gardens neighborhood was originally just considered part of “South Brooklyn.” The name was changed to Carroll Gardens, after the lesser-known founding father Charles Carroll, during the mid twentieth century to give the neighborhood a boost.
43. Riders of the Q Train may (or may not) be familiar with the “flip-book art” on the subway wall entering Manhattan that uses slits in the wall and the train’s motion to create the effect of animation. The cool piece of public art was created by artist and filmmaker Bill Brand during the 1970s, but due to a lack of maintenance, was unviewable for years until it was restored in 2008.
44. Many people who worked on the Brooklyn Bridge, including head civil engineer Washington Roebling suffered from “the bends” due to working long hours in underwater caissons. The decompression sickness creates problematic “air bubbles” in blood and body tissues.
45. One of the least known neighborhoods in Brooklyn is the Coney Island community Sea Gate. The gated 832-house beachside neighborhood has two entrances.
46. In terms of sheer size, the Brooklyn Museum is actually the second largest museum in New York City, behind only the Met. In total, the museum’s collection includes 1.5 million works of art.
47. The Dutch controlled the area known as Brooklyn between 1646 and 1664 until the English took over, and eventually claimed the area as Kings County in 1683.
48. Brooklyn averages roughly 35,000 residents per square mile.
49. The Brooklyn Brewery logo was created by Milton Glaser, who also created the “I Love New York” logo.
50. In “Saturday Night Fever,” John Travolta’s character Tony Manero was from the Bay Ridge neighborhood.
What’s your favorite Brooklyn fun fact? Tell us in the comments below!
