Brooklyn's Obituary, From 1897

An editorial ran in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle on Oct. 19, 1897. It was a commentary on the imminent consolidation of the city of Brooklyn with the city of New York, the move that made a mere borough out of Brooklyn.

The piece, reprinted in yesterday's Brooklyn Daily Eagle, is an obituary for Brooklyn, but also reassures that Brooklyn, as the people of the time knew it, would not disappear:

"We shall not have to bar our windows lest the New York police department visit us with jimmies and dark lanterns, nor go to our rest in nightly dread that some member of Tammany Hall may cross the bridge . . ."

"We have some of the most home-like homes in the land, and we would not change them for blocks of stewing tenements. We have great beaches, drives, a superior railroad service and a park system nearly equal to that of New York, with advantages of situation not possessed by most of the pleasure grounds in the metropolis . . ."

Has Brooklyn become less than it was during the time of the Big Mistake? Or are we better off?

Read the whole editorial here.

Currier and Ives print courtesy of Wikipedia

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