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THE BOROUGHS OF BROOKLYN, BRONX, QUEENS AND RICHMOND
Not far from the Museum is the plaza, on which stands the magnificent arch, crowned with the work of America's greatest sculptor, MacMonnies, and here also is Park Slope, a residential section containing many of the finest homes in Brooklyn.
Directly through Prospect Park from the plaza is the fair and enticing suburb of Flatbush, which has been frequently spoken of as the most beautiful suburb of any in the United States, excelling the famous suburbs of old Boston. Perhaps the only thing to criticize is its newness, many of the fine old Dutch houses having disappeared.
The America of today, with its merchant princes and its palatial homes, is quite in evidence here, but not, however, to the exclusion of the more modest cottages and dwellings of that class which has made Brooklyn the city of homes. A walk along Ocean Avenue is a delight and may be continued all the way to the ocean. One of the old landmarks of Flathush which still remains and is cherished is the old Erasmus Hall, a school of "ye olden time." It is enclosed now by the great buildings of the Erasmus Hall High School, a seat of learning which ranks perhaps first among New York's public schools. The great, massive tower on the principal building makes one think of the old college towns of Europe. Opposite Erasmus is the Dutch Reformed Church, the oldest on Long Island.
Brooklyn is well provided with colleges and schools—Adelphi College is an old Brooklyn institution, and Brooklyn College, the center of Catholic instruction for the city, is the most recent. Pratt Institute and the Arbuckle Institute are mainly for instruction in technical subjects and have a very large attendance of both sexes. The Polytechnic is for young men and is a preparatory school. There are several other seminaries, academies and private schools. On the grounds of the Arbuckle Institution is a fine statute of Henry Ward Beecher as he appeared on the platform.
To the query, where is Brooklyn's business district, the answer might well be given there is not any, for there is no stock exchange, no financial district, no curb market, no produce, no cotton, or wool exchange, no newspaper row and no great railway centers. There is, however, a fine shopping district with several establishments rivaling the best in Manhattan. From Flatbush Avenue to the Borough Hall on Fulton Street there is a succession of fine department stores, and the sidewalks in the neighborhood are crowded from morn till night with a continuous stream of Brooklyn's fair daughters, giving a few moments of their precious time to the practical affairs of life.
Further on beyond the Borough Buildings is the old and aristocratic section, which still retains its .old time air of exclusiveness, though fast undergoing great changes. Columbia Heights, at all times regarded the ideal residence quarter, is a bluff rising high above the sea level and overlooking the river and the bay. No finer site could be imagined for a residence and the entire bluff has always been and probably always will be reserved for this purpose. Many of the old mansions are giving way to fine apartment houses and select private hotels, but the section is still quiet, aristocratic and American. The view from the foot of Montague Street carries the eye over a vast expanse of water, with its animated and variegated scene, far beyond Staten Island and the Narrows out to the far reaches of the sea.
The Shore Road, through Bay Ridge and following along the bay as far down as Fort Hamilton, is a finely made drive, lined with handsome residences and beautifully kept grounds. It is one of Brooklyn's choice residence localities. But for drives, by far the most popular is the route through Prospect Park to Ocean Park-way and so on down to Coney Island. This magnificent drive is not surpassed by any in the country and on all occasions is crowded with automobiles from all parts of Greater New York.
Brooklyn is a great industrial city. The immense sugar refineries along the waterfront are the largest in the world and have been the cause of a good many of our multi-millionaires. Next to the oil kings of New York, the sugar kings are a. power in the business world. The entire river front is occupied with factories great and small, storage warehouses, grain elevators, dry docks, and the buildings and docks of the Navy Yard. Few people are aware that the best known and best quality of men's hats are made in this borough, although they are sold only on Broadway and on Fifth Avenue.
Brooklyn excels also in the matter of small manufacturing concerns and specialized businesses, a peculiarity which may be accounted for by the fact that workers of the kind adapted for specialized work—work which requires deftness, discrimination and possibly a little higher intelligence, can be procured more easily in a city of homes than where the population is more heterogeneous.
A proper guide to Brooklyn would require as many pages as we have already given to Manhattan. In a lesser sense the same applies to the Boroughs of Bronx, Queens and Richmond (Staten Island). As these lie outside the province of our present modest undertaking, we shall not attempt to depart from our original plan.
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