Talk:History of Brooklyn

Brooklyn named from gebrokeland or Breukelen?
There's a discussion about this over at Talk:New Amsterdam. -R. S. Shaw 19:14, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Great Fire of 1848
I just learned about the Great Fire of September 9 1848 that "destroyed seven blocks of about 250 buildings encompassed by Henry, Pineapple, Sands and Washington streets, including three churches, two newspapers (one of them the Brooklyn Daily Eagle) and a post office." according to an article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. I believe it deserves some sort of reference. Should it go in the main article or is there a sub article that would be more appropriate? I guess it could also go in Timeline of New York City crimes and disasters. Ando228 (talk) 14:44, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * A small section between the two war sections, with this link for a reference, seems appropriate. Too bad we have practically nothing for the 80 years interwar period; this would be a start.  Jim.henderson (talk) 14:57, 12 September 2008 (UTC)  Umm, no, I should have studied the article before saying that.  It isn't strictly sequential, the Civil War is before the other 19th century material.  So, where the "Great Fire" belongs is before the Ridgewood Reservoir paragraph.  And maybe the sequence should be stricter, with the Civil War in its chronological place rather then next to the earlier war.  Jim.henderson (talk) 15:03, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree about the stricter sequence. Toward a unified City of Brooklyn could probably use some subsections too. Although I'd wait a couple days to let others see these comments before reordering the sections, etc... Google books is actually a great resource for 19th century Brooklyn. I've found all sorts of material available in full. I could probably find some more sources on the fire there. Ando228 (talk) 15:14, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Section order
Branching off from the earlier discussion about chronology with Jim.henderson, I would suggest these major sections:
 * Colonial Brooklyn (through 1783) -- Six Dutch towns, Six townships in an English province, American Revolutionary War.
 * Toward a unified City of Brooklyn (1784-1898) -- this part needs the most structure since it's really the core of the article, or at least should be. It should include the content from Toward a unified City of Brooklyn but it should have a more general title. It could also be broken down by major events like the Fulton Ferry in 1814 and Brooklyn's incorporation as a village in 1816; the consolidation of Brooklyn, Williamsburg, and Bushwick in 1855; and the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883. Subsections about industry, government, etc... would be great.
 * New York borough -- 1898 and pre-1898 history concerning borough status

A couple potential, albeit old, sources hosted by Google Books:
 * Gazetteer of the State of New York By Frank Place, John Homer French (1860)
 * A History of the City of Brooklyn By Henry Reed Stiles (1870)
 * A History of the City of Brooklyn and Kings County By Stephen M. Ostrander, Alexander Black (1894)
 * The Eastern District of Brooklyn By Eugene L. Armbruster (1912)
 * Brooklyn Daily Eagle Almanac (1922) including Timeline of Brooklyn

Ando228 (talk) 15:06, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Brooklyn neighborhoods with detailed histories
I found that the entry for Fort Greene, Brooklyn has a detailed history section. Some other neighborhoods with history up through the 19th century: Bedford, Brooklyn; Bushwick, Brooklyn; Coney Island; Crown Heights, Brooklyn; East Williamsburg, Brooklyn; Gravesend, Brooklyn; Greenpoint, Brooklyn; Park Slope, Brooklyn; Williamsburg, Brooklyn Ando228 (talk) 04:03, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Seven times bigger
The "Timeline" section looks like the product of careful work. However, its large size has made minor difficulties for me, or not so minor when viewing on my smartphone. WP:SIZE suggests it might make bigger difficulties for some readers. I'd like to propose a few improvements: Jim.henderson (talk) 00:29, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) Separate the Timeline into its own article.
 * 2) For items which have an article, shrink their bullet to a modest sentence or two, including link(s).
 * 3) For items which aren't historic enough to be mentioned elsewhere in Wikipedia, don't mention them in the historical timeline.