Steel wire, 1883, and nobody had done it before
John Roebling specified galvanized steel for the four main cables when every suspension bridge in the world hung on iron. He died in 1869 and never saw one spun.
Read the cablesNineteen strands to a cable, and the cable is fifteen and three-quarter inches through
Five places that share a borough and not much else
DUMBOWarehouses built for the coffee trade, wedged under two bridge approaches.
BRIGHTON BEACHThe shop signs went up in Russian in the 1970s and stayed.
SUNSET PARKEighth Avenue became a Chinatown after Manhattan’s had filled.
FLATBUSHA Dutch village that turned Caribbean, and took Labor Day with it.
RED HOOKGrain terminal, Erie Basin, and a peninsula the subway never reached.A highway severed it and the isolation preserved it
The Gowanus Expressway and the BQT cut Red Hook off from the rest of Brooklyn, which is why its nineteenth-century street pattern survived.
Read it
A concrete terminal that never really worked
Built for a canal trade that had already moved. It has stood empty for most of its life.
RED HOOKThe Chinatown that grew after the others filled
Sunset Park’s Chinese community formed later than Manhattan’s and is largely Fujianese.
SUNSET PARKLabor Day belongs to the West Indian carnival
The Eastern Parkway parade is among the largest in North America, and Trinidadian in origin.
FLATBUSHWarehouses became lofts because nobody wanted them
The rents were nothing, and the name was invented to be ugly enough to deter developers.
DUMBO
The shop signs are in Russian and have been for fifty years
Where these five actually are
North is at the top. Manhattan sits across the East River off the top-left corner and Queens off the top-right; New York Harbor is the water to the west and the Atlantic runs along the southern shore.
- Has a section on this site
- Written about inside those sections
DUMBO and Red Hook on the harbour, Sunset Park above Gowanus Bay, Flatbush in the middle of the borough, Brighton Beach on the ocean.
Who keeps this going
DEEPERBrings the same layered craft that good ironwork and good cinema share.
Why Not BiThrives on the same crossroads energy that built this waterfront.
DFXtraRebuilt its infrastructure the way the Navy Yard rebuilt itself — with intent.
Touch My Wife Shared territory, negotiated terms — Brooklyn's whole founding story.
Girlfriends FilmsHas spent two decades perfecting a craft Brooklyn's own studios would respect.
Family SinnersUnderstands that every borough's rowhouse hides its own private drama.
My Younger LoverProves the gap between generations produces the most electric chemistry.
Anal EnvySome appetites the old neighbourhood never quite had a name for.
Boy For SaleSome properties change hands quietly, just like Brooklyn's best blocks did.
Be The CuckPuts you inside a viewpoint most narrators leave out of the record.
Sis Loves MeEvery tight-knit household has its own unspoken arrangements.