New York Brooklyn 3-hour self-guided walking tour and scavenger hunt

• Starting Location: Outside the Eastern Parkway-Brooklyn Museum Metro station, near the Brooklyn Museum, at 200 Eastern Pkwy, Brooklyn, NY 11238, United States
• Distance: 4.7 km / 2.9 mi
• Time: 3 hours
• Method: Walking
• Required: Fully charged Smartphone with internet access (data plan, Wifi is not sufficient).
• Suggested:
  • Bottled water
  • A local street map

Brooklyn’s History

Its name comes from the original Dutch village of Breukelen. Breukelen was settled in 1646 by the Dutch. An Algonquian-speaking Lenape American Indian tribe resided on Long Island at the time.

The British captured New Netherlands in 1664 and the area became the Province of New York. Eventually, Kings County comprised 6 of the initial Dutch towns on Long Island. This county had the highest percentage of slaves among the original 13 colonies.

One of the first battles of the revolutionary war was the Battle of Brooklyn, in 1776. the British forced the Continental Army off the heights near Prospect Park. After independence, Brooklyn was incorporated in 1817 and urbanization boomed.

In 1841 the Brooklyn Eagle and Kings County Democrat (Brooklyn Eagle) newspaper was first published and its circulation and readership developed a separate identity for Brooklynites from New Yorkers. It closed in 1955. In the late 1880s, Brooklyn was considered New York’s twin city.

It was an independently incorporated city until January 1st, 1898 when it joined Greater New York.
Brooklyn (Kings County) is the most populous county in New York State and the 2nd most populous in the US. If each New York borough were its own city, Brooklyn would rank 3rd most populous in the country after Los Angeles and Chicago.