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The Future of Brooklyn

About This Item

  • Title: The Future of Brooklyn
  • Date: 14 July 1858
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.00699
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 14 July 1858: 2. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Elva Moreno Del Rio Conner Lynn Kaylen Michaelis Stephanie Blalock Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "The Future of Brooklyn." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 16 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.00699.xml (TEI)
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THE FUTURE OF BROOKLYN.

If there ever existed a city whose resources were undeveloped, whose capabilities were misunderstood and undervalued, it is Brooklyn. No other place with which we are acquainted that possesses a tithe of its natural advantages suffers them to lie unimproved, when such rich returns would assuredly wait upon the expenditure of capital and enterprise.

Ald. Pierson1, in his speech in the Common Council Chamber on Monday evening, shadowed forth what Brooklyn is capable of becoming if a liberal and enlightened policy is shown by our citizens in carrying out those plans suggested by its natural location. If our magnificent water front were properly improved and if all were done with it that could be done, we should assume a rank among the cities of the Union far different from what we hold at present. We should not only be numerically large, but possess a positive and palpable importance, founded on enduring commercial interests.

There is no good reason why the overshadowing influence of New York should cripple the enterprise and paralyze the energies of our business men. There is ample room and verge enough on our own water-line to share in the rich stream of traffic that can now hardly be accommodated on the New York side, and which, in the course of years, must increase and multiply to an immense extent. When, too, our extraordinary manufacturing facilities are developed, as they must be in the course of a few years, Brooklyn will assume that commanding position which rightfully belongs to her and which she should be, even now, more forward in asserting.

Our future lies in our own hands, and we can shape it as we will. All that we want is to awaken an interest among our prominent men and to subsitute life and enterprise for what is now coldness and indifference. But perhaps, after all, profit and interest is the best awakener, and when it is clearly seen that great improvements may be made to pay, they will be forthcoming. But of one thing we are assured—that this great city's wharves will one day be crowded with shipping and its streets vocal with the clash of machinery. We have done well, so far as concerns the latter, as it is, but the future, and a not very distant one at that, will see us far ahead of what our most sanguine friends now dream of.

Notes:

1. Henry Rufus Pierson (1819–1890) was Alderman of Brooklyn's 3rd Ward from 1858 to 1860. [back]

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