Three state lawmakers put $350,000 behind Brooklyn250, a summer-long program built around the fact that the first and largest battle of the American Revolution was fought on Brooklyn ground, first reported by BK Reader. State Senator Andrew Gounardes and Assemblymembers Robert Carroll and Jo Anne Simon announced the money at a ceremony at Green-Wood Cemetery, and the whole slate is free.
The money is the state’s contribution to the national celebration of America’s 250th birthday, for Brooklyn. It runs from July 4 through August 27 and covers a reenactment of the Battle of Brooklyn, a collectible pamphlet and map, museum and archival exhibits, walking and trolley tours, digital tours, and literary events across the borough.
This summer marks 250 years since the Battle of Brooklyn, also called the Battle of Long Island, fought in August 1776. It was the first and largest battle of the Revolution, and the first the country fought under the name the United States of America. It is also, by the officials’ own framing, a piece of history most New Yorkers walk right past.
“This battle has for too long been forgotten,” Carroll said. “Right here in New York City, some of the most consequential, not just battles, but ideas, happened here. This funding will ensure that more children and adults know the role that Brooklyn and New York City at large played in that revolutionary period.”
“The funding we’re announcing today will support a series of free educational, community-focused events across the borough to explore the borough’s critical role in our fight for independence,” Gounardes said at Green-Wood.
The lawmakers, whose first conversations about the program started the previous September, partnered with five institutions to build it out: The Green-Wood Cemetery, the Old Stone House, Brooklyn Public Library’s Center for Brooklyn History, the Prospect Park Alliance, and the Fort Greene Park Conservancy.
Brooklyn250 includes a public reading of the Declaration of Independence, theatrical and musical performances, and themed tours at Green-Wood, among them “The Revolution Continues: Gay Green-Wood” and “Brooklyn’s Black Trailblazers.” The programming leans hard into the parts of 1776 that don’t usually make the textbook.
The Center for Brooklyn History is showing “Battle of Brooklyn: Fought and Remembered,” built on primary-source maps and documents from its own collection. The Old Stone House has “Breaking the Law: Themes of Protest and Disobedience from the Declaration of Independence Onward.” And at Prospect Park’s Lefferts Historic House, “Black People and the Battle of Brooklyn” lays out how Black people, including people the Lefferts family enslaved, served as soldiers and spies on both sides, built American forts, maintained British ships, and used the war to try to change their own lives.
“We are really proud to offer free access to collections, programs and exhibitions that bring the past to life and ignite critical conversations about how Brooklyn’s diverse history shapes the present and beyond,” said Lexy Mayers, executive director of the Center for Brooklyn History at Brooklyn Public Library.
“It was a long war that didn’t end on the battlefield,” said Meera Joshi, president of Green-Wood Cemetery. “It is a persistent war that continues to this day, and that is why it is equally as important to remember the battles that are not in that far distant past, and the ones we are facing today. We are really using the surroundings and the ability to understand how to touch and feel and see to learn the lessons of liberty, freedom and independence.”
The summer’s biggest single event lands at Green-Wood on August 23, where parts of the 1776 battle were actually fought. From 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., costumed interpreters play Continental and British soldiers, spies, camp followers, and George and Martha Washington, with hands-on activities, live 18th-century music, and a parade to Battle Hill for a commemoration of the dead. It closes with a keynote from Brooklyn Borough Historian Asad Dandia. It’s free, with a suggested $5 donation, and registration is recommended.
Featured image: Courtesy green-wood.com
