Written By: Ben Cosgrove
Brooklyn is big. If it were its own city, and not part of Gotham, its 2.5 million residents would make up the fourth largest metropolis in the United States. Brooklyn covers almost a hundred square miles of intensely varied terrain, from the beaches of Coney Island and Sea Gate to the brownstones of Park Slope and the thronging sidewalks of Williamsburg—a neighborhood filled with stoop-shouldered young men who, evidently, can afford fedoras but have difficulty finding socks, or pants that fit.
There’s cobblestoned Dumbo; the mean streets of East New York; the mansions of Brooklyn Heights; the tree-lined avenues (and, miracle of miracles, driveways) of Ditmas Park; the glories of Prospect Park; the soaring container cranes of Red Hook; the unnameable, party-colored, aromatic ooze of the Gowanus Canal.
The borough boasts countless ethnicities, creeds and religions. It’s somehow wildly bustling and unselfconsciously low-key at the same time. It has given the world memorable phrases (fuhgeddaboudit) and immortal delicacies (the egg cream with no egg and no cream). Brooklyn is cool.
These photos of Brooklyn, made by LIFE’s Ed Clark right after World War II, show something that’s long been elemental to the borough’s enduring appeal: a free-wheeling and unpretentious self-confidence.
Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LizabethRonk.
View of the Manhattan Bridge, connecting Brooklyn with that island across the East River, 1946.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Trolley tracks on the corner of Flushing Ave., Graham and Broadway. The last trolleys in Brooklyn stopped running in 1956.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Brooklyn, New York 1946
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Corner of Middagh and Hicks, Brooklyn Heights, 1946.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Jumping rope on Siegel Street near Humboldt, Brooklyn, 1946.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
City veterans housing project, Canarsie, Brooklyn, 1946.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Brooklyn, New York 1946
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Brooklyn, New York 1946
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Brooklyn, New York 1946
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Brooklyn, New York 1946
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Listening to a Dodgers-Giants ballgame on the radio, Brooklyn, 1946.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Ebbets Field, Brooklyn, 1946.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Dodgers ballgame, Ebbets Field, Brooklyn, 1946.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Dodgers fans, Ebbets Field, Brooklyn, 1946.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Jack Kaufman outside his barber shop on Rogers Avenue in Brooklyn in 1946, holding a signed baseball that once beaned future Hall of Famer Joe Medwick.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Subway entrance, Eastern Parkway at Utica Avenue, Brooklyn, 1946.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Brooklyn, New York 1946
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Grand Army Plaza, Prospect Park, Brooklyn, 1946.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Prospect Park, Brooklyn, 1946.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Gowanus Canal, Brooklyn, 1946.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
On the waterfront, Brooklyn, 1946.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Moore Street near Graham Avenue, Brooklyn, 1946.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Sumner Avenue (now Marcus Garvey Boulevard) near Myrtle Avenue in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, 1946.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Grocery shopping, Brooklyn, 1946.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Brooklyn, New York 1946
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Under the elevated tracks, Broadway at Lynch, Brooklyn, 1946.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Brooklyn Bridge, 1946.
Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
