211 Schermerhorn Street

Because Brooklyn was long an independent city — up until its consolidation in 1898 into the City of New York — it had developed its own civic center, with City Hall (now Borough Hall) as its centerpiece. The area known as Downtown Brooklyn extends to the east, with Fulton Street as its spine. While most of New York’s municipal offices are in lower Manhattan, thousands of government employees go to work in Downtown Brooklyn each day, at borough offices and state and federal courthouses. The area suffered a setback, as did much of the city, in the late 1960s and ’70s, but the creation of Fulton Mall helped turn the tide. (That project, which closed Fulton to most vehicular traffic, was completed in 1984.) The new chapter in Downtown Brooklyn’s history has enjoyed a recent boost with the opening of the City Point mall, while other leading retailers are moving to — and, in some cases, returning to — the neighborhood.