8The heart of Bedford-Stuyvesant is still found in the near-forgotten settlement of Brooklyn's Bedford Corners, a Dutch township colonized in 1667, where ancient Native American trails determined its now major thoroughfares, and where Colonial patriots fought the British in the country's struggle for independence. Bedford-Stuyvesant remained a quiet farming hamlet until the 1880s when rapid subway transportation, construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, and the burgeoning population of Manhattan combined to forge one of America's first and finest suburban communities. Bedford-Stuyvesant details the evolution of this neighborhood, home to the nation's
second largest African American community, and it documents how this urban center is now finally enjoying new regard for its wealth of architecture and its notable place in American history.