“Brooklyn is the bedroom of New York”

"Brooklyn is the bedroom of New York" means that people may work in Manhattan, but they live in Brooklyn. Perhaps Walt Whitman coined this.

Brooklyn has also been called the "Dormitory of New York."


Wikipedia: Brooklyn
Brooklyn (/ˈbrʊklɪn/) is the most populous borough of New York City, with a census-estimated 2,629,150 residents in 2016. It borders the borough of Queens at the southwestern end of the same Long Island, and has several bridge connections to the nearby boroughs of Staten Island and Manhattan. Since 1896, the borough has been coterminous with Kings County, the most populous county in the U.S. state of New York and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, after the county of New York (which is coextensive with the borough of Manhattan).

27 April 1872, Brooklyn (NY) Eagle, pg. 3:
As a commentary upon the flippant statement so frequently and easily bandied about, that Brooklyn is but the bedroom of New York, the fact is not without weight, that in this not overrated city of churches there is one interest alone in which over $15,000,000 are involved, and which, besides affording a means of livelihood to some ten thousands persons, pays to Uncle Sam an annual revenue of nearly $4,000,000.

27 April 1887, Brooklyn (NY) Eagle, pg. 2:
...he would be ready to exclaim, "True the saying that 'Brooklyn is the bedroom of New York,'" and when he observes the immense traffic from these ferries and the bridge and throughout the city, and has seen the end of a few of the longest streets, he is already convinced that it is almost, if not quite, equal in extent and population to any of the six largest cities in Britain outside London.

22 January 1939, New York (NY) Times, pg. 20:
Almost a century ago Whitman picked up the old gibe, "Brooklyn is the bedroom of New York" and answered it with the oratorical dignity of a Brooklyn campaign speech today. "For the Island of Manhattan," he wrote, "when pitched upon by the first voyagers from Amsterdam, was selected mainly as their outpost or place for a trading station, a store and fort - and not for residence. Their residence, even from the beginning, was here."