Editorial: On the move

Southwest Brooklyn’s beloved hometown newspapers, The Home Reporter and Spectator, are proud to announce a new affiliation with the storied Brooklyn Eagle and sister newspapers that together boast more than 590 years of continuous and collective publishing history.

The addition of The Home Reporter and Spectator into the group adds another century and a half of community service to that number, adding as well to the in-depth picture of the borough that emerges from the pages of newspapers that have been on the ground since two decades before the Civil War.

From the beginning, Brooklyn has had a rich and varied history.

Long before she became part of greater New York in 1898, Brooklyn flourished as an independent city. Fertile, productive and ambitious, she spent more than half a century building and nurturing major cultural, religious and civic institutions that thrive today.

When the Brooklyn Bridge opened in 1883, it laid the groundwork for a new century of unprecedented growth and radical change–first Downtown, then throughout Brooklyn.

A simple, ancient concept–a bridge over a body of water–was transformative in real and metaphorical ways.

Years later, another bridge would transform one of Brooklyn’s most unique treasures, the historic bluff overlooking the entrance to New York Harbor.

The disruption of residential and commercial life in Bay Ridge was so profound when the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge opened in 1964 that an unprecedented coalition of activism was formed. Indeed, that experience created a framework for community engagement that had no equal then — a status that continues to this very day.

Fast forward 54 years. Today, every Brooklyn neighborhood has a strong element of awareness, and varying degrees of organization and civic engagement.

But, here in Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Bensonhurst, Bath Beach, Gravesend and Sunset Park, civic activism continues to thrive as residents of the neighborhoods maintain their proud tradition of involvement, with the aim of preserving and protecting the place that they call home, supporting fellow residents and local merchants, and helping to shape the future of their community at the grass-roots level.

We are proud that The Home Reporter and Spectator have been key factors in that community spirit from the beginning, and look forward to continuing that proud transition as we move forward together with the neighborhood into the future.