University Transportation Research Center and Brooklyn Waterfront Research Center hosted a half day symposium on March 21st, 2014 at the Brooklyn Borough Hall. The symposium addressed the history of the Brooklyn in the context of the Brooklyn waterfront’s rich industrial history and how and why that industry disappeared.

In the past the Brooklyn waterfront has played an important role on the global stage. In the early 19th century it was a processing destination for raw commodities such as sugar, coffee, and tobacco with complicity in the global slave trade. In the early 20th century, it became an industrial center for manufacturing, warehousing and export distribution. Then, in the 1960s, it suffered a huge decline in jobs, economic vitality, and global reach. Today there has been rejuvenation but the commerce that has returned to the waterfront is different yet again.

·Are these new jobs once again placing Brooklyn on the global stage? How?

·In what ways is the Brooklyn waterfront having a global reach?

·How is that global reach similar and differ ent from what it once was?