New York metropolitan area passed through ports in New York or in one of the surrounding towns. The five boroughs of New York City — The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island — were consolidated into a single city in 1898. The newly unified New York City encouraged both more physical connections between the boroughs and the growth of bedroom communities. The New York City Subway began operating in 1904 as the Interborough Rapid Transit Company, one of three systems (the other two being the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation and the Independent Subway System) that were later taken over by the city. Railroad stations
East New York, Brooklyn public assistance (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families [TANF], Home Relief, Supplemental Security Income, and Medicaid). During the 1960s, East New York transitioned from being predominately Jewish and Italian to being predominately African American and Puerto Rican. However, now East New York is more diversified, with large African American, Puerto Rican, Dominican, West Indian, and South Asian populations. Due to gentrification of other Brooklyn neighborhoods, closer to Downtown Brooklyn and Manhattan, such as Bushwick and Bed-Stuy, East New York now has one of the fastest growing Black, Latino, and Asian populations in the city. East New York consists of mixed properties