Famed street photographers Jamel Shabazz, Larry Racioppo and Lucille Fornasieri Gold are well-represented, as is the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, whose entire collection is part of the BPL. But some of the most moving photos and stories in “Brooklyn Is…” were contributed by regular folks. “We held scanning parties at many library branches,” says Ely. “We wanted a wide range of people to tell us what their Brooklyn is. What it was like to grow up in their neighborhood? What does it mean to them now to still be living there?”

One such narrator is Stephanie Abreu, a college counselor from East New York who lives in the same Dominican community where she was born and raised. “A lot of the people I say hello to in the morning have watched me grow up, watched me run to the ice cream truck,” she said. “It creates a different kind of bond. It’s very important to me to give back to my own backyard.”

Invisible Dog Art Center founder Lucien Zayan moved to Greenpoint from Marseille, France, in 2008. “I arrived at night, and when I woke up in the morning I was very surprised because I heard seagulls,” he said. “That was my very first impression: to realize that Brooklyn was on the sea.”

LJ Vogel, cofounder of the queer group Gay Ridge, remembered childhood Independence Days in Bensonhurst. “The Chinese family next door would come to our side of the driveway,” said Vogel. “We’d share hot dogs, and they’d share curried fish balls.”

Maps abound, illustrating forgotten landscapes and social issues from days of yore. Food is a major theme as well: The owners of Junior’s, Roll-N-Roaster and Sahadi’s were all asked to submit family stories and photos.

“[After 9/11] you didn’t know if people were going to shun you and say … ‘Go back to your country,’” said Charlie Sahadi, who retired from his Middle Eastern restaurant in 2016. “We got just the opposite. We got love and support from everybody, and that’s how we got through that very rough period. I’m thankful to be a Brooklynite among people who give a damn about their neighbors.”

The CBH’s definition of history is broad. “It’s not something that happened 100 years ago, 50 years ago or even one year ago,” says Ely. “It’s what happened yesterday. It’s about what’s on people’s minds now. Yes, some of it is fun. But a lot of it discusses topics related to democracy and society.”

Curator introductions and captions within the exhibit add fascinating and often disturbing historical perspectives of our beloved borough, including:

• Nearly a third of New Utrecht’s population was listed as enslaved at the beginning of the nineteenth century. 
• Brooklyn had the second-largest free Black community in pre-Civil War America.
• Native Canarsee people fished and hunted in Jamaica Bay for centuries. “But the rich soil … made it attractive to Dutch farmers, who brought enslaved and kidnapped Africans to cultivate fields of wheat, corn and other grains.”
• The waterways carried Europeans to “what had always been Native land, bringing a drive for profit — and devastating disease.” 
• “More than a million people gather for the West Indian Day parade every Labor Day weekend — just a few blocks away from the site of Weeksville, a small historic enclave of African-American freedpeople in the early nineteenth century.” 
• “The original waterfront of what is now Brooklyn Bridge Park marked the start of a Lenape walking trail that extended east across Long Island.”

Brooklyn is at once a complex mosaic, a paean to humanity, and a study in contradictions. Its population of 2.6 million makes it the fourth largest American city in its own right, yet it’s friendly, approachable and down-to-earth. “I love the feeling of smallness of Brooklyn,” said WNYC producer Alana Casanova-Burgess. “It feels so much more like a string of neighborhoods than one big mass.” Fitting, then, that the official motto of this immigrant-filled borough is Dutch for “Unity Makes Strength.”

Anyone can submit photos and memories to “Brooklyn Is…” using the QR codes sprinkled throughout the exhibit or this form on the BPL website. “We want you to help us tell the story of Brooklyn,” says Ely. All submissions will be added to the CBH’s permanent collection and will also be projected onto the main wall of the “Brooklyn Is…” exhibit in the Great Hall. Just tap the exhibit’s iPad, and you’ll be treated to images of every Brooklyn neighborhood, then and now. 

You can also tap to read — or answer — a variety of prompts, such as “What’s the best-kept Brooklyn secret?” and “Who is the quintessential Brooklynite?”

“Free aquarium Wednesdays!” is one answer to the former; Jay-Z, Mel Brooks, Marty Markowitz and Rosie Perez are four answers to the latter. However, this reporter agrees with the person who said that the quintessential Brooklynite is, “My man at the bodega.”

The Center for Brooklyn History has free WiFi and is open Monday through Friday from 10 to 6 and Saturday from 10 to 4.