I've always been a little obsessed with Brooklyn's six original villages; these towns were the first European settlements, mostly Dutch, in the 17th century, and they were spread out all across the now sprawling borough.

The six--Flatlands, Brooklyn, Bushwick, Flatbush, New Utrecht and Gravesend--all have interesting histories, and you can still their remnants in the way their original streets disrupt the current street grid, but I've...

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