There was a time when Brooklyn, a borough of New York City, contained tall forests of trees. Hard to believe by anyone who has visited or lived in this sprawling city known for its sky-scrapers.

Not all of it can be attributed to urban sprawl. By 1783, after seven years of British occupation, nearly all the forest trees had been cut down for timber and fire wood for provisioning the occupying British Army and fitting masts on the British Navel vessels.

Picket fences were a great prize for fire wood and few survived on Long Island.  And it was not all from British Military.  Many Loyalist civilians moved into New York City during the Revolutionary war years of 1776 to 1783.  In 1777 the population of New York City was about 11,000.  In 1781 the population had grown to 25,000; more than doubled (statistic  from "Colonial Hempstead", Bernice Schultz Marshall, the Review-Press, Lynbrook, 1931)

"Skyscrapers", the trade mark of New York City, are generally found in Manhattan, but popular notion is to lump all of New York City into one mental picture of a sprawling city.  In reality there remains some very nice areas of Brooklyn and the other boroughs.  The above is a generalization of what use to be as to what exists now.  That underlying fact is that the encamped British an the doubling of the population of New York City changed the landscape of New York forever in the seven years it occupied it.