Brooklyn once stood where you are now, in First Ward, the northeast quadrant of uptown Charlotte and one of the most transformed pieces of urban real estate in the city's history. In the early twentieth century, First Ward was a densely settled African-American neighborhood, home to churches, schools, businesses, and community institutions that served Black Charlotteans during the long decades of segregation. Brooklyn, as the neighborhood was known, was one of the most vibrant Black communities in the Carolinas, with professional offices, theaters, and fraternal organizations clustered along its streets.
Urban renewal in the 1960s and 1970s demolished almost all of it. The neighborhood was cleared for a highway and public housing, and the community was scattered across the city. Today First Ward is being rebuilt again — with condominiums, a park, a school, and the mixed-use development that has characterized Charlotte's uptown revival.
The destruction of Brooklyn remains one of the most painful chapters in the city's history, a wound that the community is still reckoning with. The new First Ward Park commemorates what stood here.