NEW YORK THE WAY IT WAS: BROOKLYN celebrates the borough in the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, when European immigrants put down strong roots and created a community that has repeatedly risen from the dust to fly high again. From fishing and farming to the construction of roads, the Brooklyn Bridge, and Ebbets Field; from the Brooklyn Dodgers' first pennant in 1941 to their 1955 World Series victory and 1957 departure, the program takes viewers back to a time when "going out" meant a trip to the corner store for a chocolate egg cream, Coney Island was the place to take your best girl, and mother ruled the household from the kitchen. Many well-known personalities grew up in BROOKLYN and share their stories in the program, including New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, actors Elliott Gould and Eli Wallach, comedian Buddy Hackett, opera singer Robert Merrill, former Congresswoman Liz Holtzman, television personality Larry King, actor/politician Al "Grampa Munster" Lewis, writer Pete Hamill and folksinger Oscar Brand.

Mayor Giuliani recalls life in Brooklyn as a non-Dodgers fan. Brought up to be a Yankee fan, he was thrown in the mud by other kids who were not fond of his Yankee uniform. "And that made me a confirmed Yankee fan. I never stopped being a Yankee fan after that. I was the only one, in my whole area of Brooklyn, for many, many years," he remembers. For Buddy Hackett, Brooklyn means a famous Nathan's frank at Coney Island. "When my doctor says my cholesterol is 240, I know the only thing that'll bring it down is a hot dog from Nathan's," he recalls in the program. Talk to a hundred Brooklynites and you'll hear about a hundred different Brooklyns. But as NEW YORK THE WAY IT WAS: BROOKLYN reveals, there is at least one thing all would agree on: Brooklyn is more than a place - it was and remains a fondly held state of mind.

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