Toward the end of the 19th century, the City of Brooklyn experienced its final, explosive growth spurt. Park Slope was rapidly urbanized, with its eastern summit soon emerging as the city's third "Gold Coast" district alongside Brooklyn Heights and The Hill; notable residents of the era included
American Chicle Company co-founder Thomas Adams Jr. and
New York Central Railroad executive Clinton L. Rossiter. East of The Hill,
Bedford-Stuyvesant coalesced as an upper middle class enclave for lawyers, shopkeepers, and merchants of German and Irish descent (notably exemplified by John C. Kelley, a water meter magnate and close friend of President
Grover Cleveland), with nearby
Crown Heights gradually fulfilling an analogous role for the city's Jewish population as development continued through the early 20th century. Northeast of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Bushwick (by now a working class, predominantly German district) established a considerable
brewery industry; the so-called "Brewer's Row" encompassed 14 breweries operating in a 14-block area in 1890. On the southwestern waterfront of Kings County, railroads and industrialization spread to
Sunset Park (then coterminous with the city's sprawling, sparsely populated Eighth Ward) and adjacent
Bay Ridge (hitherto a resort-like subsection of the Town of
New Utrecht). Within a decade, the city had annexed the Town of
New Lots in 1886; the Towns of
Flatbush,
Gravesend and New Utrecht in 1894; and the Town of
Flatlands in 1896. Brooklyn had reached its natural municipal boundaries at the ends of Kings County.
