Brooklyn is referred to as the twin city of New York in the 1883 poem, "
The New Colossus" by
Emma Lazarus, which appears on a plaque inside the
Statue of Liberty. The poem calls New York Harbor "the air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame". As a twin city to New York, it played a role in national affairs that was later overshadowed by decades of subordination by its old partner and rival.