Downtown Brooklyn’s modern-day infrastructure problems started during an ambitious upgrade dating back to the 1930s. Areas of its downtown business core, as well as nearby Brooklyn Heights and Dumbo (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass), were flattened to make room for new expressways and parks. Today the neighborhood’s businesses, condos and high-rises have sprung up around the tangle of roads, on-ramps and disjointed green spaces scattered throughout Downtown.

Brooklyn quickly grew into the most populated of New York’s five boroughs and, despite infrastructure issues, its downtown area is the third-largest Central Business District in New York City after Midtown and Downtown Manhattan. Downtown Brooklyn is already home to more than 17 million square feet of office space, shopping centers and luxury high-rise condominiums. Its boundaries envelop some 60 cultural organizations and 10 higher-education institutions with 60,000 college students.

Sandwiched between its towering buildings and crumbling warehouses, Downtown Brooklyn boasts a burgeoning cultural scene and attracts more than half a million visitors to the Brooklyn Academy of Music. BAM, America’s oldest performing arts center, produces more than 220 performances each year. Brooklyn’s push for cultural revival led to the recent renovation and reopening of the palatial Loew’s Kings Theatre in Flatbush. Former borough president Marty Markowitz made the historic venue his pet project and managed to raise $95 million in restoration efforts. Superstorm Sandy blew the roof off just two days before its construction was set, but Kings Theatre finally celebrated its grand re-opening with a sold-out concert by Diana Ross.

Another historic theater looks to undergo massive renovations in the Flatbush area. Long Island University approved a 49-year lease of the former Brooklyn Paramount Theater to developers to reopen for live entertainment. Once used as the university’s gym and all-purpose hall, the theater boasts a Wurlitzer organ, only one of two ever built, which still functions and is heard across the LIU campus during tuning. The re-imagined venue will house 2,800 seats with a capacity to hold 3,500 with standing room.

In July 2014, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced promising new initiatives to transform the area into a thriving 21st-century downtown. Ongoing plans call to zipper together Downtown Brooklyn’s commercial strip, business district and parks with the hope of making it a more cohesive and dynamic place to live and work. The borough, already a thriving business center, eagerly looks for more office space after celebrating a 19.3 percent growth in private sector jobs from 2003 to 2012.

The initiative will also help connect the rapidly changing Dumbo and Brooklyn Bridge Park to its downtown core. Frequent business travelers and tourists probably notice the blossoming of Brooklyn Bridge Park with eateries, free waterside workouts, the historic Jane’s Carousel and development over at Pier 1. Passersby might assume the area was already razed and set for new green space and redevelopment, but until 2010, the National Cold Storage Warehouses obscured the expansive Manhattan views. The historic warehouses were finally demolished to make way for the new Pier 1 development approved in 2005. Upcoming plans include a Starwood 200-room hotel; 100 residential units; 16,000 square feet of restaurant space; and 2,000 square feet of retail space, with completion expected by winter 2016.

The area of Pier 1, Brooklyn Bridge Park and surrounding Dumbo was once a mere footprint of the surrounding warehouses and industrial businesses. Dumbo’s abandoned waterfront warehouses once stored coffee. Despite their spectacular views of the Manhattan Bridge, they mostly sat empty. Original historic coffee chutes and other industrial touches will remain as a nod to the warehouses’ heritage. When it opens in 2016, the warehouse-turned-Empire Stores will house a food market, a restaurant, a beer garden and booming retail space.

Downtown Brooklyn’s business district and Brooklyn Bridge Park aren’t the only swatches of the borough’s downtown gearing up for development. After New York City’s grim occupation by the British during the American Revolution, President John Adams authorized construction of the first five naval shipyards, including the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Largely abandoned by 1966, the Navy station is now seeing its largest expansion since World War II.

In November 2012, Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, DUMBO Improvement District and Brooklyn Navy Yard developed a master plan to further develop the once-neglected 300-acre Brooklyn Navy Yard and grow the Brooklyn Tech Triangle. The entrepreneurial hub already houses more than 500 technology companies and 10,000 employees and is projected to expand its jobs to 15,000 by 2020. A new $380 million, 675,000-square-foot building called Dock 72 will be completed by late 2017. Anticipated to be the largest commercial building built outside of Manhattan in years, it will house hundreds of small businesses and shared work space.

The Navy Yard’s Admiral’s Row once featured a line of Second Empire-style homes used by Navy officers. The 11 homes have long since fallen into ruin, swallowed by overgrown ivy and a tangle of forest. The houses are slated for demolition to make room for a new $120 million, 285,000-square-foot mixed-use development that will include a Wegman’s, multiple retail shops, parking and commercial and office space. Until then, passersby peer curiously at the crumbling urban decay once home to the Navy’s elite.

SCENIC DRIVES

Head to the West Side Highway and cross the George Washington Bridge for waterfront views on your way to Bear Mountain State Park. Before you exit for the bridge, look underneath its leg along the Hudson for the 40-foot Little Red Lighthouse in Fort Washington Park. This historic lighthouse, inoperable since the 1940s, was nearly auctioned by the Coast Guard. A public outcry helped save it and prompted the children’s book The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge by Hildegarde H. Swift and Lynd Ward. After crossing the George Washington Bridge, take in the scenic views of the Palisades and watch as the mountain emerges alongside the Hudson River. At Bear Mountain State Park (about 50 miles from Brooklyn), look for the merry-go-round with its hand-painted scenes and 42 hand-carved seats including a bobcat and black bear.

Cruise north up Route 287 to Tarrytown and pay a visit to the Lyndhurst mansion just 24 miles from the city. Listed with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, this Gothic Revival mansion served as home to New York City Mayor William Paulding, merchant George Merritt and railroad tycoon Jay Gould. Today guests can tour the home and learn about its architecture, 19th-century decorative arts and landscape.