New Brunswick is a city in Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States, in the New York City metropolitan area. The city is the county seat of Middlesex County, and the home of Rutgers University. New Brunswick is on the Northeast Corridor rail line, 27 miles (43 km) southwest of Manhattan, on the southern bank of the Raritan River. As of 2016, New Brunswick had a Census-estimated population of 56,910, representing a 3.1% increase from the 55,181 people enumerated at the 2010 United States Census, which in turn had reflected an increase of 6,608 (+13.6%) from the 48,573 counted in the 2000 Census. Due to the concentration of medical facilities in the area, including Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and Saint Peter’s University Hospital, as well as Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey’s Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick is known as both the Hub City and the Healthcare City. The corporate headquarters and production facilities of several global pharmaceutical companies are situated in the city, including Johnson & Johnson and Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Centrally located between New York City and Philadelphia along an early thoroughfare known as the King’s Highway and situated along the Raritan River, New Brunswick became an important hub for Colonial travelers and traders. New Brunswick was incorporated as a town in 1736 and chartered as a city in 1784. It was incorporated into a town in 1798 as part of the Township Act of 1798. It was occupied by the British in the winter of 1776–1777 during the Revolutionary War.

The Declaration of Independence received one of its first public readings, by Col. John Neilson, in New Brunswick on July 9, 1776, in the days following its promulgation by the Continental Congress.

The Trustees of Queen’s College (now Rutgers University), founded in 1766, voted to locate the young college in New Brunswick, selecting the city over Hackensack, in Bergen County, New Jersey. Classes began in 1771 with one instructor, one sophomore, Matthew Leydt, and several freshmen at a tavern called the ‘Sign of the Red Lion’ on the corner of Albany and Neilson Streets (now the grounds of the Johnson & Johnson corporate headquarters). The Sign of the Red Lion was purchased on behalf of Queens College in 1771, and later sold to the estate of Jacob Rutsen Hardenbergh in 1791. Classes were held through the American Revolution in various taverns and boarding houses, and at a building known as College Hall on George Street, until Old Queens was erected in 1808. It remains the oldest building on the Rutgers University campus. The Queen’s College Grammar School (now Rutgers Preparatory School) was established also in 1766, and shared facilities with the College until 1830, when it located in a building (now known as Alexander Johnston Hall) across College Avenue from Old Queens. After Rutgers University became the state university of New Jersey in 1945, the Trustees of Rutgers divested itself of Rutgers Preparatory School, which relocated in 1957 to an estate purchased from the Colgate-Palmolive Company in Franklin Township in neighboring Somerset County.

As of the 2010 United States Census, there were 55,181 people, 14,119 households, and 7,751.331 families residing in the city. The population density was 10,556.4 per square mile (4,075.8/km²). There were 15,053 housing units at an average density of 2,879.7 per square mile (1,111.9/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 45.43% (25,071) White, 16.04% (8,852) Black or African American, 0.90% (498) Native American, 7.60% (4,195) Asian, 0.03% (19) Pacific Islander, 25.59% (14,122) from other races, and 4.39% (2,424) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 49.93% (27,553) of the population.

City Hall has promoted the nickname “The Health Care City” to reflect the importance of the healthcare industry to its economy. The city is home to the world headquarters of Johnson & Johnson, along with several medical teaching and research institutions including Saint Peter’s University Hospital, Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, the Cancer Institute of New Jersey, and The Bristol-Myers Squibb Children’s Hospital. There is also a public high school in New Brunswick focused on health sciences, the New Brunswick Health Sciences Technology High School.

Rutgers University has three campuses in the city: College Avenue Campus (seat of the University), Douglass Campus, and Cook Campus, which extend into surrounding townships. Rutgers has also added several buildings downtown in the last two decades, both academic and residential.

New Brunswick is the site to the New Brunswick Theological Seminary, a seminary of the Reformed Church in America, that was founded in New York in 1784, then moved to New Brunswick in 1810.

Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, part of Rutgers University, is located in New Brunswick and Piscataway.

Middlesex County College has some facilities downtown, though its main campus is in Edison.

Source: Wikipedia