There use to be trolleys and horses. And hey, after the Williamsburg bridge was finished in 1903, “the small village of Williamsburg” became the most populated area of Brooklyn. So morning commuters at the Bedford stop at 8 A.M. watching packed train after packed train go by, history knows your pain.
The small village of Williamsburg became a city ca. 1850, and by 1870 had a population of about 180,000 (the population in 2000 was about 170,000). The bridge did lead to a population boom and Williamsburg was the most densely-populated area of NYC by about 1920, but it was no village in 1900.