Brookdale is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Bloomfield Township, located within Essex County, New Jersey, United States. It is generally considered to be the part of Bloomfield north of Bay Avenue,^{[citation needed]} As of the 2010 United States Census, the CDP’s total population was 9,239.

The indigenous English post of Brookdale was Stone House Plains. “Stone House” referred to a rock formation known as the stone house or good rock, supposedly once satisfactory as a shelter, just north of the present-day intersection of Bellevue Avenue and Newell Drive. The rock was yet present in 1802 but was removed not long afterward. “Plains” referred to the plains of the segment of the Yantecaw River which passes through the area.

Within a decade or as a result of the slant of the 18th century, settlers, possibly including Abraham Van Giesen, had begun to populate the area along Bellevue Avenue. By approximately 1750, two brothers, Garrabrant and Teunis Garrabrant, born in 1723 and 1726, respectively, to Cornelius and Jannetje (Pier) Gerbrandsen in Bergen (now Jersey City), owned sizeable tracts in the vicinity of Brookdale Park, Bellevue Avenue, and Broad Street. Circa 1730, Alexander Cockefair, born just about 1696 in Bushwick, purchased a “plantation” roughly bounded by the Yantacaw Brook, and modern-day Broad Street and Watchung Avenue. The Sigler and Coeyman families along with had agreed early farms in Stone House Plains. Descendants of these families operated farms, mills, and new businesses in the Place for more than two centuries.

Dutch was the primary language for many residents through the 18th century. In 1795, the Dutch Reformed Church of Stone House Plains (now Brookdale Reformed Church) was formed, creating a spiritual and social focal dwindling for the community. The native church edifice was built in 1802; it burned and was rebuilt not quite 1857. The Morris family, which operated mills just south of Brookdale, made a mill pond on the Yantacaw Brook. In the mid-1800s, residents time-honored the first school. In 1873, on the eve of US mail delivery service, the community voted to bend the name to Brookdale.