Barbra Streisand back home in Brooklyn

When Barbra Streisand takes the stage at the Barclays Center Thursday night, it will be the Brooklyn icon's first public performance in her native borough -- only 51 years in the making.

"It's incredible that this is her first appearance in Brooklyn, that she never appeared here professionally," said Brooklyn Borough president Marty Markowitz. "Brooklyn did not have a venue for a star like her to play."

Now, it does. The $1-billion Barclays Center -- which opened last month and is home to the NBA's Brooklyn Nets -- gives the borough its first major arena, as well as its first major league sports team since the Dodgers left for Los Angeles in 1957.

Bruce Ratner, the new arena's majority owner and developer, said he had dreamed of trying to make Streisand's milestone happen. "When I first thought about building an arena in Brooklyn, I always envisioned Barbra Streisand coming home to take center stage in her native borough," Ratner said in a statement. "It's humbling and almost surreal to welcome arguably the greatest entertainer of all time to Barclays Center. Barbra is Brooklyn, and there's nowhere more fitting for her to perform."

Streisand, a 1959 graduate of Erasmus Hall High School who made her professional debut at the Village Vanguard in 1961, has said she's been thinking about a return to the borough for years, even starting work on a TV special called "Barbra's Brooklyn."

"Brooklyn to me means the Loews Kings, Erasmus, the Yeshiva I went to, the Dodgers, Prospect Park, great Chinese food," Streisand said in a statement.

Streisand -- whose new album, "Release Me," features previously unreleased tracks -- hasn't discussed what she plans to sing at her Brooklyn shows.

Glenn Gamboa is a

Newsday staff writer.