Brooklyn Heights Historic District

Brooklyn Heights is a 140-acre residential district on a bluff across the East River from lower Manhattan. Its tree-shaded streets, bluestone walks and rows of brick and brownstone houses behind decorative iron fences developed after a steam ferry began running to Manhattan in 1814. Landowners divided their holdings into 25 by 100-foot lots, and the first village map was recorded in 1816. Building began around 1820 along Hicks Street and nearby cross streets. The houses and churches illustrate Federal, Greek Revival, Gothic Revival, Renaissance Revival, Ruskinian Gothic and Queen Anne styles, with Greek Revival the most common. Minard Lafever designed several churches and Packer Collegiate Institute here. Brooklyn Heights was the leading residential area of New York before Fifth Avenue rose to prominence. Local residents also protected it by securing the Esplanade, which carried the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway below the neighborhood. The district retains enough early fabric to serve as a record of nineteenth-century architectural change.