Walking Brooklyn. Adrienne Onofri
legal history, including the Code of Hammurabi, Ten Commandments, Magna Carta, and United States Constitution. The building across the street has some impressive ornamentation of its own at the door and windows, populated with (mostly) mythological beings.
Turn left at the end of Pearl onto the pedestrian plaza. When you reach Adams Street, you’re across from the State Supreme Court—a dowdy edifice that, surprisingly, was designed by the same firm that created the Empire State Building.
Make a left on Adams. In front of the Shake Shack at Fulton Street, cross Adams, putting you on Joralemon Street. Pause to look ahead to Court Street at the old skyline of Brooklyn: four buildings in a row that were successively the borough’s tallest upon their completion between 1901 and 1927. Then make a right onto the path next to
Continue into the plaza, variously called Columbus Park or the Civic Center. To your right are two Kennedy memorials: a bust of Robert F. Kennedy, who represented New York State in the United States Senate, and a tree planted in memory of President John F. Kennedy. Next you greet Christopher Columbus. This famous sailor has moorings around the base of his pedestal.
As you continue to head north through the park, you can see the Manhattan Bridge off in the distance. The statue at this end is of Henry Ward Beecher, abolitionist pastor of nearby Plymouth Church (who usually wore a cape as shown). Beecher’s advocacy for children and African Americans is represented in the figures at the base. The Romanesque fortress beyond Beecher is yet another headquarters demoted to branch when Brooklyn lost its city status; this one belonged to the Postal Service. The section facing Johnson Street—an extravaganza of dormers and turrets, with a potbellied arcade atop the tower—is the original structure, constructed from 1885 to 1891.
With the old post office to your right, walk on Johnson Street. Cross Cadman Plaza West and go left.
Make a right on Montague Street, stopping to read the plaque on the corner bank building. On the opposite corner with Court stands the tallest of the old skyscrapers you glimpsed from Adams Street. Completed in 1927, it was Brooklyn’s first building with more than 30 stories.
Morning and evening are symbolized by male figures at two different ages in the pediment of the former Dime bank on Albee Square
This block of Montague has remained “Bank Row,” as it was a century ago, though the banks have new names. On your right, Citibank occupies a 1903 beaut designed by the same team as the Dime you saw near Fulton Street; the Art Deco skyscraper to its right (#185) was designed by architects who would next work on Rockefeller Center. At the corner of Clinton Street, Chase’s 1915 building, modeled on a palace in Verona, Italy, features extraordinary ornamentation on its wrought-iron gates, entryway, and lampposts, as well as a gilded ceiling inside. Catercorner from Chase, the 1891 headquarters of the Franklin Trust Company has been converted to luxury apartments.
Turn left on Clinton Street, then left on Remsen Street. Past the church-turned-apartments on your right, St. Francis College took over a building erected in 1914 as headquarters of the gas company—thus the torches and gas lamps in the bronze ornamentation. The brownstone-and-brick #186 was created in the 1880s by the Parfitt Brothers, in-demand Brooklyn architects of the Victorian age. Next to it stands Brooklyn’s tallest building from 1918 to 1926, when it was surpassed by the building on the opposite corner of Remsen and Court (which held the title only a year).
Turn right on Court Street. The Temple Bar Building at #44 was Brooklyn’s tallest when opened in 1901—the oldest of these early skyscrapers. It’s still a favorite of many, especially because of its cupolas. Stand right outside the door, facing the building, and look up for an interesting view.
At Joralemon, cross Court to your left to go to the subway—but wait, there’s one last old skyscraper to see. Turning back toward Court, look to your left at the neo-Gothic “wedding cake” at the next corner (Livingston Street). Limestone and terra cotta take you from one setback to the next, with it all peaking in a cupola-crowned pyramidal roof.
Enter the subway on Joralemon in front of Borough Hall.
Points of Interest
State Street Houses 290–324 and 291–299 State St.
New York Transit Museum Boerum Place and Schermerhorn Street; 718-694-1600, nytransitmuseum.org
Macy’s 422 Fulton St.; 718-875-7200, l.macys.com/brooklyn-downtown-in-brooklyn-ny
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema and House of Wax City Point, 445 Albee Square W.; 718-513-2547, drafthouse.com/nyc and 929-382-5403, thehouseofwax.com
MetroTech Myrtle Avenue and Bridge Street
Borough Hall 209 Joralemon St.; 718-802-3700, brooklyn-usa.org
Barclays Center, BAM, and Boerum Hill
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Barclays Center, BAM, and Boerum Hill:
Game On
Above: Detail on the Ashland Place side of One Hanson Place
BOUNDARIES: Lafayette Ave., Flatbush Ave., Wyckoff St., Boerum Pl.
DISTANCE: 2.3 miles
SUBWAY: B/D/N/Q/R/2/3/4/5 to Atlantic Ave./Barclays Center (Flatbush Ave./Atlantic Ave. exit)
Nothing will ever heal the wound of losing the Dodgers, but Brooklyn got back in the big leagues in 2012 when the Barclays Center opened and became the new home of the Nets, the NBA team previously based in New Jersey. The arena hosted the MTV Video Music Awards during its first year and is now a stop on many a pop star’s world tour. It happens to be located just a couple of blocks from Brooklyn’s other premier performance venue, the Brooklyn Academy of