Walking Brooklyn. Adrienne Onofri
Farther down, #155–159 were built in the 1820s, before the current street pattern, which is why they don’t align with Willow as the other houses do. Playwright Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible while living at #155.
Turn right on Pierrepont Street and then left on Pierrepont Place. The huge Italianate brownstone manses on your right date to 1857: #2 was the childhood home of Alfred Tredway White, who inherited his father’s business but ultimately devoted himself to social reform; #3 was built for A. A. Low, an über-successful importer of tea and silk from Asia, whose son Seth grew up to be the only person ever to serve as mayor of both Brooklyn and New York City. Continue across Montague Street onto Montague Terrace, and read of its literary heritage from the plaques on #1 and 5.
Turn right on Remsen Street, walk a short block, and go up the ramp to the
Leave the Promenade at Montague, pausing to read the historic marker on a boulder facing the street. At the right corner with Pierrepont Place, the Romanesque #62 was designed by Montrose Morris, architect of several landmark residences (mostly in Bedford-Stuyvesant). Continuing along Montague, watch on your left for a long building with a stepped gable, the Heights Casino. When it was built in 1904, the word casino was used for places of various social amusements, not just gambling. This casino was, and is, a renowned racquet club, producing many squash champions and containing the United States’ first indoor tennis courts.
On your right after you cross Hicks is the Bossert. From 1909 to 1949, it operated as Hotel Bossert, once lauded as “the Waldorf-Astoria of Brooklyn.” Across the street, find the Montague at #105, followed a couple of doors down by the adjoining Berkeley and Grosvenor. All three were designed in 1885 by the Parfitt Brothers, who were responsible for many fine churches and homes in late-19th-century Brooklyn.
From these Queen Anne gems, proceed past Henry and down the block to the 1847 Gothic Revival masterpiece of St. Ann and the Holy Trinity. The church’s superb stained-glass windows were the first such windows made in America, and its tower was originally 295 feet—taller than any other structure in Brooklyn or Manhattan—but was eventually shortened to less than half that height because upkeep was so expensive and the rector felt church steeples were being overshadowed by skyscrapers.
Two of the banks that gave Montague Street the nickname “the Wall Street of Brooklyn” stand opposite the church: to your right on Montague is the former Franklin Trust Company (1891), robustly punctuated with dormers and now restored as luxury apartments. Across Clinton Street, Chase occupies a 1915 building that was modeled on a palace in Verona, Italy.
Turn left on Clinton. Next to the church, smile at the faces of Michelangelo, Beethoven, Gutenberg, and Shakespeare—none of whom ever made it to Brooklyn, far as I know—high up on the 1881 building of the
Make a left on Pierrepont Street, walking around this Queen Anne landmark with deluxe terra cotta ornamentation. On this side you’ll find busts of Benjamin Franklin and Christopher Columbus between window arches. BHS, founded as the Long Island Historical Society, mounts exhibitions and owns an invaluable archive and library of books, maps, correspondence, newspapers, census and landholding records, and other materials. Across from the Historical Society is St. Ann’s, a progressive private school. Its building was erected in 1906 as a clubhouse for the well-heeled gentlemen who belonged to the prestigious Crescent Athletic Club.
At the next corner on your right, the Unitarian Church is the oldest church building in Brooklyn. Designed shortly before Holy Trinity by the same architect, Minard Lafever, it helped launch the Gothic Revival movement in the United States with its 1844 construction. The church installed eight Tiffany stained-glass windows for its golden anniversary.
Continue on Pierrepont just past Henry so you can get a good look at the mansion on the left corner. This Romanesque treasure, marred only by a canopy added in the mid–20th century, was completed in 1890 for manufacturing tycoon Herman Behr (whose son Karl, an attorney and tennis champion, would survive the Titanic). Check out the dragons fronting the stone porch.
The Pierrepont Street townhouses with these bay windows are steps from the Promenade
Walk on Henry Street beside the Behr mansion and then cross Montague. You don’t need to be close to
With the church on your right, walk on Remsen. See the “cultural medallion” on #91 about a former resident. Why such a short tenancy here for Henry Miller? He was evicted because he couldn’t make rent. The mansion two doors down has a copper roof and may be the standout of this outstanding block.
Turn left on Hicks Street, taking note of Grace Court Alley to your left, a mews of former carriage houses for the mansions on Joralemon and Remsen. On your right at Grace Court, Grace Church proffers another bold design by Richard Upjohn, this one in his more typical Gothic Revival vernacular.
Walk down Grace Court, a tranquil, secluded street with a fantastic view of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty at the dead end. There’s also a celebrity connection: Arthur Miller wrote Death of a Salesman at #31, and then sold the house to civil rights leader W. E. B. DuBois.
Return to Hicks and go right.
Make a right on Joralemon. The 1847 brownstone on your left at #58 has blackened windows because there’s nothing in the house except a ventilation shaft for the subway.
Turn left on Willow Place. About halfway down the block you find the Unitarian Church’s former chapel on your right. Alfred Tredway White, the philanthropic scion who grew up on Pierrepont Place, was its patron. It had to be sold upon his death in 1921 and for a while housed a brothel frequented by Navy Yard employees. Rescued by a citizens’ rehabilitation campaign in the 1960s, it is now used by the Heights Players, a long-running community theater. Toward the end of the block on your left is a group of brick townhouses in a so-called colonnade row. An identical quartet was built directly across the street (both in the 1840s), but it has only one weathered survivor.
Brooklyn Bridge Park
Brooklyn Bridge Park opened in phases starting in 2010 and became one of the city’s most popular green spaces in no time. Once you start roaming through the park, you’d never believe this real estate went neglected and inaccessible for so long. Stretching 1.3 miles from Atlantic Avenue (just south of Joralemon) all the way to beneath the Manhattan Bridge, the park centers on five redeveloped piers. At Joralemon Street’s Pier 5 are a marina and a picnic area with barbecue grills. Pier 6 features volleyball courts and playgrounds, while the absent Pier 4 has been replaced with a sandy beach and tidal pools. Pier 2 offers shuffleboard, roller skating, and kayaking, while Piers 1 and 3 both have terraces made from salvaged granite. And don’t