Walking Brooklyn. Adrienne Onofri
the park and the foot of Middagh Street. There are lawns, pathways, plantings, and of course views throughout the park, as well as a series of 20- to 30-foot grassy hills that reduce noise level from the nearby expressway. You can also catch a ferry here. Park signage points you where you want to go and shares key historical and environmental information. All facilities and programs are subject to seasonal closings.
Make a right on State Street. The
Turn right on Columbia Place, site of one of Alfred T. White’s projects, Riverside, partway down on your left. Built in 1890, they were conceived as “model tenements” that elevated the quality of housing that the working class could afford, with decent plumbing and ventilation—not to mention decent aesthetics.
Back at Joralemon, you can go to the left and walk under the highway and across Furman Street to Brooklyn Bridge Park (see sidebar). Or if you’d rather save that for another time, go right on Joralemon and left on Clinton to the R train, about 0.4 mile away.
Points of Interest
Plymouth Church 57 Orange St.; 718-624-4743, plymouthchurch.org
Dansk Sømandskirke (Danish Seamen’s Church) 102 Willow St.; 718-875-0042, dskny.org
Brooklyn Heights Promenade West of Columbia Heights between Remsen Street and Orange Street
Brooklyn Historical Society 128 Pierrepont St., 718-222-4111; brooklynhistory.org
Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Catholic Cathedral 113 Remsen St.; 718-624-7228, ololc.org
Adam Yauch Park State Street and Columbia Place; nycgovparks.org
Dumbo and Vinegar Hill
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Dumbo and Vinegar Hill:
Postindustrial, Prepossessing
Above: The Clocktower Building and Empire Stores are neighborhood icons
BOUNDARIES: Brooklyn Bridge Park, Navy Yard, Sands St., Main St.
DISTANCE: 2 miles
SUBWAY: F to York St.
At a community meeting sometime in the late 1970s, the folks who’d started to repopulate a neglected industrial district on the East River came up with a name for their neighborhood: Dumbo, an acronym for “down under the Manhattan Bridge overpass.” Who’s going to want to live in a place called Dumbo? they figured, already sensing that their quiet, boho artists’ colony might attract notice. Ultimately, it proved to be no deterrent. Not only did developers seize on Dumbo, it became the most expensive neighborhood in Brooklyn, with median home prices higher than such Manhattan neighborhoods as Greenwich Village and the Upper East Side. Old warehouses and lofts have been transformed into trendy residential and cultural venues. Luxury high-rises have been built on cobblestoned streets. And Dumbo has become a hub for creative types from muralists to furniture designers to filmmakers to tech entrepreneurs to culinary innovators. You’ll see their influence on this walk, which also ventures into the tiny enclave of Vinegar Hill before wrapping up on the grounds of the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Walk Description
Out of the subway, go to your right on York Street. At the end of the block on your right is a beloved factory building. Beloved for the glazed terra cotta ornamentation along the roofline, and beloved because of the treats that were made inside: Eskimo Pies. It’s more identified with the ice cream pops (manufactured here from 1927 to 1966) than with the company that built it in 1909: Thomson Meter, whose monogram is on the corner shields at the top.
Turn left on Bridge Street.
Make a left on Front Street. The brick building on your right was erected in the early 1890s, when 65 shoe factories were operating in Brooklyn. This was the largest, Hanan & Son, whose retail locations extended to Europe and which employed more than 1,100 people at its peak (it went bankrupt in 1935). Down the block, Pedro’s has been brightening this corner with its mural—and its margaritas—as long as anyone can remember. Its ramshackle appearance and inexpensive menu are welcome vestiges of a time before the neighborhood was even known as Dumbo.
Across Jay, the entire square block on the right was once occupied by the Grand Union supermarket chain. From 1896 to 1915, it constructed six buildings here for a warehouse and a factory making teas, coffees, and spices. Visit the Shops at 145 Front, a collection of boutiques, art galleries, and designer showrooms. Of note to your left is Superfine, a Dumbo and foodie pioneer, having opened way back in 2001 with a focus on organic, sustainable ingredients.. It’s in a building designed in 1888 by the Parfitt Brothers, prestigious architects of their day who are responsible for a number of Brooklyn’s great Victorian-era residences and churches. Its original owner was E. W. Bliss, a major figure in Dumbo’s industrial history: the machinery and sheet metal manufacturer, based in the area from 1870 to 1933, employed more than 1,600.
Walk under the Manhattan Bridge, then turn right on Adams Street. Visit the
Turn left on Water Street. Those tracks going down Adams belonged to a rail system that transported goods within Gairville, as this district came to be known. When you reach Washington, look atop the brick building across to your right—a pediment with the Gair company’s name is on the roof. It also shows two years: 1888, the year of the building’s construction, and 1864, the year a Scottish immigrant named Robert Gair