Brooklyn Heights

Residential and commercial section of northwest Brooklyn, New York City. Brooklyn Heights is situated on a bluff overlooking the East River opposite lower Manhattan. It became ‘America's first suburb’ after the engineer Robert Fulton inaugurated a ferry service to Manhattan in 1814; fashionable and prosperous people were attracted by the district's isolation from, yet also its convenient proximity to, Manhattan.

Brooklyn Heights was the site of only sparse settlement when George Washington used it as his headquarters during the battle of Long Island in 1776. By the mid-19th century, it was noted for its residences and churches, among them Henry Ward Beecher's Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims (1849), an abolitionist stronghold and centre of the network for escaped slaves known as the Underground Railroad. The opening of the Brooklyn Bridge (1883) and subway service (1908) brought changes to the district. Its elite character partly gave way to bohemianism, hotels were built among the brownstone residences, and many of the rich moved away. Since the 1920s, the Heights have gone in and out of fashion; in the 1980s a new generation of young professionals gentrified the area once more and revitalized the local economy.

The Esplanade (locally known as the Promenade), built above the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway when that road cut through the dockland below the Heights in the 1930s, affords fine views of the Manhattan skyline and New York Harbour. Brooklyn Borough Hall and the downtown business district lie to the east. The Fulton Ferry district, now the area at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge, was celebrated by the poet and local resident Walt Whitman, who also referred to it as ‘Brooklyn Ferry’. Brooklyn Heights is home to the world headquarters and printing facilities of the Jehovah's Witnesses.