Brooklyn Heights

What is more inviting than a neighborhood with street names like Orange, Pineapple, Cranberry, Willow, Poplar, Grace Court, Garden Place or Love Lane? Brooklyn Heights is truly a special enclave, buffered from the world on 4 sides by the Brooklyn Bridge to the North, Cadman Plaza to the East, Atlantic Avenue to the South and the promenade/esplanade abutting the East River to the West. The promenade is a huge feature here and one that has brought me back many times. Flanking the entire length of the neighborhood, it affords magnificent views of Manhattan, the East River, the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan Bridge. Both daytime and nighttime views are worth a trip. See more photos here.

This is New York City's first historic district, established in 1965 - a product of opposition to a Robert Moses plan to run the Brooklyn Queens Expressway through the center of the neighborhood. The rerouting of the expressway to the Western edge of the neighborhood (which sits on a bluff), permitted the building of the esplanade. The neighborhood has virtually no tall buildings and is characterized by blocks of row houses of Federal, Greek Revival, Gothic Revival, Italianate brownstones and some mansions.

Brooklyn Heights has also been known for its stable of renowned writers who have lived there - Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Hart Crane, Andrea Dworkin, Arthur Miller, Walt Whitman and Thomas Wolfe. 

Genteel, pristine, picturesque, bucolic, charming - hard to imagine that this area was considered somewhat unsafe and undesirable at one time.

There is essentially no through traffic in the neighborhood, so it is extremely quiet and peaceful. Street scenes as shown in my photos typify day to day life here. Yet, it is incredibly convenient location - one subway stop from Manhattan and immediate access to bridges or the expressway. As you most likely guessed, inexpensive is not one of the features here :)