Cobble Hill

About Cobble Hill

Ferries and South Brooklyn’s growing waterfront helped turn the area into a residential neighborhood during the nineteenth century. The historic district records successive building styles rather than a single uniform row-house design. Changes in doorways, rooflines, ironwork and window surrounds make those periods visible from the street.

Housing reform is another part of the story. In the 1870s, philanthropist Alfred Tredway White developed the Home and Tower buildings and the Warren Place cottages to provide better housing for working people. The larger buildings and the small courtyard houses offered different alternatives to the crowded tenement.

Places to explore

• Cobble Hill historic streets

  Clinton, Henry and Congress streets

  Look at the proportions of Greek Revival entrances and the more elaborate brackets and decoration of later houses. The district’s block-by-block report is useful for choosing a few facades to compare. Occupied homes are exterior stops.

• Cobble Hill Park

  Clinton Street at Verandah Place

  Neighborhood campaigns helped secure this land for a park rather than new development. Dedicated in 1965 and reconstructed in 1989, it uses brick, stone and ironwork that relate to the surrounding streets. The park is a twentieth-century addition to an older neighborhood.

• Warren Place cottages

  Between Warren and Baltic streets, west of Henry Street

  Two rows of narrow houses face a shared garden court. The arrangement was part of White’s housing reform work. Look from the public street entrances; the courtyard and homes are private.

• Cobble Hill Towers

  Hicks Street at Baltic Street

  The Tower Buildings show the larger-scale side of White’s housing projects. Repeated brick arches and open galleries distinguish them from the nearby row houses. See the exterior from the sidewalk rather than entering residential courts.

Planning a visit

Bergen St on the F and G is an arrival point east of Court Street, with entrances along Smith Street at Bergen, Warren and Wyckoff streets. Check MTA service notices for changes before traveling. Choose your stops from the historic streets and park rather than treating the whole district as a museum with public interiors.

Cobble Hill Park is the public open-space stop in this selection. Warren Place and the Towers remain residential places. Use public sidewalks for the architectural stops and leave their gardens, doorways and courts clear.

Photos