NY Times Takes a Walking Tour of Brooklyn Heights

By on October 3, 2008 10:29 am in History

BHB tipster “Bradley” sent us this link to a New York Times Weekend Explorer video feature on our humble neighborhood (and accompanying article, thanks MiB).

Appearing in the piece are Deborah Schwartz of the Brooklyn Historicial Society,  nabe residents Frank Santos (who tells a great story about workers at the Peaks Mason Mints Factory tossing candy to schoolkids from the plant’s window as well as stating that the BQE “ruined the neighborhood”), Jim Schmitt (drug smugglers on the Pier!) and Joe “Odditorium” Coleman.

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  • http://www.newyorkguidebook.com/images/newyorkinfo/geo/flag/flag_brooklyn.gif MadeInBrooklyn

    Be sure to check out neighborhood writer, John Strausbaugh’s article on the Heights in today’s times as well:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/arts/03expl.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

  • nabeguy

    Nice article, especaily given my house is mentioned in it. Talk about a small world…the writer lives in the same apartment I did on Hicks Street, of which Jim Schmitt was the super.

  • AEB

    Terrific! Particularly interesting: info about the various class permutations.

    I knew that my north-Height’s building was originally working-class housing; now that reality has context.

    Thanks, Homer!

  • henry & state

    That was Teriffic! I love finding out the history of where I live. I knew the neighborhood wasn’t the best in the 70’s. I came here in the early 80’s and its transformed so much – maybe not so good in all aspects. Allot of the charm and small town feel are gone sadly. It seems to be more transient than it used to be.

  • AEB

    …now if we could just bring back a bit of raffishness…..

  • ABC

    nabeguy, maybe you don’t want to out yourself but do you live in the schoolhouse? are you guys ever going to build on that lot? And do you ever rent spaces? I’ve always wondered about that lot

  • bornhere

    Interesting piece, but wrong, I think, on a few things. I’ve lived here all my life, and I never felt particularly fearful, even walking home from Friends after school dances and such or just hanging out with friends oodle (and oodles) of years ago. (The greatest “concern” I ever felt was probably around the time the St George became an SRO.) Also, and it’s trivial but true, Miller/Monroe did not live together at 155: Mary lived there with Bobby and Jane.

  • bornhere

    As for the video, YAY, SILVER’s GUY!!!

  • nabeguy

    ABC, there are two lots on either side of the old schoolhouse. The one on the left is actually still under the auspices of the diocese, and the right one, which was the schoolyard, is for the schoolhouse tenants. Your question about developing the lot can only be answered with another question: why build when you can park?

  • nabeguy

    Bornhere, I had to look twice, but that is the Silver’s guy. And now I remember why I was always a little afraid to go in there…

  • bornhere

    Nabe: But any guy selling really cool yo-yo’s and water guns, enough oak tag to satisfy the needs of third-graders worldwide, sort of happy-sad greeting cards with tons of glitter, and some pretty good candy bars would never hurt you. (And I love the retro-ness of him smoking in the store!)

  • ratNYC

    Did I miss it, or did he not mention poet A.H. Auden and writer Henry Miller lived in the nabe, the first one on Montague Terrace and the second one on Remsen St?

  • ChrisC

    He did mention A.H. Auden and Henry Miller, but can’t remember if he mentioned the exact locations of their apartments…

  • ABC

    I personally would like to park, but I can see residents thinking the cash would be nice too..

    I’ve always wondered about that

  • since47

    What a wonderful video! But as far as I know, the Standish Arms Hotel was always on Columbia Heights, not Columbia Place.

  • PJL

    Bornhere, not sure of your age/generation, but the Heights (as well as many other BK neighborhoods) was pretty well known for street crime, etc. from the 60s – 80s and many properties almost couldn’t be given away… enter the JW’s…. My Dad used to work at LICH and treated Truman Capote after he was mugged/beaten and left in the street not far from his home….

  • nabeguy

    You’re right about that 47. You can still see the reliefs of Miles Standish on the walls of the building between Clark and Pierrepont.
    Bornhere, I distinctly remember those cards, with the cheap glue that allowed most of the glitter to end up in the envelope. What I don’t remember is the smell of the cigar smoke; I must have been too busy looking at the Corgi car display to notice.

  • http://www.newyorkguidebook.com/images/newyorkinfo/geo/flag/flag_brooklyn.gif MadeInBrooklyn

    Be sure to check out John’s website (www.johnstrausbaugh.com) as he’s written some very interesting — and often controversial — books. He was also the editor of the NY Press back when it was actually readable!

  • bornhere

    Nabe: If you could see my smile!

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com Claude Scales

    The video and the article both mention W.H. Auden’s residence in the “February House” at 7 Middagh (later demolished for BQE right of way) along with Carson McCullars, Paul and Jane Bowles, Benjamin Britten, and Gypsy Rose Lee (see February House by Sherill Tippins for the story), but doesn’t mention his earlier stay on Montague Terrace. Two doors away, and a few years earlier than Auden, the novelist Thomas Wolfe (not to be confused with Tom “Bonfire of the Vanities” Wolfe) also lived on Montague Terrace, and there wrote Of Time and the River. This was one of Wolfe’s three residences in Brooklyn. His first was in the basement of a house on Verandah Place in Cobble Hill, now owned by friends of ours, which is where he wrote the short story “Only the Dead Know Brooklyn”, which the North Carolina born Wolfe wrote entirely in “Brooklynese”. Perhaps its best-known line (and source of its title) is, “Dere’s no guy livin’ dat knows Brooklyn t’roo an’ t’roo…”. I believe Wolfe also lived fo a time on Columbia Heights. He came to Brooklyn, as I recall reading, to escape from an affair he was having with a stockbroker’s wife. Whether it was to get away from her, or her possibly revenge-minded husband, or both, I don’t recall.

  • nabeguy

    PJL, the economic downturn in the 70’s that allowed the the Witnesses to buy up property (along with some eagle-eyed investors like Joe Geraci) was not particularly related to crime as much as the aging of the neighborhood populace and the flight of their children. Having been one of those kids that decided to remain in the Heights, I can’t tell you how many of my old friends tell me they wished they had stayed as well.

  • my2cents

    As someone who lives in a former storefront in the north heights, I often wonder what the conditions were that caused all of these stores to be turned into apartments on Hicks. Was it a result of the BQE truncating Hicks street? I’d love to hear more about that from some of the longer term residents. I love my storefront place, but i feel like this commercial -to- residential transition left the heights with a major zoning imbalance compared to, say, park slope. There’s only a handful of shops left on Hicks now (mostly pet-related).

  • my2cents

    Also, i loved the ny times piece. I really puts lie to these white glove notions of a “pure” historic district that can’t change even paint colors without written approval in triplicate. The past is so much messier and more disorderly than we want to remember. It sounds like the Heights was once a dynamic area, which is now preserved like a museum. I am glad that preservationists saved us from Moses’ bulldozer, but that’s no reason to fight all change as many seem to do.