NYT Finds Coldest Spot in Brooklyn at Montague and Court Streets

New York Times reporter James Barron hit the streets of Brooklyn Heights with a wind expert and a “self made weather obsessive” to find the coldest spot in Brooklyn. They found it at the corner of Montague and Court Streets:

NYT: “I think of wind in terms of water, and I think of Cadman Plaza as a place where there’s whitewater,” Mr. Sullivan said. “We have this wind coming off the East River, and Robert Moses got rid of Walt Whitman’s neighborhood of crannied streets, and what was left was a steppe. And the wind smacks against Borough Hall. If you watch the trash blowing around, it circles like something in ‘Fantasia.’” That is the 1940 animated Disney film in which Mickey Mouse, as the sorcerer, was outwitted by a broomstick in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.”

Others dread the Brooklyn wind Mr. Sullivan knows. Alok Subedi, selling cheese at a table in the plaza, reflects on his native Nepal and on other places he sets up his table. “It’s cold in Nepal, but the wind gusts give you more cold here,” he says, “and Union Square is windy, but not like this.”

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  • Claude Scales

    I’ve long thought it must be Montague and Hicks, where the Bossert dumps the prevailing westerly wind that hasn’t encountered anything as high since the First Watchung Mountain in New Jersey. But I have to pass that corner just about every day, so my perspective may be skewed.

  • Gerry

    i had thought the coldest part of Brooklyn Heights was Hicks Street and Montague Street.

  • Tiger Lily

    I’m also pretty sure that the windiest, coldest spot is actually Hicks and Montague!

  • Jorale-man

    The promenade is no picnic either. When I see people without hats or gloves on right now I wonder how they can stand it. It seems like an easy invitation to frostbite.

  • http://www.facebook.com/heather.quinlan Heather Quinlan

    I vote for Clark and Henry, the wastebasket there is always full of bent umbrellas.

  • Boerum Bill

    Apparently, they never checked the area where Gerry’s heart resides.

  • GHB

    For wind, even on relatively calm days, Willow between Clark and Pineapple is pretty nasty

  • http://twitter.com/AlannaMarieS Alanna S

    I also vote for Montague & Hicks. I live by this intersection and nothing in my Manhattan and Brooklyn Heights commute compares to the bitter wind whipping up in that area

  • DrewBurch

    I agree Montague and Hicks is crazy cold! I go out of my way to avoid that intersection if it is frigid out.

  • Andrew Porter

    They should have checked Pineapple, with the wind funnelling down past the Towers and St George Tower!

    There’s a very old expression: “the wind is lazy; instead of going around you, it goes through you.”.

  • David on Middagh

    The wind on Hicks and Henry–both sides of that St. George block–will inside-out an umbrella faster than you can say “topologically invariant”.

  • David on Middagh

    It’s not that Montague and Hicks is cold, tho’ it can be really cold. For me, it’s the risk of being blown into the street.

  • http://www.facebook.com/regina.subaru Regina Subaru

    Ill bet the coldest spot in the Heights is on Montague Terrace,,,,, In Gerry’s bedroom

  • Cranberry Beret

    The block of Hicks, between Clark and Pineapple (western, river-facing side of St George) is hands-down the windiest spot around here.