South through three of New York's oldest brownstone neighbourhoods: the Heights, the city's first landmark district, with its abolitionist church, its 'fruit streets' and the Promenade cantilevered over the expressway; Atlantic Avenue's Middle Eastern grocers; Cobble Hill's tiny workers' cottages; and the deep front gardens and Italian-American shops of Carroll Gardens.
Best time: Weekend morning; start early for empty Promenade views, then shop Atlantic Ave and Court St (check Sahadi's hours before going)
The route, stop by stop
- 1Plymouth Church
57 Orange St. Henry Ward Beecher's abolitionist church, a stop on the Underground Railroad nicknamed the 'Grand Central Depot', where fugitives hid in the basement. Lincoln worshipped here in February 1860; look for the plaque on his pew and, in the garden, Gutzon Borglum's Beecher statue and Lincoln relief. 15 min.
- 2The 'fruit streets' and 70 Willow Street
Walk Orange, Cranberry and Pineapple Streets: lore says a Middagh family member kept replacing the street signs with fruit names until they became official. Truman Capote lived at 70 Willow St. Brooklyn Heights became NYC's first historic district in 1965. 20 min.
- 3Brooklyn Heights Promenade
557 m walkway from the end of Remsen St to the end of Orange St, opened 1950-51 and cantilevered over the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway after locals pushed the road to the waterfront. The view of Lower Manhattan and the harbour has been protected by a Special Scenic District since 1974. Enter at Montague St. 20 min.
- 4Grace Court Alley
A small dead-end mews, its buildings converted into homes, off Hicks St. It is private: look from the entrance. 5 min.
- 5Sahadi's
185-195 Atlantic Ave. Lebanese grocery founded in the mid-1890s in Manhattan's Little Syria and on Atlantic Ave since 1941; a James Beard 'America's Classic' (2017). Buy olives, nuts by weight and spices. Atlantic Ave here has one of the city's largest clusters of Middle Eastern shops. 20 min.
- 6Warren Place Workingmen's Cottages
Off Warren St between Hicks and Henry. Alfred Tredway White's 1876 experiment in decent workers' housing: 11-foot-wide single-family cottages facing a shared garden walk. 10 min.
- 7Cobble Hill Park
Clinton St at Verandah Place. Created in 1965 by neighbours on the site of two mansions and a disused church, rebuilt in 1989 in 19th-century style. 10 min.
- 8Carroll Gardens front gardens and Carroll Park
Walk Carroll and President Streets between Smith and Hoyt: brownstones of the 1870s-early 1880s set back behind deep front gardens, planned in Richard Butt's 1846 survey (historic district 1973). End in Carroll Park (Court St). The area was Italian-American dock workers' Brooklyn; residents still play bocce and keep the Good Friday Our Lady of Sorrows procession. Then Court St for old family-run Italian shops. 25 min.
More walks in New York City
- Lower Manhattan: from the Battery to the Brooklyn Bridge
- Greenwich Village and the West Village: slices, jazz and side streets
- Lower East Side and Chinatown food walk
- Midtown icons: Grand Central to MoMA
- Museum Mile and Central Park's east side
- Jackson Heights and Elmhurst food crawl (Queens)
- Brooklyn Bridge to Brooklyn Heights and Downtown Brooklyn
- Harlem to Sugar Hill: Strivers' Row, Hamilton Grange and Edgecombe Avenue
- Astoria: Little Egypt, a Czech beer garden, Hell Gate and Greek Ditmars
- Williamsburg to Greenpoint: sugar refinery, rail yard, WPA pool and Little Poland