Brooklyn Heights

When the first steam ferry began crossing the East River in 1814, Wall Street bankers suddenly found they could live on this bluff in Brooklyn and be at their desks in Manhattan within minutes. Brooklyn Heights became America’s first commuter suburb, and the rows of brownstones and churches built in those years are still standing. In 1965 it became the very first historic district in New York, so almost nothing has been torn down since. Writers loved it too: Truman Capote wrote Breakfast at Tiffany’s in a house on Willow Street, and Arthur Miller and W. H. Auden lived nearby. This walk takes you through the leafy streets and down to the waterfront park below.