Arts & Culture
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Brooklyn Heights, with its elegant promenade and dramatic view of Manhattan, became one of the most uniformly preserved 19th century residential districts in New York City after development began soon after 1814, when Robert Fulton's first steam powered ferry, financially backed by Hezekiah Beers Pierpont, connected the Village of Brooklyn to Manhattan. Distinguished by frame houses built soon after 1820, Greek Revival and Italianate row houses built in the mid-century, and many 19th century churches, Brooklyn Heights retained a serene upper middle-class atmosphere. Notable early residents included Seth Low, president of Columbia University and an early mayor of consolidated New York, and Henry Ward Beecher, an abolitionist minister and brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin. The completion of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883, and the consolidation of Brooklyn and New York in 1898, ended Brooklyn Heights' growth. It became the first historic district in 1965.
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