Boerum Hill Historic District

The Brooklyn district of Boerum Hill, which is in fact quite flat, was named in the 1960s after the Boerum family, prominent eighteenth century famers and politicians. Bound by Fulton Avenue and Smith and Nevins Streets, the area is part of the original town of Breukelen, named after the city in Holland with similar topography.

The majority of the district was constructed in the 1860s and 1870s, as a residential neighborhood for professionals who worked in Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn. While the area's nearly 250 buildings run the gamut of architectural styles, the majority are brick with brownstone trim, and Italianate, which was popular in Brooklyn even after the Civil War. The district includes incredibly well-preserved ironwork on stoops and in front yards, linking the facades of the rows and imparting a unified appearance to the streetscape. Also present are Queen Anne-style sunbursts and rosettes that were often incised in the 1880s on the brownstone basements of older houses.

Boerum Hill was transformed by the 1960s wave of gentrification that included the nearby neighborhoods of Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill. Author Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress of Solitude, a semi-autobiographical work about growing up in the midst of gentrification in Boerum Hill, is almost entirely set in this district, on Dean Street between Nevins and Bond Streets. On its north side, this block includes a continuous row of thirty houses built in the 1850s. Today the district is a fashionable residential area. ©2014