Brooklyn has a skyline too. It’s a beacon signaling the location of Downtown Brooklyn, a civic and commercial center that has endured since before the famed borough was ever a borough. Downtown Brooklyn is best-known these days as the site of courthouses, municipal buildings, and the like (the imposing Greek Revival-style Borough Hall standing as the most notable). Over time, though, a residential flavor has emerged. Vintage rowhouses are met by condominiums and skyscrapers—each subsequent one taking Brooklyn to literal new heights as the borough’s tallest building. The area’s rise in stature mirrors neighboring Brooklyn Heights, its 19th-century population boom owed to Robert Fulton’s invention of the steam ferry. People rode across the East River from Manhattan and never looked back—except to enjoy scenic vistas from the nearby waterfront or a perch up on high.