38 Livingston Street

Brooklyn Heights was long New York’s poshest suburb. By the 1820s, investors were buying lots, drawn by the proximity (by ferry) to downtown Manhattan. Along its streets, located between Cadman Plaza and the East River, and south to Atlantic Avenue, rowhouses and churches were built, creating an elegant neighborhood that remains remarkably intact to this day. As the first neighborhood protected by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Law, blocks and blocks of 19th-century architecture have been preserved with only a few more-contemporary buildings that snuck in before the district was established in 1965. Montague Street, the neighborhood’s main commercial strip, includes local favorites when it comes to restaurants and other businesses for the necessities of daily life: a supermarket, hardware store, dry cleaner, and more. Brooklyn Heights may not be the borough’s coolest neighborhood, but DUMBO and Smith Street are among the trendier areas close by.