Boerum Hill

Boerum Hill is named for the Dutch colonial family whose farm once covered the ground, and its character was set by the Greek Revival and Italianate row houses built through the middle of the nineteenth century. Landmarked in 1973 and expanded in 2015, the historic district preserves a scale that has become rare in Brooklyn: narrow streets, consistent cornice lines, and virtually nothing tall enough to cast a shadow. The neighborhood was among the first targets of the brownstone revival movement of the 1960s and 70s, when a generation of buyers restored houses that had been divided into rooming units. Atlantic Avenue along the northern edge carries a Middle Eastern mercantile history that still anchors it — Sahadi's has been a Brooklyn institution since 1948 — while Smith Street to the south became the borough's original restaurant row in the 1990s and remains dense with places worth crossing the borough for. There is no large park within the neighborhood itself, but Brooklyn Bridge Park, Cobble Hill Park, and Prospect Park are each a manageable walk. Housing is predominantly townhouses and small prewar buildings, with limited elevator inventory and a modest amount of newer condominium development at the Atlantic and Smith Street edges. For buyers who want brownstone Brooklyn at its most walkable and least monumental, few neighborhoods do it better.