[4K] Laid-back Brooklyn: Cobble Hill, New York Walking Tour

[4K] Laid-back Brooklyn: Cobble Hill, New York Walking Tour

Hey everyone Alexander from City Gazing here and today we are at Cobble Hill another nice little neighborhood in Brooklyn very close by to the neighborhood from my previous video Brooklyn Heights it’s still raining here not too bad hopefully I’ll not be too wet and as always

I’ll tell you a couple of facts about the neighbourhood and will comment on the things I see this is a very good pizzeria I know that it’s too dark but I hope that you will see something and camera is actually not too bad during the night that’s it oh my God

It’s interesting they have one cleaners business here second one and a psychic that’s what you need in New York after you went to cleaners the place where we are headed to is actually just a Trader Joe’s if you are not from the US Trader Joe’s is just supermarket chain

But it has a little bit of history to it so this is a building that has Trader Joe’s and to this spot where it is located it once was a steep hill referred to as Cobble Hill on the survey of Brooklyn dating from 1767 and during the battle of Brooklyn

The steep spot became Cobble Hill Fort a key lookout point from which General Washington viewed the fighting at the Gowanus Creek so that’s basically the place that named the neighbourhood and now I’m looking for a place that has an address 173 Pacific street so this is the place so when the Ringling Brothers

And Vernon and Bailey Circus was in town the zebras would bank in this place this place is a former stable and now it’s a luxurious carriage house boarded the animals Between 1915 and 1920 the animals were brought here by train and they arrived at the Flatbush terminal and walked up Atlantic Ave

And the building next door held the elephants at least that’s what the former owner said Richard Turmoil and I’m staying here for another thing I want to show let me cross the street it’s my first time here in this neighborhood so I might not know how the building looks like exactly

But let’s figure this out I think it’s actually behind this fence and the thing is it’s a rifle range that was founded in 1930s and it’s called Metropolitan Rod and Gun Club it’s an indoor pistol rifle and archery range and during the World War 2

The club helped to qualify the entire Brooklyn division of the City Patrol Corps of over 5,000 men on its range and this building here located at 219 Clinton street was actually the first building where they had privately owned elevator it was built in 1844 for Abraham Degraw a wealthy commissioner merchant

And this house was enlarged and redesigned in 1890 by the next owners Laura and Ralph Cutter and the new owners added a tower to ensure a view of the harbor which had become blocked by the development of the neighbourhood and as I said there is a rumour that

This mansion had the first private elevator in Brooklyn and here is a Cobble Hill park it’s really small I hope you can enjoy the buildings even if it’s dark we’ll turn to the right here and we’ll go to the Hicks Street if you watched my previous video about Brooklyn Heights

You know that people from that neighborhood they were fighting not to build Brooklyn Express Highway on the Hicks Street but it’s not the case here in Cobble Hill and you will see how it looks like there is still some snow right here it’s been very warm for the last couple of days

But not that warm to melt all the snow and I hope that another snowstorm is coming cause the last one was no bueno the building here to the left or rather a set of buildings is called Cobble Hill Towers and before the Brooklyn Queens Expressway that was installed in 1950s

Hick Street was a lively commercial street and this building had store fronts but once Brooklyn Queens Expressway slides through the Hicks Street the sidewalks became inhospitable that’s why shoppers left and storefronts shut down and here you can see how it looks like it’s basically just a highway

No one would want to walk here and go to any stores let me cross the street just for you to see you see that’s just an enormous highway or expressway in this case I see raindrops on the camera let me clean this really quick alright I hope it will be better

There is one place I wanted to show you it’s called Tiffany Place and you see that this is made out of cobblestone and it’s the only cobblestone street in the neighbourhood but in 1800s cobblestone streets were everywhere the stones were made from the ships ballasts and paved many of the Oracle roads

Technically we are a little bit out of the Cobble Hill neighborhood but we’ll be back soon I have one more spot to show you so we’ll be there in few minutes it looks like I need to go one more block that way to get to the other side of the street

I hope that you don’t mind and thanks for sticking out with me I’m not a professional guide so it means a lot if you want to watch my videos and find out something new for you because that’s what I wanted to do and here is another look at the highway

We’ll go one block that way and we’ll be right back into the neighborhood I just don’t wanna stay in Hicks Street because it’s too loud someone’s ready for Saint Valentine’s Day that’s just a laundry that’s the experience you have here in New York if you live in pre-war apartment

Or I think even in more newer apartments you need to take your clothes when they are dirty and go to the laundry and spend couple of hours there if you’re from New York and watching this you probably already know that but that might be a surprise for a ton of people from

All over the world and we are back to the Degraw Street this is the edge of the Cobble Hill and we’ll follow the street for a few more blocks and we’ll turn left eventually I definitely love the vibe of these streets it’s a relatively quiet neighborhood

I would say, with all their nice local businesses it must be a little cheaper than Brooklyn Heights but still I think that rent is high here now by the way I have a fact about the rent in 1879 the rent was only $7.20 to $14 a month so it was affordable

If we’ll translate that to today’s prices it just a $168 to $325 that was the rent in the Towers that I showed you and another interesting fact the Pioneer Tobacco Factory which was located on the west side of Hicks Street manufactured and packaged chewing tobacco in the 1860s and 70s

And it was a very large large factory it has produced $2.5 million worth of chewing tobacco in 1872 and employed 450 people so you can imagine the scale of that plant also you can see a lot of trees here nowadays but it was not like this 50 years ago

There was a guy local citizen from Cobble Hill his name was George Polimeros and he was the one who organized tree fund and planted all these trees so it looks much much better now and here you can see the synagogue and this synagogue moved to its present location in 1905

The congregation paid $30,000 for the building which had been erected as the Middle Reformed Protestant Dutch Church in 1855 and I think that’s everything I wanted to show you about Cobble Hill this time I’ll take you with me for few more minutes here on Court Street and we’ll be done

This street has a ton of businesses feels much more alive that’s a meat shop it started to rain badly so I’ll finish shooting this video in the next intersection thanks for watching click subscribe and see you in the next video

We’re in laid-back Cobble Hill in Brooklyn, New York, this time. This walking tour is at night, but I hope it is still exciting and you can see something. That’s one of my first times here, so I’m unfamiliar with the neighborhood. I’m so sorry about it!

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Filmed January 24, 2024
Shot on DJI Osmo Pocket 3

0:00 Intro
5:08 Trader Joe’s
7:35 Where zebras slept
9:10 Metropolitan Rod and Gun Club
11:10 The Degraw Mansion
12:42 Cobble Hill Park
17:52 Cobble Hill Towers
21:50 Tiffany Place
26:02 BQE
35:22 Kane Street Synagogue
37:30 Court Street
40:52 Outro

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