Brooklyn Heights

Walk over the bridge to a victorian world

Author: By Christopher Lofting, Globe Corespondent

Date: SUNDAY, September 27, 1998

Page: M1

Section: Travel

In 1898, the election ballots that would determine whether independent Brooklyn was to become part of New York City were carried across the Brooklyn Bridge to be counted in Manhattan. Many of the ballots opposed to the union were thrown into the East River, or so legend has it. The sister boroughs -- Bronx, Queens, Staten Island -- timidly yielded long ago to the awesome dominance of Manhattan. But Brooklyn never forgets it missed out on being the fourth-largest city in America by giving up its independence and sovereignty. They still call the merger ``The Big Mistake of '98.''

Brooklyn -- the reality and the legend -- has a character, flavor, mystique, and feistiness all its own. The racial, ethnic, and political diversity of its 2.5 million people, representing 93 nationalities living in 50 neighborhoods, confounds even the natives. Yet Brooklyn is surprisingly easy for a visitor to sample while in the Big Apple. You can even walk over to have a look.

This appealing walking tour starts in Lower Manhattan, at the famed gateway to New York's other world, the Brooklyn Bridge, just across from City Hall. The walkway entrance is to the right of the Municipal Building, the neoclassical 1914 skyscraper with the arches and a gilded statue on top. Keep to the left side of the walkway to avoid the bicycle traffic over the center of the bridge. There's no problem if heights make you queasy. Even the worst acrophobe will be comforted by those massive sandstone towers with the graceful double Gothic arches and the lanes of auto traffic on either side beneath the wide pedestrian boardwalk.

Farther along, the stunning view over your shoulder back at the Manhattan riverfront begins to steal the show: the towers of the financial district, the Statue of Liberty, the square-rigged sailing ships permanently anchored at South Street Seaport with its flag-decked Pier 17 shopping mall; the Empire State and Chrysler Building amid the skyscraper forest in Midtown to the north, and the flying and floating circus that is New York Harbor.

At the base of each pair of bridge towers, the pedestrian walk widens, enabling visitors to get away from foot and bicycle traffic to enjoy the panorama of the harbor and the Manhattan skyline. Here the history of the bridge's construction is inscribed on several large brass plaques installed during the Brooklyn Bridge centennial in 1983. On the Brooklyn side of the bridge, follow the right lane to the end, at Tillary Street, and go to the right two blocks past the post office building across the street to the left and the Brooklyn War Memorial to Cadman Plaza West to the right. Turn right and immediately left onto Clark Street, and you enter the cool, serene, shaded, and tidy 19th-century world of Brooklyn Heights.

Brooklyn has no single point of origin but dates to a half-dozen 17th- century villages scattered across 78 square miles. Brooklyn Heights was founded on a rugged outcrop of land at the water's edge by the Dutch, who named it for its geology. Breukelen (broken land) soon prospered from trade and commerce with the village of New Amsterdam across the river on Manhattan Island. Most of the houses in the Heights date from 1820 to 1890 and are maintained with a meticulous pride known in few other parts of the city. To walk the streets on a warm afternoon is be part of the elegant, graceful world of Victorian New York.

You can start anywhere, but most people head straight to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, the tree- and bench-lined esplanade running along the waterfront that is dominated by the view of Manhattan's lower skyline. The Michelin Green Guide gives the scene its top three-star rating. In decent weather, this spectacular walkway entertains a passing parade of joggers, mothers pushing strollers, running children, couples -- a cross section of residents and other New Yorkers. The east side of the promenade is lined with mansions built by New York's power elite in the 1870s and 1880s. From the outside, they look much as they always have, concealing the 20th-century reality that most are now divided into co-op apartments.

If there is a main street to the Heights, it is Montague, which divides the north and south residential areas. It differs from quiet nearby streets of brownstones only in the use to which the classic buildings have been put. No drab urban storefronts here. The cozy village atmosphere has been achieved by the conversion of the ground-level and high-stooped parlor floors of these elegant Victorian brownstones to commercial use, otherwise leaving the buildings, and the trees, as is. The effect is a comfortable and relaxed shopping area enjoyed by residents and visitors alike. Here there is a mix of fast-food outlets, ice cream parlors, mystic readers, florists, restaurants, laundromats, housewares stores, and newsstands. Several sidewalk cafes and restaurants on Montague are good rest stops after walking the bridge and the residential streets of the Heights. Select one according to whim or ethnic preference and you won't be disappointed: Armando's and La Traviata for excellent Italian dishes, with sidewalk dining; Old Mexico, short on ambience but with good food.

When you are ready to move again, there is a lot of Brooklyn history and architecture close by. Be sure to drop into St. Ann and Holy Trinity Church, if it's open, at the corner of Clinton and Montague. Now a combination church and arts center, it presents performing arts from the classical to off-the- wall, Juba dance to Balinese shadow puppets. Look at a dazzling display of the oldest American-made stained-glass windows in the country. Other nearby sights not to be missed include Hunt's Lane, off Henry Street, an authentic carriage mews; the Romanesque Revival Herman Behr residence, at the corner of Pierrepont and Henry; the former Palm Hotel, bordello, and Franciscan House of Studies (not at the same time) turned into condo residences; the Catholic Our Lady of Lebanon Church, at Remsen and Henry Street with its magnificent brass doors from the late, great French ocean liner Normandie.

Only Paris can brag of having as wide a variety of specialty museums as New York, and one of the most interesting, particularly if you have the kids in tow, is the Transit Museum, at Boerum Place and Schermerhorn Street. You are looking for, appropriately, what appears to be just another subway stairway. In fact, it is the entrance of a museum displaying subway cars from the oldest to the newest, a bus cab for the kids of all ages to ``play'' driver, old subway maps, a gift shop, and touring exhibits.

Brooklyn proudly brags that it is made up of 93 ethnic groups, most living in separate neighborhoods. One of the most fascinating and best-known is the Arab quarter along Atlantic Avenue, the borderline between Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill. It is lined with exotic restaurants and enticing grocery stores selling the ingredients of Middle Eastern cooking. Stop in at Sahadi's, at 187-9 Atlantic, if only to browse. There are breads and barrels filled with dates, nuts, a half-dozen varieties of olives, open sacks of aromatic spices, trays of honey-soaked pastries. Across the street, check out Oriental Pastry and Grocery, at 170 Atlantic, and, for great pastries, Malko Karkanni Bros. right next door. There are several excellent restaurants to choose from for a taste of the Middle East: Tripoli, at the corner of Clinton and Atlantic, which features Lebanese dishes including a variety of lamb specialties, and Moroccan Star, on Atlantic near Court Street, for Arab cuisine with a European influence.

By the time your day in the Heights is over, you will be looking for the fast track back across the river. From the Borough Hall subway station, take the No. 4 or 5 train to the East Side of Manhattan, or the No. 2 or 3 for the West Side. Manhattan is just five minutes from New York's first suburb.

Setting a brisker pace, you might have time to add a side trip to the world-class Brooklyn Museum, second only to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Botanic Garden next door to the museum has spectacular year-round gardens.

Then you can end the day with a stroll through Park Slope, another of Brooklyn's gentrified neighborhoods. From Manhattan's West Side, or Brooklyn's Borough Hall station, take the number 2 or 3 train to Eastern Parkway. From the number 4 or 5 train from Manhattan's East Side, transfer across the platform to the number 2 or 3 at Nevins Street, Brooklyn.

Getting There: The subway is by far the best way to get to or from Brooklyn. From the East Side, take the Lexington Avenue Express number 4 or 5 train to the first stop in Brooklyn, Borough Hall; from the West Side, take the Seventh Ave. number 2 or 3 train.

To see and do: New York Transit Museum, Boerum Place, and Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201; 718-243-8601. Open Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. Admission: $3 adults, $1.50 children (up to 17 years of age), $1.50 senior citizens.

Brooklyn Museum of Art, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY 11238; 718-638-5000. Open Wednesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; closed Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day. Admission: $4, adults and children, $1.50 senior citizens.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 1000 Washington Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11225; 718-622-4433. Open Tuesday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (October-March); weekends and holidays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; closed Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's. Admission: $3 adults; 50 cents children 6-16; $1.50 seniors; Tuesdays, free; guided walking tours.

Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment has walking tours in many parts of Brooklyn; $8 per person; call 718-788-8549 for information.