WILLOWTOWN is a quiet neighborhood in the Brooklyn Heights section of Brooklyn. It is bounded on the north by both sides of Joralemon Street from Hicks to Furman streets, on the south by the north side of Atlantic Avenue from Hicks to the Palmetto Playground, on the east by both sides of Hicks Street from Joralemon to Atlantic Avenue, and on the west by Furman Street between Joralemon and Atlantic Avenue.
As stated in an article, “Hidden Heights,” in the Fall 2005 issue of BKLYN magazine, “True, there is nary a willow tree in sight. But the sidewalks are amply shaded by sycamores and gingkos…and… distinguished by a variety of 19th-century residential architecture–Federal, Greek Revival and Gothic Revival, with smatterings of Renaissance Revival details.”
With some regularity in recent years because of its distinctiveness, Willowtown has been used for scenes in feature films, episodes in television serials and commercials. Residents have met the invasion of the production crews and their equipment with a mix of pride and annoyance. Films have included Woody Allen’s “Bullets Over Broadway,” Spike Lee’s “25th Hour,” and “The Forgotten” starring Julianne Moore. Among TV productions was Ric Burns’ PBS documentary on New York City.
19th Century Development
Development of Brooklyn Heights as a residential neighborhood began soon after the establishment in 1814 of a mechanized ferry between Fulton Street in Manhattan and what became its continuation in the new village of Brooklyn. The owners of farms there began dividing their land into building lots. Construction of houses first occurred in the area near the ferry landing. The start in 1836 of ferry service from South Ferry in Manhattan to the foot of Atlantic Avenue spurred development in the southern area of the nascent village. By the middle of the century the present arrangement of streets in the Heights was fixed and only slightly altered ever since.
The area including Willowtown was once part of the 40-acre country estate of Philip Livingston, 1716-78, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. In 1804 Teunis Joralemon, a prominent attorney and judge from an old Dutch family, acquired part of the Livingston property. The next year the road running at an angle along the property’s northern boundary from a distillery on the East River to Red Hook Lane just beyond Adams Street became known as Joralemon’s Lane. In his book, “Yesterdays on Brooklyn Heights,” James H. Callender wrote that the lane was a “wretched, narrow country road” and that housewives carried home yeast up the road from the distillery in “foaming pails.” Just off the distillery “were the fishing grounds of the village, the beach being controlled by the Joralemons, who were very generous in issuing permits to the villagers to draw their nets in the season when the shad were running.” A glass factory located on State Street, which first appeared on an 1829 map, fabricated bottles for the distillery.
Many of the houses in Willowtown date from the 1840s including the four unique two-story houses sharing a continuous portico of tall wooden columns at the southern end of Willow Place and the four survivors of nine clapboarded frame and brick houses in “Cottage Row” at the northern end of Columbia Place.
The A.T. White Community Center on Willow Place dates from 1867. It was built as a chapel of the First Unitarian Church on Pierrepont Street at Monroe Place. Its present namesake, Alfred Tredway White, 1846-1921, a lay leader in the church, started a kindergarten there. In carrying out his efforts to improve housing for the urban poor, White also pushed construction of the six-story Riverside tenement on Columbia Place containing 280 two- to four-room apartments and 19 stores. This was the first such building to have both indoor plumbing and an outdoor garden.
1900-1950
The oddest nonresidential buildings in Willowtown are “the world’s only Greek Revival subway ventilator” at 58 Joralemon Street and the former Metropolitan Transportation Authority substation at 21 Willow Place. The ventilator was a private brownstone dating from 1847. The substation was built in 1908 in conjunction with the start of subway service to Brooklyn. As reported in the BKLYN magazine article, the building’s “cavernous interior once housed a battery of electrical devices that converted alternating current to the 600-volt direct current needed to power the IRT.”
In the aftermath of the Great Depression of 1929, many of the neighborhood’s one-family houses were divided into small apartments. In response to the BKLYN magazine’s statement that Willowtown became “nearly derelict,” a former resident, Delphine Scala of Wellington, Fla., wrote that it “was never ‘derelict’ at any time. The folks who lived there were hard-working people who kept their properties in decent order and the street very clean. We kids played a lot of baseball, jump rope, etc. Every parent knew every kid in the neighborhood. House keys were unheard of. We were all family and bound to one another. No matter where each of us relocated, we are all still bound to one another for old times’ sake, and our hearts and minds remain faithful to ‘the old neighborhood.’”
The Unitarian Chapel on Willow Place served as a public school during 1928-42. Ms. Scala noted that she was a student there. According to the website of the Heights Players, which has called the chapel home since it became a community center in 1962, the building was a brothel during the years of World War II when the nearby Brooklyn waterfront was teeming with port workers and sailors; a furniture factory during 1947-56; and the A.J. Burrows metal fabricating shop from 1956 until the community center’s development.
Construction of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in phases during 1937-64 under New York’s urban planner Robert Moses threatened the destruction of Willowtown and much of the rest of Brooklyn Heights. Moses’ route for the expressway followed Hicks Street through Cobble Hill and Red Hook to the south, cutting the neighborhoods in half. Moses intended to do the same through Brooklyn Heights. The Brooklyn Heights Association, which was founded in 1910 by residents desiring to preserve the unique qualities of the community, led the successful effort to move the route several blocks west and around Brooklyn Heights. As an unsuccessful Red Hook activist said, “We got the shaft, and they got the Promenade.” While most of the Heights remained intact, half of the Riverside apartment building in Willowtown was lost to the new expressway. However, land cleared at the south end of Columbia Place became the Atlantic Playground.
During these years Abraham Jarber, a plumber who proved to be one of Willowtown’s more eccentric residents, bought property on Joralemon Street and Willow Place. He let his houses deteriorate so badly that under pressure from neighbors they were closed by the Department of Health. He and his mother continued to live in the basement of 55 Joralemon that otherwise was empty. He painted a sign on the metal used to seal 55 quoting a biblical verse, “Dust be the serpent’s meat.” In order to pay the back real estate taxes owed, he sold his other property except for 53, 55 and 57 Joralemon that he named Cozy Nook. He wanted to turn the houses into a “hospital for bruised heels,” again a phrase from the Bible. He sought funding for the project from then Gov. Nelson Rockefeller. After the death of his mother, blind and in failing mental health, he continued to live in 55 with a telephone and heat only from a wood stove but no electricity and running water. When his stove “died,” he finally went to a nursing home. Before his death early in the 1970s, a neighbor on Hicks Street by trickery got possession of the three houses, renovated and sold them.
1950s & 1960s
Starting in the 1950s, the early 19th century character, human scale and quiet atmosphere of Brooklyn Heights plus its close proximity to Manhattan appealed to young professionals who did not want to settle in the suburbs. They began buying and/or restoring houses throughout the community including Willowtown.
The new arrivals along with older residents came together periodically to address neighborhood issues as they arose and for block parties. The Willowtown Association developed out of these informal gatherings and continued primarily as an ad hoc group. It had a publication called the Willowtown Gazette. In the first issue dated September 1953 the association was described as “a group of neighbors who have gotten together to work for and improve the neighborhood in whatever way possible. All are welcome to join the…association, and we hope that someday everyone in the neighborhood will be a member.”
Late in the 1950s Robert Moses’ plans for slum clearance again threatened Willowtown with demolition and also the northeast corner of Brooklyn Heights. He wanted to put up new apartment towers under Title One of the federal Housing Act of 1949 as amended. Moses was not a proponent of the rehabilitation and modernization of existing housing even though they could be done under the act. The Willowtown Association won the day with meetings, resolutions, petitions, protests and even TV appearances. The northeast Heights then became Moses’ sole focus, resulting in construction of the present buildings on Cadman Plaza West.
As part of the celebration of the golden jubilee of the Brooklyn Heights Association in 1960, the Willowtown Association joined with the Brooklyn Heights Garden Club to hold a jubilee garden sale on Willow Place in April. The jubilee’s main goal was to promote historic zoning of the Heights and thereby its preservation. After much hard work by many, Brooklyn Heights became New York City’s first historic district in November 1965. The same year saw two related developments: designation of the Heights as a historic district by the U.S. Department of the Interior and enactment of the Landmarks Preservation Law creating the Landmarks Preservation Commission by the New York City Council.
In 1961 the association focused on the former Burrows metal fabricating shop on Willow Place that had become an eyesore. With ever increasing taxes, the owners relocated and put the building up for sale. A separately formed Committee for a Community Building raised funds for its purchase, receiving support from such other Heights residents as Gladys James, preservationist and socialite, and Covington Hardee, chairman and chief executive of the Lincoln Savings Bank of Brooklyn. The center’s opening took place in December 1962. In addition to the Heights Players, the two other initial tenants were the Brooklyn Heights Community Nursery School and the Roosa School of Music. For a number of years the Heights Players and Roosa School provided the entertainment for annual dinner dances benefitting the center. Named for A.T. White in 1967, the center also has served as the location for meetings of the association and its potluck dinners and other events.
In the early 1960s three new cement-block houses were built on empty lots on Willow Place that were city-owned and put up for auction–40, 44 and 48. These first modern houses in the neighborhood were designed by Joe and Mary Merz, both architects who have resided in No. 48 since 1965. No. 40, a double-width house, was designed for the attorney Leonard Garment, who went on to renown in Washington, D.C., as President Nixon’s special counsel.
Starting in the late 1960s the Willowtown Association held an annual spring street fair and plant sale that attracted crowds of people. The proceeds went toward the upkeep and landscaping of the A.T. White Center along with such selected causes as scholarships for Columbia Place YMCA day campers, the planting and pruning of trees and the Historic Districts Council. Among features of the fairs were food booths in front of residents’ homes, a bake sale, a flea market, children’s races and games, a pig roast, a potluck supper and jump roping for children and adults that went on well into the evening. Scaled back and with diminishing support, the fairs continued until several years ago. One of the last fairs also had a silent auction.
1970s & 1980s
An unsuccessful effort during this period centered on opposing the Long Island College Hospital’s project to take over the city-owned Upper Van Voorhees Park on Hicks Street at Atlantic Avenue and build there an eight-story parking garage for hospital staff members and visitors. The park was popular with Willowtown children and youth, many from Columbia Place. The garage project had the strong backing of the Cobble Hill Association that preferred and got three pocket parks as replacements one block east along Henry Street.
Efforts in these decades that saw success included:
- Getting the Metropolitan Transit Authority to reroute the B-63 bus that used to go down Hicks and Joralemon streets.
- Helping to defeat a proposal to enlarge the Atlantic Avenue interchange on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Some Willowtown residents traveled to the state capital in Albany to protest the enlargement that again threatened to destroy a corner of the neighborhood.
- Working with the administration of Mayor John Lindsay to turn a vacant lot at Columbia Place and State Street into a basketball court for local youth.
- Landscaping the wall of the entrance of the BQE backing the Atlantic Playground and maintaining it.
An effort started during this period that continues centered on cobblestoned Joralemon Street. A statement released about this issue read, “The Belgian blocks have been dug up and improperly replaced so many times that they are now uneven, too far apart, and in some places paved over with asphalt. The result is unsightly, dangerous to walk on and a constant source of traffic noise. It is an insult to the care and workmanship of past artisans in this landmarked district. This street is an architectural gem of many facets.” The Brooklyn Heights Association and Historic Districts Council have also supported this effort.
1990s & 2000s
From its beginning in 1953 the Willowtown Association functioned as an unincorporated neighborhood association with periodically elected officers. Those serving as president have included Arthur Hooker, Leroy Bowser, Joe Merz, Peter Chace, Catherine Fitzsimons, Michael Geisert, Ned Hamlin, Thomas Hill and Craig Bickerstaff.
What triggered action on becoming an incorporated not-for-profit organization with bylaws under the state in 1997 and federal law the next year was the city’s redevelopment starting in 1996 of the Atlantic Playground into Palmetto Playground with new equipment and landscaping, improved basketball courts, a dog run and a community garden. The funding came in part from the sale of Van Voorhees Park on the other side of Atlantic Avenue to Long Island College Hospital for construction of its parking garage. The association, which had to have nonprofit status in order to share in administering the proceeds resulting from this transaction, was deeply involved in the park’s redesign and construction completed in 1999. At the dedication then Parks Commissioner Henry J. Stern explained that he came up with the new name Palmetto because it is the state tree of South Carolina on the Atlantic coast whose capital is Columbia–all suggested by the park’s three adjoining streets, State, Atlantic Avenue and Columbia Place.
Out of the money received from the hospital, $250,000 went to the City Parks Foundation with a plan that the interest from it be disbursed for park maintenance and enhancement in consultation with the offices of the Brooklyn borough president and local city councilman, the New York City Parks Department, the Brooklyn Heights Association and the Willowtown Association. To date no such consultations have taken place–at least involving the association.
Efforts to build a park in the largely neglected waterfront area from the Manhattan Bridge south to Atlantic Avenue that began in the previous decade moved forward in 1992 with the adoption of “13 Guiding Principles” for its development by political leaders, the Brooklyn Heights Association, the Brooklyn Bridge Park Coalition of which the Willowtown Association was a member and others. The principles called for a plan for what was named the Brooklyn Bridge Park celebrating “the unparalleled vistas and historic nature of the site with a world-class design affording a spectacular entry into Brooklyn.” Subsequently the association has adopted a seven-point platform regarding the park that among the points calls for “no new residential housing in the park” and continues to monitor and mitigate the potential negative impact of the developing plans on Willowtown’s traffic, parking, light, air, noise and views.
Other association work from 1990 to the present has included:
- Publishing and selling the 96-page cookbook, “Willowtown Cooks!” with the recipes coming from many Willowtown residents and also publishing “Resources for Willowtown Seniors.”
- Convincing the Metropolitan Transit Authority to repair the roadbed for the subway under Joralemon Street to help alleviate the vibrations felt in houses on Joralemon, Willow Place and Columbia Place. Research showed that the roadbed was the apparent cause.
- Meeting with the development and architectural firms that designed and built two new houses on the site of a former restaurant on the southeast corner of Joralemon Street and Columbia Place to ensure that the houses were as appropriate as possible to the neighborhood.
- Joining the residents of the U-shaped Riverside apartment building and other concerned parties to try to block the plan of the landlord to replace the building’s historic landscaped garden with a parking garage.
- Beautifying the neighborhood through the planting of trees, especially on Columbia Place.
- Continuing to push the need to preserve the cobblestones on Joralemon Street and to solve the problem of the vibrations from the subway underneath that have not stopped.
