Vinegar Hill is a neighborhood in the borough of Brooklyn in New York City on the East River Waterfront between Dumbo and the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The neighborhood is locally governed by Brooklyn Community Board 2 and is policed by the New York City Police Department's 84th Precinct. The large Irish-American population in Vinegar Hill made it one of several New York City neighborhoods once known colloquially as Irishtown.
Etymology
Vinegar Hill gets its name from the Battle of Vinegar Hill, an engagement near Enniscorthy during the Irish Rebellion of 1798.
Vinegar Hill was commonly known as "Irishtown" in the 19th century, one of several places in the New York area with that moniker because of its sizable population of Irish immigrants.
Character
Vinegar Hill stretches from the East River waterfront to Front Street and from the Brooklyn Navy Yard to Bridge Street, roughly comprising a six block area. Before the construction of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in the 1950s, Vinegar Hill's area was significantly larger, extending south to Tillary Street, including what is now known as Bridge Plaza.
The neighborhood also includes the New York City Housing Authority's Farragut Houses. Most of Vinegar Hill consists of 19th-century Federal Style and Greek Revival style homes mixed with industrial buildings. Hudson Avenue and Plymouth, Water and Front Streets are made of Belgian Blocks, although residents mistakenly refer to them as cobblestones.
Vinegar Hill has been described as a very quiet neighborhood where its residents know one another. According to a New York Times article published in 1999, some residents of Vinegar Hill are opposed to making any changes to the small neighborhood.
The Vinegar Hill area includes the Vinegar Hill Historic District and is home to the Con Edison Hudson Avenue Substation. The substation is not very productive and there are many debates as to what the substation should be converted to.
On the corner of Evans and Little Streets is Quarters A (the Commandant's House), a Federal Style mansion next to the Navy Yard which was once home to Commodore Matthew C. Perry. This house was built in 1805.
91 Hudson Avenue in Vinegar Hill is the location of the former first burial place and monument of the Prison Ship Martyrs of the American Revolutionary War.
History
Pre-colonial
The Canarsee Indians were the first inhabitants of what is now western Brooklyn. The Canarsee were members of the Algonquian who occupied the Atlantic seaboard from Canada to North Carolina. They were an autonomous band of the Delaware (Leni Lenape) Indians. They established their villages close to the water including the higher ground near the Wallabout Bay that they called Rinnegokonck. They lived communally in several settlements in western Brooklyn, including one located on the high ground near the present-day Vinegar Hill Historic District, called Rinnegokonc. In the seventeenth century, European explorers arrived on the land and started doing business with Native Americans.
Settlement
Dutch settlers began arriving in 1637 along the waterfront area up, up to Fulton Street. When the Dutch settlers arrived in the early seventeenth century, the Canarsee, already weakened by disease, hunger, and warfare, began to sell their land to the settlers and commenced on a long westward migration that would take them as far as Illinois territory.
The land was sold by the Indians to Joris Jansen Rapalje. Rapelje acquired the land for farming purposes; it was renamed to Breuckelen circa 1646. The first ferry began operating from the northern point of Fulton street few years earlier in 1642. It connected the land of Breuckelen with Manhattan, the route spanning the East River.
In 1674 the English subjects, under the rule of King Charles II, took control over the land during the events of the Third Anglo-Dutch War. Then, Kings County consisted of six regions: Brooklyn, Bushwick, Flatbush, Flatlands, Gravesend, New Utrecht. The Vinegar Hill district was part of the region of Brooklyn.
18th century
Commissioners of Forfeiture took hold of the land from Joris Jansen Rapalje and sold the area of Gold Street to Comfort and Joshua Sands in 1784. The Sandses were planning to develop the land as a summer place for New Yorkers. They built a lot of blocks for a community that was called "Olympia" in 1787.