About Fort Greene, New York

Although a small neighborhood geographically, Fort Greene, New York is exploding with energy and ideas that are being implemented with pride by individuals associated with its numerous active neighborhood, arts, and business development groups. In recent years, the Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership responded to requests by local residents to revitalize Myrtle Avenue and recruited restaurants, coffee shops, and other new businesses residents wanted along the commercial corridor, and the BAM Local Development Corporation continues to fulfill its mission to create a vibrant, mixed-use multicultural arts district in the blocks surrounding the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Blocks of historic homes dating from the mid-19th Century can all be found within the borders of Fort Greene, New York.

The entire neighborhood of Fort Greene is listed on the National and New York State Registry of Historic Places, and is designated as a New York City Historic District. Fort Greene is rich in African-American history and culture and includes the former Hanson Place Baptist Church at 88 Hanson Place, which was an Underground Railroad station in the 1850s; the Carlton Avenue home of novelist Richard Wright, who wrote Native Son in Fort Greene Park; the home of musicians Wynton and Branford Marsalis and filmmaker Spike Lee, who's used Fort Greene as a setting for many of the films he's directed.

The 255-acre Brooklyn Navy Yard nearby was run by the U.S. Navy from 1801 to 1966 and at its peak during World War II employed more than 70,000 workers. Today it's an industrial park filled with hundreds of small businesses including artist studios, a ship repair business, and on a 15-acre site a new enterprise, Steiner Studios, a 280,000 square foot Hollywood-style, full-service, state-of-the-art “production factory” equipped for start-to-finish production of major motion pictures, independent films, television, music videos and broadcast commercials.