Brooklyn Heights Promenade

The Brooklyn Heights Promenade (officially the Esplanade) is a 1,826-foot-long elevated walkway along the western edge of Brooklyn Heights, offering what many consider the single most iconic view of the Manhattan skyline and New York Harbor. The promenade was completed in 1950 as part of the construction of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

The promenade's creation was a compromise engineered by Robert Moses during the construction of the BQE. Residents of Brooklyn Heights fiercely opposed the highway's planned route through their historic neighborhood. The solution placed the highway in a trench below the bluff and built the promenade on top, giving the neighborhood an elevated park that masked the roadway beneath.

The panoramic view from the promenade encompasses the full sweep of Lower Manhattan, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, Governors Island, and the busy shipping lanes of the East River. At sunset, the Manhattan skyline glows golden against the western sky, and the view has been featured in countless films, photographs, and television programs.

The promenade itself is a simple design: a cantilevered concrete walkway with iron railings, wooden benches, and plantings along the back gardens of Brooklyn Heights' finest townhouses. Its simplicity is its genius, allowing the extraordinary view to serve as the primary attraction.

Brooklyn Heights, the neighborhood behind the promenade, was the first designated historic district in New York City (1965) and contains one of the finest collections of early 19th-century residential architecture in America. The promenade provides a public front porch for this private neighborhood, offering the most democratic access to the most privileged view in Brooklyn.