Clinton Hill is a neighborhood located in the north-central portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is bordered by the Brooklyn Navy Yard and Flushing Avenue to the north, Williamsburg to the northeast, Classon Avenue and Bedford–Stuyvesant to the east, Atlantic Avenue and Prospect Heights to the south and southwest and Vanderbilt Avenue and Fort Greene to the west.

"The Hill", as the general area was known – with a maximum elevation of , the highest in the area The main thoroughfare is DeKalb Avenue. neighborhood's mixture of apartment buildings, mansions, brownstone and brick rowhouses, and the Pratt Institute and St. Joseph's College, built at various times in a number of different styles, is a great part of its charm. identified his address as 99 Ryerson Street, which still stands. which dominated the street scene by the 1880s. and the area became known as Brooklyn's "Gold Coast".

By 1900, apartment buildings were being built on Clinton Avenue, which replaced the mansions there and on Washington Avenue by the 1920s and 40s. In addition some of the remaining mansions were converted into rooming houses in the following decades, and urban renewal, part of Robert Moses' relentless rebuilding of the city, cleared five blocks south of the Pratt Institute, destroying the brownstones there. This was followed in the 1970s by the brownstone revival, in which many of the remaining brownstones were restored. New construction included an apartment building of passive house design at 283 Greene Avenue.

Demographics

Based on data from the 2020 United States census, the population of Clinton Hill was 28,647, an increase of 19.3% from 24,014 for the same area in 2010.

The racial makeup of the neighborhood was 44.8% White, 26.4% Black, 9.5% Asian, 5.7% from two or more races, and 1.5% from other races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 12.1% of the population.

Landmarks

The Clinton Hill Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. The district includes the mansions of Clinton Avenue, built in the 1870s and 1880s. The most prominent of these are linked to Charles Pratt, who built a mansion for himself at 232 Clinton Avenue in 1874, the year his Charles Pratt & Company was acquired by Standard Oil, The Clinton Hill South Historic District was listed in 1986.

St. Mary's Episcopal Church at 220 Classon Avenue in Clinton Hill, built , and the Mechanics Temple, which was built at 67 Putnam Avenue as the Lincoln Club in 1889, are both part of the historic district. and at 367 Washington Avenue; and apartment houses on Clinton Avenue.

On Lafayette Avenue are both the Emmanuel Baptist Church, completed in 1887, and the Joseph Steele or Steele-Skinner House of 1812. Clinton Avenue contains the Church of St. Luke and St. Matthew, completed in 1891, and the Royal Castle Apartments, completed in 1912. All are individually landmarked.

Education

Institutions

Pratt Institute, founded by Charles Pratt in 1887, is in Clinton Hill. Pratt began as an engineering school, designed to train immigrants in then-novel sciences.

The Brooklyn campus of St. Joseph's College is in Clinton Hill.

By 2021 the interim location of the German School of Brooklyn (GSB) was the former Coop School in the Bedford Stuyvesant and Clinton Hill area.<!--From the COVID-19 popup before the main page--> In 2021 the school moved all levels to its permanent site at 9 Hanover Place in Downtown Brooklyn.<!--From the permanent campus announcement-->

Library

The Brooklyn Public Library (BPL)'s Clinton Hill branch is located at 380 Washington Avenue near Lafayette Avenue. It opened in 1973.

Transportation

thumb|The [[Clinton–Washington Avenues station (IND Crosstown Line)|Clinton–Washington Avenues station on the IND Crosstown Line]]

Clinton Hill is served by the New York City Subway's IND Fulton Street Line (), with a stop at Clinton–Washington Avenues station, as well as the IND Crosstown Line (), with stops at Classon Avenue and Clinton–Washington Avenues. Several New York City Transit local bus routes provide service to the neighborhood, including the . Starting in the 1880s, the Myrtle Avenue and Lexington Avenue elevated lines served the area. The Lexington Avenue line followed Grand Avenue south from Myrtle. The last train on the Lexington Avenue line ran on October 13, 1950; dismantling of the elevated tracks began on November 1. The Brooklyn Navy Yard stop opened on May 20, 2019.

Notable residents

Notable residents over the years have included:

thumb|180px|[[Walt Whitman]]

  • Asa Akira (born 1985), pornographic actress and adult film director
  • Ted Allen (born 1965), writer and television personality
  • Lester Bowie (1941–1999), avant-garde jazz (trumpet) musician owned Victorian-style home at 207 Washington Avenue for 20 years until his death in 1999
  • Jay Critch (born 1997), rapper
  • Jennifer Egan (born 1962), novelist and short-story writer
  • Carmen Ejogo (born 1973), actress and singer
  • Charles F. Erhart (1821–1891), businessman who co-founded Chas. Pfizer & Co., Inc.
  • James William Elwell (1820–1899), shipping merchant and philanthropist who founded James W. Elwell & Co., and built the historic house at 70 Lefferts Place.
  • Adrian Grenier (born 1976), actor
  • Lev Grossman (born 1969), novelist and journalist
  • Heems (stage name of Himanshu Suri), rapper
  • Tehching Hsieh (born 1950), performance artist
  • Letitia James (born 1958), incumbent Attorney General of New York
  • Talib Kweli (born 1975), rapper
  • David Paterson (born 1954), former New York Governor
  • Rosie Perez (born 1964), actress
  • Mary Pinkett (–2003), first black New York City councilwoman, she served 28 years from 1974 until 2001 when she was term-limited out of office
  • Antoni Porowski (born 1984), chef, actor, and television personality, lived in a studio with former partner, Joey Krietemeyer, that has been featured in interior design magazines
  • Susan Sarandon (born 1946), actress, lives in a home described as "aesthetically ironic"
  • Danny Simmons, artist
  • Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe shared an apartment on Hall Street in 1967, after they first met
  • Barbara Stanwyck (1907–1990), actress, model and dancer, was born at 246 Classon Avenue
  • Jason Sudeikis (born 1975), actor and comedian
  • Conrad Tillard (born 1964), politician, Baptist minister, radio host, author, and civil rights activist
  • John Thomas Underwood (1857–1937), entrepreneur and inventor who founded the Underwood Typewriter Company
  • Walt Whitman (1819–1892), poet and editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle from 1846 to 1848, who lived at 99 Ryerson Street while working on Leaves of Grass
  • Olivia Wilde (born 1984), actress.
  • Jeffrey Wright (born 1965), actor
  • Malik Yoba (born 1967), actor