Fort Greene

The Italian community in Fort Green existed there in the late 1800’s into the early-to-mid 1900’s.The Italian influence on this neighborhood dates back centuries, as an Italian immigrant named Peter Caesar Alberti started a tobacco plantation near the bay in Fort Greene in 1649. The community was very poor and its first church took years and years to finance. Fort Green is surrounded by Park Slope, Clinton Hill, Downtown Brooklyn and Greenpoint. St. Michael the Archangel parish was founded in 1881 and the church itself was eventually closed and merged with St. Edwards church in the 1940’s. The church has been slated for demolition in 2022. The neighborhood was almost completely destroyed to build the BQE and affordable housing projects which originally housed the Italians who worked in the nearby Navy Yard. The neighborhood is bounded by Flushing Avenue and the Brooklyn Navy Yard to the north, Flatbush Avenue Extension and Downtown Brooklyn to the west, Atlantic Avenue and Prospect Heights to the south, and Vanderbilt Avenue and Clinton Hill to the east.