Clinton Avenue contains some of Brooklyn’s finest 19th century architecture, including the Gilded Age mansions that made it the borough’s most fashionable address. A walk down the length of the avenue tells the story of this transformation: from the provincial farming community shaped by a handful of prominent landowners to a “Gold Coast” boulevard of grand Renaissance Revival buildings, and later to the tension between wartime housing needs, development, and the nascent historic preservation movement.

Clinton Hill's namesake avenue was once known as the Gold Coast of Brooklyn. Oil tycoons and baking powder magnates built lavish mansions here in the late 1800s. Charles Pratt, who kicked off the architectural gold rush, founded the Pratt Institute just a few blocks from his home. Clinton Hill was also home to Mollie Fancher, AKA “The Brooklyn Enigma,” who was famous for spending 50 years in bed. The Enigma was said to see through walls, read books by touching them, and survive on minuscule amounts of food. During one seven-month period, she reportedly consumed only “four teaspoons of milk, two teaspoons of wine, one small banana, and one cracker.” In 1967, Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe moved into an apartment on the second floor of a townhouse on 160 Hall Street with walls smeared with blood and psychotic scribbling, an oven crammed with discarded syringes, and a refrigerator overrun with mold. They paid $80 a month. Today, that same townhouse rents for $8,000 a month—used syringes not included. Clinton Hill was also where Biggie Smalls, one of the greatest rappers of all time, grew up. He was raised in a “one-room shack” by his mom at 226 St. James Place.

John Arbuckle House, October 25, 1957. Arbuckle, a Pittsburgh-born coffee magnate, had his factory and roasting operation in today’s DUMBO. He commissioned the young architect Montrose Morris to build his family a new home on the fashionable Clinton Avenue in 1888. Morris, then just 25 years old, designed an elaborate Romanesque Revival brownstone mansion with an open piazza entrance, prominent oriel window, and Tiffany stained-glass windows.

313 Clinton is “one of the finest neo-Grec residences in New York City.” Prominent Brooklyn architect George Morse designed it for lace manufacturer A.G. Jennings. Who knew lace gloves could be so lucrative? The white paint job really raises the hackles of the Clinton Hill Historic District report writers who say it “destroys the romantic intensity of the original deep red hues.” Right next door is 315 Clinton, built in 1888 by famed architect Montrose Morris for John "Mr. Coffee” Arbuckle. The coffee merchant’s big breakthrough was figuring out a way to keep roasted beans fresh by coating them with a sugar and egg glaze to close the pores of the bean. Though it sounds pretty gross, coupled with technology Arbuckle pioneered in automatically packing and sealing bags, it made shipping beans across the country possible. Arbuckle’s real genius, though, was in marketing. Every bag of coffee contained a peppermint stick, a collectible card, and a coupon. The coupons were redeemable for everything from handkerchiefs and straight razors to wedding rings. Arbuckles’ Ariosa Coffee was particularly popular with cowboys who referred to their campfire-brewed beverage as “a cup of Arbuckles.”