Rodent Control in Brooklyn Heights

Rodent Pressure in Brooklyn Heights

Brooklyn Heights is the oldest residential neighborhood in Brooklyn, with a building stock that includes Federal and Greek Revival townhouses dating to the 1820s through 1840s — some of the oldest surviving domestic architecture in New York City. These buildings, on streets like Remsen Street, Joralemon Street, Hicks Street, and Willow Street, have original stone foundations that are now nearly 200 years old. The masonry has deteriorated to a degree not seen in later construction, and the sub-cellar spaces in the oldest townhouses often have original floor surfaces of packed earth or early brick that provide direct harborage.

Atlantic Avenue, running along the southern edge of Brooklyn Heights, is a major commercial corridor with a high concentration of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean restaurants, food markets, and specialty food stores. The stretch from Court Street to Atlantic Terminal generates significant Norway rat pressure on the residential blocks north of Atlantic Avenue. The building foundations on the streets immediately north of Atlantic — Remsen Street, Joralemon Street — are the buildings most directly affected.

The Brooklyn Heights Promenade overlooks the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge Park waterfront below. The park infrastructure along the waterfront provides planted areas with harborage adjacent to the neighborhood. The subway infrastructure under Court Street and the BRT line under Atlantic Avenue both create underground connectivity in the neighborhood's oldest core.