How Cobble lost its Hill

This plaque of George Washington decorates the east side of the Independence Savings Bank located at the corner of Court & Clinton streets in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. It marks the site of the fomer Cobble Hill Fort, which the Continental Army built atop what was then called "Cobleshill" — at the time, quite a steep hill.

Cobble Hill was one of a number of forts built by General Nathanael Greene, who was charged by Washington to defend Brooklyn from the British. (George himself decided he would prefer to defend Manhattan, the posh toff.) For the British to take New York City, they would first have to take Brooklyn. To this end, the Brits had started ferrying their troops across the Narrows from Staten Island, and landing them in Gravesend Bay.

Greene's first idea for defense was to simply burn New York to the ground, but that didn't go over too well. Plan B was to run a defensive line along the Heights of Guan, a natural ridge which separated northwest Brooklyn from the rest of Long Island. Greene only needed to defend a handful of passes in the hills in order to keep the Redcoats from reaching central Brooklyn.

Unfortunately, Greene caught a bad bug of some kind, and was laid up when the Brits attacked. In his stead, General John Sullivan decided to mass his forces near the Gowanus Creek and the roads to Flatbush, and sent a contingent of only five (5) men to guard the pass on the road to Jamaica (now Broadway Junction). Naturally, this is the route the main British force used to sneak in behind the American lines.



Attacked from two sides at once, the defenders at the other passes got pretty well routed. Washington himself deigned to jaunt out from Manhattan around mid-day to watch from Cobble Hill Fort as his men splashed across the Gowanus Creek in a mad dash to Brooklyn Heights.

Long story short, the Americans quickly lost Brooklyn, and then all of New York City (which the British burned down anyway, proving that Greene had the right idea). In order to ensure that the Americans wouldn't retake the strategic vantage of Cobble Hill Fort, the Brits demolished the structure, and then levelled the hill itself.

Ironically enough, less than eighty years later, Winston Churchill's mother was born a few blocks away from the site. The surrounding, nearly flat neighborhood was known as simply part of "South Brooklyn," until a 1970's re-branding to foster gentrification.