2 Best Sights in Boerum Hill, New York City

A 19th-century factory building that for a few recent decades was home to the maker of the famous "invisible dog" leashes is now an interdisciplinary arts center with more than two dozen studios for artists. The gallery exhibits their works and those of their peers from Brooklyn and beyond, and other spaces host musical performances, dance recitals, and other cultural events.

These pretty redbrick- and brownstone-lined streets are quintessential parts of the neighborhood and well worth a stroll. Single-block streets, often designated as "places," emerged across the borough to fill in extra space when nearly parallel streets swerved too far apart. The Gothic Revival brownstone church at the corner of Strong and Degraw streets dates to 1849, but many homes on Tompkins Place were erected during the first decade of the 20th century. Two Christian churches (first a Dutch Reformed church, then Trinity German Lutheran Church) previously occupied what's now Kane Street Synagogue at the corner of Tompkins and Kane streets; the structure was built in the mid-1850s.