Lawyer and railroad developer Edwin C. Litchfield, resident of Greenwich Village in Manhattan, purchased nearly a square mile of land in what was then the outskirts of Brooklyn in 1852. He and his two brothers had profited from the merger of several railroads that linked the midwest to the northeast.

Litchfield’s new property consisted of a patchwork of old Dutch farms, flooded meadows, and swamplands for which he paid $250,000. Some of his friends thought he had made a poor investment, but Litchfield envisioned paved streets flanked by houses of brick and stone along with a lively commercial district near the Gowanus Canal.