Brooklyn

Close to the city centre, this suburb is on top of Brooklyn Hill, ensuring panoramic views and a challenging trip home for dedicated cyclists.  Brooklyn offers a range of housing to suit all budgets – colonial cottages, wooden Victorian villas, Californian bungalows from the 1920s, modern family homes and million dollar-plus mansions; plus several houses designed by Ernst Plischke, the Austrian émigré architect who introduced European modernism to New Zealand in the 1940s (despite mixed reviews at the time, his houses are now highly prized).  There are a number of high profile residents (especially from the arts & communications worlds), plus public servants and plenty of young families.  The suburb has excellent primary schools and library.

Brooklyn was originally called Fitchett, having originally been a dairy farm owned by John Fitchett in 1852.  It was later re-named after a borough of New York City with many of the streets commemorating former US presidents, including Washington, McKinley (assassinated in 1901), Taft, Cleveland, Jefferson and Harrison.

Central Park was established in 1913 on Town Belt land and during the WWII US troops camped there; Tanera Park has a number of sporting facilities and the ‘Tanera Community Gardens’ established by the Wellington City Council as a trial to help low-income families grow their own vegetables.  The Wind Turbine on Brooklyn's skyline was built in 1993 to test the viability of wind-generated power; it produces enough power for 80 homes.

Brooklyn has excellent walking & mountain biking tracks (connecting to Karori Wildlife Reserve, one of New Zealand’s leading eco-tourism attractions).  It’s home to one of Wellington’s most charming independent cinemas, which opened in 1939 as the Vogue Theatre and was renamed the Penthouse in 1975. 

Brooklyn Wind Turbine