[NYer]

Pierrepont Family Memorial, Green-Wood Cemetery

Henry Evelyn Pierrepont was known as the “first citizen” of Brooklyn for good reason. He, along with his father Hezekiah B. and mother Anna Maria before him, played a significant role in the planning of Brooklyn as a physical city, its crucial ferry services to New York, and the establishment of Green-Wood Cemetery itself. He is considered by some to be one of the first “city planners” in the United States, a logical evolution from his father’s status as the first important suburban (Brooklyn Heights) real-estate developer in American History. Pierrepont Street in the Heights commemorates the family to this day.

[Fiji Hill]

Henry Evelyn Pierrepont was known as the “first citizen” of Brooklyn for good reason.

On August 28, 1961, I stayed in the Pierrepont Hotel, which was almost certainly named after him, in Brooklyn Heights. I read a few years ago that the building still stands, but it now houses permanent residents. While it was a hotel, its guests included Jaime Ramón Mercader del Río, who stayed there while traveling to Mexico City to murder Leon Trotsky in 1940.