5. Many famous authors have called Fort Greene home
Fort Greene has had its fair share of famous literary residents, including Walt Whitman. Notable for his collection Leaves of Grass, Whitman played a major role in the development of Brooklyn’s literary scene, authoring poems such as “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” and editing the Brooklyn Eagle. The poet Marianne Moore lived in an apartment house on Cumberland Street, which has been preserved at the Rosenbach Museum & Library in Philadelphia. While living on Carlton Avenue, Richard Wright wrote his magnum opus Native Son. Though perhaps more famous for living in Brooklyn Heights, Truman Capote had a home in Fort Greene, as did John Steinbeck. A number of Harlem Renaissance authors also lived in Fort Greene, including Gwendolyn B. Bennett.
More contemporary authors have included Jhumpa Lahiri, who authored The Interpreter of Maladies; David Henry Hwang, the playwright behind M. Butterfly and Yellow Face; Colson Whitehead, author of The Underground Railroad and The Intuitionist; and Jennifer Egan, who wrote the novel A Visit From the Goon Squad.