[6] Vinegar Hill was commonly known as "Irishtown" in the 19th century, one of several places in the New York area with that moniker because of its sizable population of Irish immigrants.

Before the construction of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in the 1950s, Vinegar Hill's area was significantly larger, extending south to Tillary Street, including what is now known as Bridge Plaza.

Hudson Avenue and Plymouth, Water and Front Streets are made of Belgian Blocks, although residents mistakenly refer to them as cobblestones.

[11] On the corner of Evans and Little Streets is Quarters A (the Commandant's House), a Federal Style mansion next to the Navy Yard which was once home to Commodore Matthew C.

[13] 91 Hudson Avenue in Vinegar Hill is the location of the former first burial place and monument of the Prison Ship Martyrs of the American Revolutionary War.

[10][17] They lived communally in several settlements in western Brooklyn, including one located on the high ground near the present-day Vinegar Hill Historic District, called Rinnegokonc.

[10][b] Commissioners of Forfeiture took hold of the land from Joris Jansen Rapalje and sold the area of Gold Street to Comfort and Joshua Sands in 1784.

[19] In the late eighteenth century, John Jackson bought 100 acres around of the waterfront area near the Wallabout Bay from Remsen estate and built there his own shipyard.

[22] The Sands family, who had amassed a fortune as merchants and speculators, laid out their land, located west of Jackson's property, into blocks and lots for a community to be called "Olympia” as early as 1787.

[20] In the late 1830s and early 1840s, the heirs of John Jackson sold off their estate's remaining lots on Hudson Avenue, which were developed individually or in small groups in the 1840s and 1850s with houses that have Greek Revival and Italianate characteristics because of the associations with Athenian democracy.

The Bureau of Internal Revenue, created in 1862 and desperate for funds after the costly American Civil War, would send in Army veterans to raid the neighborhood and destroy the stills.

[23] On one occasion, in 1869, the Army destroyed stills that were capable of churning out 250 barrels of alcohol each day—a volume worth $5,000 in unpaid taxes (equivalent to $120,474 in 2023).

While from scores of cellars the smoke of illegal and surreptitious manufacture ascended, access was not easy and proof of guilt was difficult to obtain.

These residents brought back the name Vinegar Hill for the area and helped preserve the Belgian block streets.

[6] Before and following the First World War and the great migration of people from Eastern Europe to the United States, Vinegar Hill became predominantly a neighborhood of Lithuanian immigrants, reaching 75% by the 1930 Census.

These immigrants brought their strong Roman Catholic religious beliefs with them and built a church on York Street, St. George R.C.