Instead of building the Brooklyn Queens Expressway down Van Burnt Street, Robert Moses decided to build the highway through Hicks Street thus bisecting the Red Hook neighborhood while connecting the Brooklyn Bridge with the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. The building of the BQE was a different story in nearby Brooklyn Heights. The Heights' more affluent and influential residents were able to win design concessions from Moses that the Red Hook residents, who were poorer and mostly Italian-immigrants, could not.