Category Archives: New York City

“Neighborhood in northwestern Brooklyn (1990 pop. 28,991), covering sixty acres (twenty-four hectares) and bounded to the north by Church Avenue, to the east by the tracks of the “D” and “Q” subway lines, to the south by Beverley Road, and to the west by Coney Island Avenue. Once owned by the Dutch Reformed church of Flatbush, the area was developed in 1899 by Dean Alvord after the extension of rail service from Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn. He planned the neighborhood to resemble a spacious suburb, engaged John Aitkin to provide landscaping, and established stringent architectural standards. The houses are set back thirty feet (nine meters) from the sidewalk; many were built at the turn of the century in a variety of styles, including Georgian, Prairie, Queen Anne, Elizabethan, neo-Tudor, Pediment, Japanese, Colonial Revival, French Revival, and Mission. A strip of land eight feet (2.4 meters) wide lies between the street and the sidewalk for planting. The streets are lined with trees, and Buckingham and Albemarle roads have central planning malls. The neighborhood is upper middle class and the main commercial thoroughfares are Church and Coney Island avenues.

Excerpted from: Jackson, Kenneth T. The Encyclopedia of New York City. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1995.

“Neighborhood in west central Brooklyn (1990 population 12,719), bounded to the north by Dorchester Road, to the east by Ocean Avenue, to the south by Newkirk Avenue, and to the west by East 16th Street. It was modeled after the adjacent neighborhood of Prospect Park South by Lewis Pounds, who developed it in the early twentieth century. The Ditmas Park Association was formed in 1908 and enacted special zoning provisions to preserve the character of the neighborhood, which in 1987 was designated a Historic District. Ditmas Park is a middle-class neighborhood of 175 large, detached frame houses on tree-lined streets. Among its notable buildings are the parish house of the Flatbush Tompkins Congregational Church, the former Brown house (1000 Ocean Avenue) and the Community Temple Beth Ohr (1010 Ocean Avenue).

Excerpted from: Jackson, Kenneth T. The Encyclopedia of New York City. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1995.