Park Slope

History

Early settlement

Though modern-day Brooklyn is coextensive with Kings County, this was not always the case. South Brooklyn, an area in central Kings County extending to the former Brooklyn city line near Green-Wood Cemetery's southern border, was originally settled by the Canarsee Indians, one of several indigenous Lenape peoples who farmed and hunted on the land. The Lenape typically lived in wigwams, and had larger fishing and hunting communities near freshwater sites on higher land. Several Lenape roads crossed the landscape and were later widened into "ferry roads" by 17th-century Dutch settlers, since they were used to provide transport to the waterfront. One was the Flatbush Road, running roughly north–south to the east of the path of present-day Flatbush Avenue. Just north of modern-day Park Slope was the Jamaica Road, running east to Jamaica, Queens, on what is now the path of Fulton Street.

The first European settlement occurred in 1637-1639 when Willem Kieft, the Dutch West India Company's director, purchased almost all land in what is now Brooklyn and Queens. The area was used as farmland over the next two centuries.

During the American Revolutionary War, on August 27, 1776, the Park Slope area served as the backdrop for the beginning of the Battle of Long Island. In this battle, over 10,000 British soldiers and Hessian mercenaries routed outnumbered American forces, which resulted in the British occupation of Long and Staten Islands. The Battle Pass site is now preserved in Prospect Park, while on Fifth Avenue, there is a reconstruction of the Old Stone House, a farmhouse where a countercharge covered the American retreat.

19th century

Transit from Park Slope improved in the early 19th century. The Brooklyn, Jamaica and Flatbush Turnpike Company was incorporated in 1809 to widen the Flatbush and Jamaica ferry roads, prior to the establishment of the Fulton Ferry to Manhattan in 1814. Afterward, stagecoaches started running on Flatbush Road in 1830, with omnibus service following four years later. The land comprising what is now Park Slope was still mostly undeveloped c. 1810. There were a couple of houses on and around Prospect Hill, a tavern, and a resort; the section of Flatbush Road through present-day Prospect Park contained ponds of standing water, which caused fevers and other illnesses. Soon afterward, the land was split up into rectangular parcels, which were bought by numerous people and cultivated as farmland. As in the rest of Kings County, the farmland was likely dependent on slave labor.

The farm parcels were further split in the 19th century, allowing for the development of smaller urban lots. After Brooklyn was incorporated as a city in 1834, the Commissioners Plan of 1839 was devised, a street plan that extended to South Brooklyn. Park Slope was originally located in the northern section of the Eighth Ward, which at the time was the city's least populous ward.

The Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad started running on Atlantic Avenue, north of Park Slope, in 1836. The railroad's presence did not hasten the slow rate of residential growth in South Brooklyn because the locomotives provided slow and inefficient service. Horse-drawn railcar companies provided competition to the railroad: the first, the Brooklyn City Railroad, was founded in 1853. Other streetcar routes were founded, including a line on Flatbush Avenue in 1875, as well as the Atlantic Avenue Company's Fifth Avenue and Ninth Avenue lines, the latter of which served the Eighth Ward directly.

The first plans to develop modern-day Park Slope arose in 1847 when Colonel Daniel Richards requested permission from the Brooklyn Common Council to develop the Eighth Ward's streets. Richards also proposed the renovation of the nearby Gowanus Creek into a canal, including draining the marshes in its watershed. Between 1849 and 1860, under a decree by the New York Legislature, the Gowanus Creek was deepened. Simultaneously, a local lawyer and railroad developer named Edwin Clarke Litchfield (1815–1885) purchased large tracts of what was then farmland, erecting his Litchfield Villa on the east side of the neighborhood in 1857. Through the American Civil War era, Litchfield sold off much of his land to residential developers.

20th century to present

Following Brooklyn's subsumption into the City of Greater New York in 1898 and accelerating in the 1910s, many wealthy and upper middle-class families fled for the suburban life, initially to outlying Brooklyn and Queens neighborhoods (such as nearby Flatbush) and thence to more distant locales in Westchester County, Nassau County and New Jersey amid the adoption of the automobile. Manhattan gained economic and cultural dominance in the consolidated city, helped by transportation improvements like the subway, which brought a more heterogeneous population to Brooklyn. Existing families adapted by relocating to exclusive districts in the other boroughs, most notably the Upper East Side. Accordingly, Park Slope gradually became a more working-class neighborhood amid the subdivision of the expansive Victorian-era housing stock into apartment buildings and rooming houses.

The socioeconomic changes were slowed by the ongoing development of upscale apartment houses on Prospect Park West and Plaza Street along with infill middle-class buildings throughout the neighborhood. Only a fraction of the area, centered in the traditional Gold Coast district and select adjoining blocks, retained wealthy and upper middle-class residents into the 1940s. The Emery Roth–designed 35 Prospect Park West, marketed as a competitor to the upscale apartment houses of Fifth Avenue, Park Avenue and Central Park West, opened right before the Great Depression in 1929, and contained a variety of luxury accommodations (including penthouses, duplexes and maisonettes) alongside "just plain apartments". While the building attracted such notable residents as pharmaceutical executive John L. Smith and remained a "solid fortress of wealth" for decades, it ultimately failed to anchor comparable development in the neighborhood.

By the 1950s, the working-class Italian-American and Irish-American populations predominated, though this changed by the 1970s as the black and Latino population of the area increased and the white ethnic population began to relocate amid the less exclusive, though effectively segregated, wave of postwar suburbanization. However, the area straddling Flatbush and Washington Avenues between Prospect Park and Atlantic Avenue began to attract a population that was mostly African-American and West Indian-American, similar to neighboring Crown Heights. This area was increasingly identified as the separate neighborhood of Prospect Heights, a moniker that had previously been used to identify areas of Park Slope outside the Gold Coast.

Some of those that remained reacted violently to the ethnic changes to the neighborhood; for example, white residents of Park Slope attempted to bar African-Americans from participating in after-school programs at William Alexander Middle School in 1966. After this failed, white teenagers engaged in firebomb attacks on African-American homes on Fourth Street. In 1968, a street fight between Italian and African-American gangs occurred at Fifth Avenue and President Street, using bricks and bottles as weapons; in the aftermath of the fight, fourteen African-Americans and three Italian-Americans were arrested.

Land use

Park Slope contains a variety of zoning districts, including manufacturing, commercial, residential, and mixed-use. Much of the neighborhood is composed of rowhouses and six-to-eight-story apartment buildings, though Fourth, Fifth and Seventh Avenues contain residential structures with commercial space on the ground floors. The westernmost portion of Park Slope near the Gowanus Canal is a light industrial district. The section of Seventh Avenue south of Ninth Street is largely zoned for low-density commercial use.

Official landmarks

Much of Park Slope is located within the Park Slope Historic District, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. The historic district was also designated by the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1973; the city-designated district was extended to the south in 2012 and to the north in 2016. Containing 2,575 buildings stretching over part or all of around 40 city blocks, the historic district is New York's largest landmark neighborhood.

Several other structures in Park Slope are both NRHP and city landmarks:

14th Regiment Armory, an armory built in 1891–95 and designed in the Late Victorian style

Litchfield Villa, an Italianate mansion built in 1854–1857 on a large private estate now located in Prospect Park

Public Bath No. 7, a bathhouse built between 1906 and 1910 in the style of a Renaissance palazzo

Public School 39, built in 1876–1877 in the Italianate and Second Empire styles

William B. Cronyn House, built in 1856 in the Second Empire style

Additionally, the Brooklyn Public Library's Park Slope branch, a Carnegie library built in 1905–06, is a city landmark. The Fourth Avenue station and 15th Street–Prospect Park station are NRHP landmarks that are part of the New York City Subway System Multiple Property Submission (MPS). The Old Stone House, a 1930 reconstruction of the Vechte-Cortelyou House destroyed in 1897, is another NRHP listing and is located on Third Street between Fourth and Fifth Avenues.

The Grand Prospect Hall, an NRHP-listed banquet hall on Prospect Avenue, was built in 1892 and was demolished in 2022.

Demographics

Based on data from the 2020 United States Census, the population of the Park Slope–Gowanus neighborhood tabulation area (NTA) was 74,731 a change of 7082 (10.46%) from the 67,649 counted in 2010. Covering an area of 961.17 acres (388.97 ha), the neighborhood had a population density of 70.4 inhabitants per acre (45,100/sq mi; 17,400/km2).

The racial makeup of the neighborhood was 66.9% (49,995) White, 4.5% (3363) African American, 7.6% (5679) Asian, 5.2% (3886) from other races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 15.8% (11,807) of the population.

The entirety of Community Board 6, which covers areas around Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, had 109,351 inhabitants as of NYC Health's 2018 Community Health Profile, with an average life expectancy of 81.4 years. This is slightly higher than the median life expectancy of 81.2 for all New York City neighborhoods. Most inhabitants are middle-aged adults and youth: 18% are between the ages of 0 and 17, 46% between 25 and 44, and 20% between 45 and 64. The ratio of college-aged and elderly residents was lower, at 5% and 10% respectively.

As of 2016, the median household income in Community District 6 was $134,804. In 2018, an estimated 10% of Park Slope and Carroll Gardens residents lived in poverty, compared to 21% in all of Brooklyn and 20% in all of New York City. Less than one in fifteen residents (6%) were unemployed, compared to 9% in the rest of both Brooklyn and New York City. Rent burden, or the percentage of residents who have difficulty paying their rent, is 37% in Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, lower than the citywide and boroughwide rates of 52% and 51% respectively. Based on this calculation, as of 2018, Park Slope and Carroll Gardens are considered to be high income and not gentrifying.

As of the 2020 census data from New York City Department of City Planning, there were between 30,000 and 50,000 White residents and 5,000 to 12,000 Hispanic residents, meanwhile the Black and Asian residents were each less than 6000 residents.

Police and crime

Park Slope is patrolled by the 78th Precinct of the NYPD, located at 65 6th Avenue. The 78th Precinct ranked 41st safest out of 69 patrol areas for per-capita crime in 2010. As of 2018, with a non-fatal assault rate of 30 per 100,000 people, Park Slope and Carroll Gardens' rate of violent crimes per capita is less than that of the city as a whole. The incarceration rate of 294 per 100,000 people is lower than that of the city as a whole.

The 78th Precinct has a lower crime rate than in the 1990s, with crimes across all categories having decreased by 77.3% between 1990 and 2023. The precinct reported 2 murders, 10 rapes, 124 robberies, 178 felony assaults, 181 burglaries, 553 grand larcenies, and 128 grand larcenies auto in 2019.

Fire safety

The New York City Fire Department (FDNY) operates three fire stations in Park Slope:

Engine Company 220/Ladder Company 122 – 530 11th Street

Engine Company 239 – 395 4th Avenue

Squad 1/Technical Response Vehicle – 788 Union Street

Health

As of 2018, preterm births and births to teenage mothers are less common in Park Slope and Carroll Gardens than in other places citywide. In Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, there were 27 preterm births per 1,000 live births (compared to 87 per 1,000 citywide), and 7.9 births to teenage mothers per 1,000 live births (compared to 19.3 per 1,000 citywide). Park Slope and Carroll Gardens has a relatively high population of residents who are uninsured, or who receive healthcare through Medicaid. In 2018, this population of uninsured residents was estimated to be 22%, which is higher than the citywide rate of 12%.

The concentration of fine particulate matter, the deadliest type of air pollutant, in Park Slope and Carroll Gardens is 0.0089 milligrams per cubic metre (8.9×10−9 oz/ft3), higher than the citywide and boroughwide averages. Fifteen percent of Park Slope and Carroll Gardens residents are smokers, which is slightly higher than the city average of 14% of residents being smokers. In Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, 15% of residents are obese, 6% are diabetic, and 22% have high blood pressure—compared to the citywide averages of 24%, 11%, and 28% respectively. In addition, 9% of children are obese, compared to the citywide average of 20%.

Ninety-four percent of residents eat some fruits and vegetables every day, which is higher than the city's average of 87%. In 2018, 88% of residents described their health as "good", "very good", or "excellent", greater than the city's average of 78%. For every supermarket in Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, there are 12 bodegas.

New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital is located in Park Slope.

Post offices and ZIP Codes

Park Slope is covered by two ZIP Codes: 11217 north of Union Street and 11215 south of Union Street. The United States Post Office operates three locations nearby:

Prospect Park West Station – 225 Prospect Park West

Park Slope Station – 198 7th Avenue

Van Brunt Station – 279 9th Street

Community

Park Slope is considered one of New York City's most desirable neighborhoods. In 2010, it was ranked number 1 in New York by New York Magazine, citing its quality public schools, dining, nightlife, shopping, access to public transit, green space, safety, and creative capital, among other aspects. It was named one of the "Greatest Neighborhoods in America" by the American Planning Association in 2007, "for its architectural and historical features and its diverse mix of residents and businesses, all of which are supported and preserved by its active and involved citizenry." In December 2006, Natural Home magazine named Park Slope one of America's ten best neighborhoods based on criteria including parks, green spaces and neighborhood gathering spaces; farmers' markets and community gardens; public transportation and locally owned businesses; and environmental and social policy.

Institutions

The Park Slope Food Coop, one of the oldest and largest active food co-ops in the United States, is located on Union Street and has approximately 17,000 members from Park Slope and other neighborhoods. Only members may shop there, and membership requires a work commitment of 23⁄4 hours every six weeks.

The Park Slope Volunteer Ambulance Corps provides free emergency medical services to community members.

The Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, part of the Brooklyn Queens Conservatory of Music, is a community music school, offering music classes, ensembles and choral opportunities, and individual instrumental and vocal lessons to students from 18 months old to adults. It was founded in 1897.

Community Help in Park Slope, Inc. (CHiPS) is a soup kitchen that serves 600 men and women daily. Its Frances Residency Program provides shelter and support for young homeless mothers and their infants and toddlers; it was founded in 1971.

LGBT

One of the areas with a significant gay population in NYC, Park Slope hosts the famous Lesbian Herstory Archives that contain the world's largest collection of materials by and about lesbians. Notable LGBT nightlife spaces in Park Slope include the long-operating lesbian bar Ginger's and the queer bar and performance venue Good Judy. The neighborhood also hosts the annual Brooklyn Pride Parade and Festival.

Religion

Park Slope is home to a wide variety of religious institutions, or houses of worship, including many churches and synagogues; most are historic buildings, and date back many decades.

Churches

All Nations Baptist Church (Baptist)

All Saints' Church (Episcopal)

Church of Gethsemane (Presbyterian)

Grace United Methodist Church of Brooklyn (Methodist)

Greenwood Baptist Church (Baptist)

Kingsboro Temple of Seventh-day Adventists (Seventh-day Adventist)

Holy Name of Jesus (Roman Catholic)

Memorial Baptist Church (Baptist)

Old First Reformed Church (Reformed)

Park Slope United Methodist Church (Methodist)

Resurrection Coptic Catholic Chapel (Coptic)

St Augustine-St Francis Xavier (Roman Catholic)

St John's (Episcopal)

St John–St Matthew–Emanuel (Lutheran [ELCA])

St Mary's (Melkite Eastern Rite Catholic)

St Saviour (Roman Catholic)

St Thomas Aquinas (Roman Catholic)

Trinity Grace Church (Non-Denominational)

Emmanuel Pentecostal Church (Pentecostal)

Synagogues

There is a significant Jewish population in Park Slope, allowing for a number of synagogues along the religious spectrum. In addition to a number of synagogues, there is an eruv, sponsored by members of the various communities, that surrounds Park Slope.

Synagogues include:

Park Slope Jewish Center (Conservative), 14th Street and Eighth Avenue

Congregation B'nai Jacob (Modern Orthodox), 401 9th Street

Congregation Beth Elohim (Reform), 274 Garfield Place; this is the largest Reform synagogue in Brooklyn, and also the longest-running congregation

Congregation Kolot Chayeinu (unaffiliated, progressive), 1012 Eighth Avenue

Education

Park Slope and Carroll Gardens generally have a much higher ratio of college-educated residents than the rest of the city as of 2018. The majority (74%) of residents age 25 and older have a college education or higher, while 9% have less than a high school education and 17% are high school graduates or have some college education. By contrast, 40% of Brooklynites and 38% of city residents have a college education or higher. The percentage of Park Slope and Carroll Gardens students excelling in reading and math has been increasing, with reading achievement rising from 41 percent in 2000 to 53 percent in 2011, and math achievement rising from 35 percent to 64 percent within the same time period.

Park Slope and Carroll Gardens's rate of elementary school student absenteeism is lower than the rest of New York City. In Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, 11% of elementary school students missed twenty or more days per school year, compared to the citywide average of 20% of students. Additionally, 77% of high school students in Park Slope and Carroll Gardens graduate on time, higher than the citywide average of 75% of students.

Schools

Public schools are operated by the New York City Department of Education. Park Slope is in two different community school districts – district 13 to the north and district 15 to the south. Students are zoned to their nearest elementary school. Both district 13 and district 15 place students in middle school based on the student's ranking of acceptable middle schools; the district 13 portion of Park Slope receives district 15 (not district 13) middle school choice, consistent with the rest of the neighborhood. The former John Jay High School is now the John Jay Educational Campus, housing three high schools and one combination middle/high school.

PS 10, Magnet School of Math, Science, and Design Technology (grades K–5, dist. 15)

PS 39, Henry Bristow School (grades PK–5, dist. 15)

PS 107, John W. Kimball Learning Center (grades K–5, dist. 15)

PS 118, the Maurice Sendak Community School (grades PK–5, dist. 15)

PS 124, Silas B. Dutcher Elementary School (grades PK–5, dist. 15)

PS 133, William A. Butler School (grades PK–5, dist. 13, with admissions open to both dist. 13 and 15)

PS/MS 282, Park Slope School (grades PK–8, dist. 13)

PS 321, the William Penn School (grades K–5, dist. 15)

MS 51, William Alexander Middle School (grades 6–8, dist. 15)

JHS 88 Peter Rouget (grades 6–8, dist. 15)

MS 266, Park Place School (grades 6–8, dist. 13)

John Jay Educational Campus (formerly John Jay HS, dist. 15). The building houses four schools:

Libraries

The Brooklyn Public Library's Park Slope branch is located at 431 Sixth Avenue. Built in 1906, it was a Carnegie library branch, and was named the "Prospect branch" before 1975. The Brooklyn Central Library is located across Grand Army Plaza from the northeast corner of Park Slope.

Transportation

The neighborhood is well-served by the New York City Subway. The IND Culver Line (F, <F>, and ​G trains) runs along Ninth Street, a main shopping street, stopping at Fourth Avenue, Seventh Avenue and 15th Street – Prospect Park/Prospect Park West. The IRT Eastern Parkway Line (2, ​3, ​4, and ​5 trains) runs under Flatbush Avenue with an express stop at Atlantic Avenue – Barclays Center, and local stops (served by the 2, ​3, and ​4 trains) at Bergen Street and Grand Army Plaza. The BMT Fourth Avenue Line's local trains (D, ​N, ​R, and ​W trains) serve Prospect Avenue, Ninth Street, and Union Street stations, with the D, ​N, ​R, and ​W trains all serving Atlantic Avenue–Barclays Center, an express station. The BMT Brighton Line (B and ​Q trains) also passes through the neighborhood under Flatbush Avenue making stops at Atlantic Avenue–Barclays Center and Seventh Avenue. All three stations at Atlantic Avenue are connected to each other.

Additionally, several MTA New York City Transit bus routes serve the area, including the B41, B61, B63, B67, B68, and B69.