As a resident of Prospect Park South for over 50 years, I feel compelled to correct you. What you’re describing, particularly “the Japanese house” for example, and Streets like Marlborough and Buckingham are part of Prospect Park South, not Ditmas Park. Just walk to the corners of any of those blocks between Beverly Rd and Church Ave and you’ll see historic brick and stone markers which clearly identify and distinguish this neighborhood from Ditmas Park, which is also beautiful, but a separate neighborhood.
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@Cat
No one on The New York Times knows Brooklyn very well, Cat. I've read articles calling Cortelyou Road "Cortelyou Avenue," and while the houses in Prospect Park South are grander than the ones we have in Ditmas Park, no Times staffer seems to be able to call you by your correct moniker.
Of course, to people like me, born and raised in Brooklyn almost 65 years ago, it's all Flatbush.
(And certainly Flatbush is not "Little Haiti.")
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Both my family and my wife's family lived in Ditmas Park (ahem, Flatbush) for decades until moving out to LI after WWII, but now we've moved back. Separate families--we're not incestuals!--although our families did live in the same building, strangely enough. Our first apartment was two blocks from where my grandpa lived before shipping out to Europe in the war, which I love. Just a lovely neighborhood that retains that neighborhood feel, with so many great restaurants within walking distance. You can even garden, although you have to use raised beds or remediate the soil as it's contaminated with heavy metals (we found that out the hard way). Ms. Levine, don't forget Hunger Pang or Lea's, our personal favorite spots!
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I grew up in Ditmas Park. The area also had the Ocean Ave mansions and a few beautiful apartment buildings like The Barcelona on Ditmas Av. There were amazing sycamore trees along the streets and lovely churches scattered throughout the area. Across the street from 2116 Ditmas was a church. Our Lady of Refuge was on Foster Ave and the Episcopal ?Church was on Ditmas and Ocean Avenues and the Dutch Reformed Church was on our walk to Holy Innocents Church and School on Beverly Rd. Many students were from Ditmas Park and others from the lovely Westminster Rd. area beyond Beverly Rd. Great neighborhood where nobody moved away until after WWII and Long Island beckoned.
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@Whatever
Actually, it was a very good neighborhood indeed until the late 1960s. I saw my first trash-strewn street when I walked along Church Avenue in the spring of 1970 to take my SATs at Erasmus Hall. I'd been to Church and Flatbush many times, and suddenly it was different, and shocking.
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Ditmas Park was designated a historic district in 1981? I lived there from 1977 until 1994 and I never ever heard it called Ditmas Park. It was Flatbush or Kensington.
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@tony
Never Kensington.
Windsor Terrace and Kensington are sometimes conflated, but not Flatbush and Kensington. Lived in Windsor Terrace for much of my life beginning in the mid-1950s, and Flatbush the rest.
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“the doors adorned within wreaths”
Here in our Manhattan apartment building, wreaths meant December, but how nice to know they can be year-round.
Tune of ”We Need a Little Christmas”
Pack up the cholly
Let’s get some cheese, perhaps a Saga Blue again.
And for my Grandpa,
Let’s get a brew before we board the Q again now
‘Cause we’re eating out in Ditmas
With my whole mish-pu-chah. [mishpuchah = family]
Candles end the Sabbath
Bone up on the bru-chah. [bru-chah = blessing]
Yes we’ll subway out to Ditmas
You’ll feel like mish-pu-chah.
Ditmas Park in Brooklyn now!
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I'm in a part of Queens that has been overrun - not by roaches, but close. Russians who come here, destroy beautiful old homes and build things that make mental institutions look like a palace! They concrete over the grass, have luxury cars in their driveways with out of state plates and destroy the areas they move into. I'm so glad to see Ditmas Park has kept its quaintness and the way homes used to look. Warm and inviting - not with cameras and big ugly fences all over like they think the KGB is watching.
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@Sherri Rosen
Because there are protections in place, and landmarking; and even still, you'd be surprised at the number of inappropriate brick schnozes that get plastered onto those Queen Annes.
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@Sherri Rosen Forest Hills, pray tell?
Uh oh. The NY Times has blessed another neighborhood that is now destined to become overrun with real estate people, tourists, honking car horns looking to get a piece of the neighborhood.
It happened to my neighborhood in the early 1980's. The article talked about the quiet life style, great schools and easy trip into the city.
It was downhill from there!
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@jfr
I don't think Ditmas Park has to worry much. We still have local talent roaming the streets and assaulting people just for fun, we have packages stolen from front porches and mail that goes missing even when deposited into post office slots, and enough sirens to keep you busy.
It's still Brooklyn. Don't get me wrong -- this is the borough of my birth. But I remember when you didn't have to lock your doors, when porch furniture didn't have to be secured by a chain, when there were actual French bakeries in Flatbush, and when Flatbush didn't sound like sonic mayhem.
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Trying to work, and be worth my hourly billing rate (as opposed to what I earn, LOL), but now can't get the song "Ditmas" out of my head. (Better take a lunch break and listen to some disco or Adele!)
Mumford & Sons - "DITMAS" - caution: deceptively catchy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOBPiOdyGEM
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So Ditmas Park gets to remain a low density garden area while Inwood, its mirror subway suburb an equivalent distance north of downtown, with some buildings even designed by Ditmas Park architects, gets upzoned by de Blasio to FAR 7 and 30 story buildings?
That seems fair.
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@Planner There is a big difference between the neighborhoods though. Inwood is served by the 1 and A lines, major subway lines with direct access to midtown and downtown. Ditmas Park is only served by the B and Q lines which merge from 4 tracks to 2 tracks north of the Prospect Park station, then has to pass through the DeKalb Avenue merges before proceeding across the Manhattan Bridge. Inwood has better subway options because the 1 and A don't have to pass through any major merges.
Ditmas Park is a beautiful neighborhood of well-maintained homes. Why destroy it? Inwood is a neighborhood of plain apartment buildings. Another big difference.
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@Planner My understanding, and I'm happy to be corrected if I'm wrong, is that the changes in Inwood are happening east of 10th avenue, which is mostly abandoned factories and the subway yard. Even so, Inwood along Broadway is no garden. To the extent that rezoning will bring diversity (remember diversity? isn't that what we're all supposed to want?) to the area, it will be worth it. No one, so far as I know, is suggesting plowing up Inwood Hill Park, Indian Head or Baker Field.
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The mob used to live in Ditmas Park in the 80's; wonder if they are still there.
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And while you're wishing for the rain to go away, just remember all those places around this country (and the world!) that would be very grateful for having just a bit of it -- starting with California.
Just saying...
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