June 26 Community Board presentation - The Good Life in Flatbush

By the late 1920's, Flatbush was a lively residential community with a wide variety of housing types including new six story elevator apartment buildings and semi-detached brick houses with garages, older four and five story walk up tenements, limestone and brownstone rowhouses from the early 1900's, and freestanding frame houses from the turn of the century. It was already reaching that elusive and desirable balance that my neighbors call "halfway between the suburbs and the city".

As I researched the development of our neighborhood (still known simply as "Flatbush") in local newspapers, I was struck not only by long forgotten or buried architectural details and building amenities, but the wonderful variety of shops, restaurants, athletic recreation and family oriented entertainment depicted in newspaper ads (THANK YOU BROOKLYN EAGLE for preserving all this history!)  In particular, Flatbush was known for theaters. There were seven movie theaters - often ornate buildings - in the Prospect Lefferts Gardens area, and thirteen in greater Flatbush. The circus came to town. Oh and the garages. There was ABUNDANT parking and service stations all along Parkside/Clarkson and Empire Boulevard for all those new Ford Model T's, Chevrolets and Buicks. And of course there was Prospect Park, the Botanic Gardens, and the new Brighton line subway to Manhattan.

It must have been a good life, and a wonderful place to raise a family.