Park Slope is a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York City, within an area known as South Brooklyn. Park Slope is roughly bounded by Prospect Park and Prospect Park West to the east, Fourth Avenue to the west, Flatbush Avenue to the north, and Prospect Expressway to the south. Generally, the neighborhood is divided into three sections from north to south: North Slope, Center Slope, and South Slope.New York Visitors Guide, Park Slope & Prospect Heights , New York, Accessed June 23, 2009. "Boundaries, Park Slope: From 19th St. north to Flatbush Ave., From Prospect Park W. west to Fourth Ave"Park Slope neighborhood profile , New York, extracted from a March 10, 2003 article. Accessed September 25, 2007. "Boundaries: Stretching from Prospect Park West to Fourth Avenue, Park Place to Prospect Expressway."Oser, Alan N. "Rezoning, and Redefining, Park Slope", The New York Times, December 28, 2003. Accessed March 26, 2025. "As broadly defined by brokers marketing real estate there, Park Slope is bordered by Flatbush Avenue to the north, the Prospect Expressway to the south, Prospect Park and Prospect Park West to the east, and Fourth Avenue to the west. The April rezoning actually extends west as far as Third Avenue on some blocks, and only as far as 15th Street to the south." The neighborhood takes its name from its location on the western slope of neighboring Prospect Park. Fifth Avenue and Seventh Avenue are its primary commercial streets, while its east–west side streets are lined with brownstones and apartment buildings.
Park Slope was settled by the Lenape before Europeans arrived in the 17th century. The area was mostly farms and woods until the early 19th century, when the land was subdivided into rectangular parcels. The western section of the neighborhood was occupied in the mid-19th century, being located near the industrial Gowanus Canal and ferries. After the completion of Prospect Park, numerous mansions and rowhouses were developed in Park Slope's eastern section in the 1880s. Park Slope faced social and infrastructural decline in the mid-20th century, but the building stock was renovated after the area became gentrified starting in the 1960s. Much of the neighborhood is overlaid by the Park Slope Historic District, which is composed of a National Historic District and a New York City landmark district.
Park Slope features historic buildings, top-rated restaurants, bars, and shops, as well as proximity to Prospect Park, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the Brooklyn Museum, the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, and the Central Library and Park Slope branches of the Brooklyn Public Library.Brooklyn Public Library , accessed August 17, 2006 The neighborhood had a population of about 62,200 as of the 2000 census. Park Slope is generally ranked as one of New York City's most desirable neighborhoods.
Park Slope is part of Brooklyn Community District 6, and its primary ZIP Codes are 11215 and 11217. It is patrolled by the 78th Precinct of the New York City Police Department. Politically, it is represented by the New York City Council's 33rd and 39th Districts.Current City Council Districts for Kings County , New York City. Accessed May 5, 2017.
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
Early development 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 . 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.
Prospect Park and further development 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.
Development increased with the planning and creation of Prospect Park, just east of modern-day Park Slope. In February 1860, a group of fifteen commissioners had submitted suggestions for locations of four large parks and three small parks in Brooklyn. The largest of these proposed parks was a plot east of Ninth and Tenth Avenue in the Eighth Ward. After work was stopped during the Civil War, the proposed park's boundaries were changed, shifting the boundaries slightly west and south. In 1868, the City of Brooklyn purchased his estate and adjoining property to complete the West Drive and the southern portion of the Long Meadow in Prospect Park, for the then-exorbitant price of $1.7 million ($ million in ). The modern-day Park Slope was split into the city's 22nd Ward the same year.
By the late 1870s, with horse-drawn rail cars running to the park and the ferry, bringing many rich New Yorkers in the process, urban sprawl dramatically changed the neighborhood into a streetcar suburb. The opening of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883 led to further development in the city of Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Union Elevated Railroad extended its Fifth Avenue elevated line to South Brooklyn six years later. During the 1890s, the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company added electric trolley lines or converted old stagecoach lines to electric service.;
Upscale residential neighborhood
Many of the large Victorian mansions on Prospect Park West, known as the Gold Coast, were built in the 1880s and 1890s to take advantage of the park views. Early colloquial names for the neighborhood included "Prospect Heights" (later applied to the neighborhood north of Prospect Park), "Prospect Hill", and "Park Hill Side", before residents settled on Park Slope. By 1883, with the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge, Park Slope continued to boom and subsequent brick and brownstone structures pushed the neighborhood's borders farther. The 1890 census showed Park Slope to be the richest community in the United States. Realtors and community members saw a clear connection between Park Slope's bucolic setting and the comfort of living there. As the New York Tribune wrote in 1899, "Nature set the park down where it is, and man has embellished her work in laying out great lawns and artificial lakes, in bringing together menageries and creating conservatories, in making roads and driveways, and in doing everything in his power to make the place a pleasant pleasure ground and a charming resort."
Baseball had also played a prominent role in the history of the Park Slope area. From 1879 to 1889, the Brooklyn Atlantics played at Washington Park on 5th Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets. When the park was destroyed by a fire, the team moved to two other sites. In 1898, the "New" Washington Park was built between Third and Fourth Avenues and between First and Third Streets near the Gowanus Canal. The team, by this point known as the Dodgers, played to an ever-growing fan base at this location, and team owner Charles Ebbets moved the team to his Ebbets Field stadium in Flatbush for the beginning of the 1913 season.Dodgers Ballparks , accessed May 27, 2006 The Federal League's Brooklyn Tip-Tops rebuilt much of the park in concrete and steel and played there for two years, in 1914 and 1915, before the league folded. A portion of the ballpark's wall still exists today on Fourth Avenue.
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.