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Prospect Heights is a neighborhood in the northwest of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The traditional boundaries are Flatbush Avenue to the west, Atlantic Avenue to the north, Eastern Parkway to the south, and Washington Avenue to the east. In the northern section of Prospect Heights are the Vanderbilt Railyards, which could become part of the massive and controversial Atlantic Yards project.
Compared to other Brooklyn neighborhoods, Prospect Heights is relatively small and is notable for its cultural diversity as well as its tree-lined streets. Prospect Heights has seen rapid demographic changes over the last decade, and its shifts are exemplified by a mixture of older buildings under reconstruction, rows of classic 1890s brownstones, and newly built luxury condominiums. The neighborhood is served by the New York Police Department's 77th Precinct.
Along the southern boundary, Eastern Parkway, from Grand Army Plaza to Washington Avenue is reminiscent of Manhattan's Fifth Avenue "Museum Mile". Immense, opulent buildings line the north side of the parkway, and the south side features the Brooklyn Public Library, Mount Prospect Park (not to be confused with Prospect Park), the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the recently renovated Brooklyn Museum. To its north lies Fort Greene, to the south, Prospect Park, to its west, Park Slope and to its east, Crown Heights.
The interior portion of the neighborhood consists mostly of brownstone-style residential rowhouse buildings, some built as early as 1890, although some blocks, such as Lincoln and St. Johns Place between Underhill and Washington Avenues, include larger multi-unit apartment buildings. A number of new condominium complexes are under construction in many parts of the neighborhood.
Defunct bakeries and factory spaces line Pacific Street from Vanderbilt Avenue to Carlton Avenue, and some have recently been renovated and converted into lofts; still others have recently been purchased by developer Bruce Ratner in anticipation of his Atlantic Yards Project. Recently, a number of these have begun to be demolished.
Ratner's company Forest City Ratner has planned a controversial development on top of the neighborhood, the plans for which would include a basketball arena and luxury housing. An upscale, glass high-rise residential building designed by the architect Richard Meier and located off of Grand Army Plaza was completed in 2008.
As demand for housing within Prospect Heights increased, some residents of Crown Heights came to consider Franklin Avenue the western border with Prospect Heights rather than Washington Avenue. However, most residents continue to consider Washington Ave the border, and Washington Ave remains the eastern border of Prospect Heights as recognized by major New York City media such as The New York Times, The New York Post and the Wall Street Journal.
The name "Prospect Heights" can be traced as far back as 1889 to a letter to the editor published in the Brooklyn Eagle, although at that time it was one of several potential names for the neighborhood that has since come to be known as Park Slope. The letter began by noting that it was "amusing to see the attempts made to fix upon a name for the rapidly growing part of Brooklyn near Prospect Park, bounded by Flatbush, Fifth and Ninth avenues, Some call it Park Slope, some Park Hill Side, some Prospect Heights and others Prospect Hill..."
A widely diverse ethnic neighborhood in the 1910s through the 1950s, consisting of Italian, Irish, Jewish, German, Greek and Yankee residents, among others, Prospect Heights is currently well known for its mixed black and white culture. Every year the West Indian Day Parade, the largest annual parade in New York City, follows Eastern Parkway, beginning in Crown Heights and ending at Grand Army Plaza in Prospect Heights. During the last thirty years, the neighborhood has seen an influx of new residents, more frequently young and white than in the recent past, perhaps due to its having had slightly lower real estate prices than neighboring Park Slope. A thriving commercial zone has emerged along Vanderbilt Avenue, which in just the last few years has been the location for new bars, restaurants and specialty shops.
Because of the area's density of Italianate and Neo-Grec rowhouses, much of the neighborhood has been designated as a New York City historic district. The Prospect Heights Historic District covers an area roughly bounded by Flatbush Avenue, Sterling Place, Washington Avenue, and St. Marks Avenue, though a section of the historic district extends as far north as Pacific Street. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. The district was designated by the city Landmarks Preservation Commission on June 23, 2009, and approved by the New York City Council on September 17, 2009. It is the fifth largest historic district in New York City.
Recently, controversy has erupted in the neighborhood over a massive development project proposed by developer Bruce Ratner and designed by the architect Frank Gehry for the portion of the neighborhood known as Atlantic Yards. It seeks to construct an arena which would house the Brooklyn Nets basketball team and an undetermined amount of housing and commercial space, including a cluster of high-rise buildings that would tower over most of the borough's existing low-rise architecture.
A number of community groups oppose the project, claiming, among other things, that it abuses the principles of eminent domain. They further argue that the development will change the character of the neighborhood by introducing out-of-scale architecture and increased traffic to an already very congested intersection. Community groups also dispute Ratner's suggestions that residents meaningfully participated in the development of a Community Benefit Agreement.
Supporters of the project believe in its potential for reinvigorating what is now an unused, unattractive space.
It is also favored by local unions for its potential to create construction jobs during and after its development. Residents of Prospect Heights have been leaders in opposing the project, and block associations have been uniformly active in raising funds to support the grassroots resistance to the project.
The controversy over the project and its impact on the neighborhood was a major factor in the decision to turn much of Prospect Heights into a landmark district.
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