Flatbush Avenue
Flatbush Avenue is one of the major avenues in the New York City Borough of Brooklyn. It runs from the Manhattan Bridge south-southeastward to Jamaica Bay, where it joins the Marine Parkway–Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge, which connects Brooklyn to the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens. The north end was extended to the Manhattan Bridge as "Flatbush Avenue Extension."[1]
The diagonal path of Flatbush Avenue creates a unique street pattern in every neighborhood it touches. It is the central artery of the borough, carrying traffic to and from Manhattan past landmarks such as Junior's, Long Island University, the Fulton Mall, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Long Island Rail Road's Atlantic Terminal, the Barclays Center, Grand Army Plaza, the Brooklyn Public Library, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Prospect Park, Erasmus Hall High School, Brooklyn College, and Floyd Bennett Field. Flatbush Avenue is the border of Prospect Heights/Park Slope and many other neighborhoods. Other main Brooklyn thoroughfares start at Flatbush Avenue, including Ocean Avenue, Linden Boulevard, Empire Boulevard, Eastern Parkway, and Utica Avenue.
Flatbush Avenue, including the extension, is 9.8 miles long. Flatbush Avenue is a four-lane street throughout the majority of its run. It is a six lane wide median divided street north of Atlantic Avenue and south of Utica Avenue.
Flatbush Avenue is the main thoroughfare through the Borough of Brooklyn. It was originally an Indian trail that took advantage of a low point in the terminal moraine that forms the spine of Long Island, running roughly along what is now the eastern edge of Prospect Park. A monument beside the former Flatbush Road, now inside the park, commemorates an attempt to block the road during the Battle of Long Island. Historic homes line the neighborhoods around the avenue, which in the late 1920s was straightened to its current form. Streets such as Amersfort Place that are remnants of old parts of the avenue remain in the city grid as an echo of the past.
Flatbush Avenue is served by the B41 bus line (formerly a trolley line) and the Q35 bus line, which goes to Rockaway Beach via the Marine Parkway Bridge. Many subway services run under the avenue in Downtown Brooklyn, and the IRT Nostrand Avenue Line (2 and 5 trains) has a southern terminus at the Flatbush Avenue – Brooklyn College station.
References
- ^ Pollak, Michael. "Twain's Magical Mystery Tour", The New York Times, June 18, 2006. Accessed December 9, 2007. "The Flatbush Avenue extension was built 100 years ago through the 1850s-era Vinegar Hill neighborhood to connect Flatbush Avenue with the anticipated Manhattan Bridge, which opened in 1909."