Brooklyn's biggest neighborhood, and also one of its most layered
Flatbush stretches across a huge swath of central-south Brooklyn — from Prospect Park South at the top edge down to the Junction at Brooklyn College, and from Ocean Avenue east past Nostrand. The character shifts block by block: Victorian wood-frame houses on one street, four-story prewar apartment buildings on the next, and Caribbean, African, Jewish, and West Indian communities living layered together across the whole neighborhood. For families, the upside of this density is real: PS 139, PS 152, the Erasmus Hall campus, Brooklyn Amity School, and a half-dozen charter and yeshiva options are all within walking distance for most households. The downside is that Flatbush Avenue itself is a heavy commercial corridor, so many families want a sitter who can handle the walk home from school carefully.
