6th Ave Between St. Johns Pl and Park Pl

   

In the northern part of Park Slope, just a few blocks from Flatbush Avenue, these blocks don't offer much to the casual visitor who's just walking through. A church and a few local stores are heavily outnumbered by the brownstones, which are just as prevalent here as they are elsewhere in the borough.

Berkeley Pl Between 8th Ave and 6th Ave

   

Branching off the outer ring of Grand Army Plaza, Berkeley Pl is a quintessential Brooklyn street. With more Brownstones than you know what to do with, the block is gorgeous, if not a little one-note. Crossing 7th Avenue, you catch a glimpse of a few stores lining the outskirts of Park Slope.

The sidewalks here are are very narrow, thanks in-part to the countless trees and stoops. God help you if you find yourself walking towards a few parents with strollers. The logistics of getting out of the way may cause you to wonder if it was worth your time and energy to walk down this street at all.

Flatbush Ave Between 6th Ave and 5th Ave

    

Brooklyn's central artery is a varied mix of stores, construction and traffic. This segment leading up to the Atlantic Terminal construction site is a bit sparse as far as stores are concerned. Of course, running diagonal through the borough as it does, every single intersection it creates presents its own challenges. I found it difficult to tell what street I was crossing with all the different signs.

In the distance you can spot the ever-present Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower (One Hanson Place) as it makes everything else in the area look like complete trash. The endless shopping centers which surround the classic art deco tower barely deserve to be in the same state, let alone the same neighborhood.

Grand Army Plaza

    

Looking like a spiderweb when viewed on a map, the deceptively-large Grand Army Plaza anchors the north-west corner of Prospect Park to the surrounding neighborhoods. Featuring two large concentric streets, which act as local and express conduits to other avenues, the Plaza and a long history dating back to the beginning of the Park.

Sharing the name with a plaza in Manhattan on the corner of 59th and 5th, this one is significantly larger, and arguably more impressive. While it certainly could benefit from some clean-up on behalf of the DOT or Parks Department, I wouldn't go so far as to call it run down. The Bailey Fountain, while impressive in its sculptural details, is not the first, or most-impressive fountain to stand in the center of the oval. The previous installation was a massive "electric fountain" built around the turn of the last century. It featured state-of-the-art lighting and over 2000 jets, making the current one look just a little sorry in comparison.

The arch in the center of it all is beautiful, but very lonely looking. With nothing within a few hundred feet of it in either direction, it looks more like a nuisance to drive around than a landmark to appreciate. Once you make your way to the outer ring, the traffic subsides and the neighborhood takes hold. The residential streets fan out from the center as-if they're all working to old the plaza down in its spot.

Holiday Special : Park Slope

Due to the crummy weather and upcoming holidays, this week is going to be a little different. In leu of our normal scheduled content NYC GRID will be featuring several "special" posts that I've collected from my photo library. I hope you enjoy the brief respite and I look forward to resuming normal posts next Monday.

Good lord, how did we end up in Brooklyn? Leave it to me to not have any posts on the second-largest borough until the "holiday" week when no one will be reading anyway.  (Merry Christmas eve, by the way)

The photos for this post came from when I was apartment hunting and wanted to scout out the Park Slope area a little. I'm embarrassed to admit I have very little experience in the area, so this was really my first foray into seriously exploring what the neighborhood had to offer. Brooklyn is, of course, ripe with photographical goodness and while I really would like to have more posts related to it in the future, the daunting task of documenting Manhattan still has me wary when considering exploring other areas of the city.

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