New York Like a Native
  • Home
  • Brooklyn tours
    • Brooklyn 101 tour >
      • Brooklyn 202 tour
    • North & west of Prospect Park >
      • Fort Greene & Clinton Hill tour
      • DUMBO, Fulton Ferry, Brooklyn Heights tour
      • Park Slope tour
      • Viewing (and Walking) Brooklyn Bridge (+ More)
      • Atlantic Avenue & Downtown Brooklyn
      • Cobble Hill/Carroll Gardens tour
      • Red Hook tour
    • Williamsburg & north Brooklyn >
      • Williamsburg tour
      • Greenpoint tour
      • Bushwick and East Williamsburg tour
    • Central Brooklyn >
      • Bedford-Stuyvesant tour
      • Crown Heights tour
      • (Not Just) Victorian Flatbush tour
      • Sunset Park tour
      • Green-Wood Cemetery tour
    • Coney Island and southern Brooklyn >
      • Coney Island Webinar, Virtual Tour, & Resources
      • Coney Island (& Brighton Beach) tour
      • Bensonhurst tour
      • Bay Ridge tour
    • Jewish, food, and Xmas lights tours >
      • Jewish Neighborhood Tours
      • Food, dessert, ice cream tours
      • Dyker Heights Christmas Lights tour
    • Moving to Brooklyn/layover tours >
      • Moving to/Studying in/Retiring in Brooklyn
      • Airport/Cruise/Layover tours in Brooklyn
    • Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park/Barclays Center
  • Beyond Brooklyn
    • East Village tour
    • Jackson Heights tour
    • Lower East Side tour
    • Long Island City tour
    • Ridgewood tour
    • Sunnyside & LIC East
  • About your guide
  • Fees/Schedule/FAQ
    • Fees for private tours
    • Schedule
    • FAQ
    • Vehicle and custom tours
    • Tours for classes
    • Resources on Brooklyn
    • How to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge
    • Picking a Hotel in Brooklyn
    • Picking an AirBnB in Brooklyn
  • Contact me/Book
  • Blog

What are the Borders of New York City's Neighborhoods?

10/31/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture
You might be surprised to learn that New York City does not have official neighborhood boundaries, and some new names have emerged as the product of re-branding by neighborhood boosters and/or real-estate agents. Here an interesting article in the New York Times about the contested boundaries.

Note, in the screenshot at left, the boundary zones where the colors aren't solid.

History lessons
​
For example, once upon a time there was an undifferentiated area of "South Brooklyn," which referred not to the southern sections of today's Brooklyn, like Coney Island or Bay Ridge, but to the southern part of the old City of Brooklyn, established in 1834, while the rest of Kings County--today co-terminous with Brooklyn--was unincorporated.

By the 1960s or so, in an effort to distinguish row-house sections of South Brooklyn from nearby--but separated by a highway--Red Hook, a maritime industrial neighborhood with a massive public housing complex, those boosters conceived of Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill. There are unusually deep front gardens in Carroll Gardens, though the only hill in Cobble Hill is historical. But it sounds more posh.

New questions

Today, the debates more concern the effort to expand, or contract, a border. Consider: the border of Prospect Heights, long thought of as Washington Avenue, is no longer fixed, as real estate listings a block or two east of Washington now claim Prospect Heights rather than Crown Heights. See the yellow-to-green section in the bottom right of the screenshot.

The logic is that these more upscale apartments have more in common with most of Prospect Heights than much of Crown Heights, which has more working-class blocks, many with rent-stabilized units, to the east. Then again, Crown Heights also has its own historic blocks.

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Touring Brooklyn Blog

    Observations and ephemera related to my tours and Brooklyn. Comments and questions are welcome--and moderated.

    Archives

    April 2025
    March 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    April 2024
    November 2023
    October 2023
    August 2023
    May 2023
    February 2023
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    May 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    December 2019
    September 2019
    September 2018
    July 2018
    April 2018
    July 2017
    May 2017
    February 2017
    October 2016
    September 2016
    May 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015

    Categories

    All
    Bay Ridge
    Bensonhurst
    Brooklyn 101
    Brooklyn History
    Bushwick
    Covid 19
    Covid-19
    Dyker Heights
    Food
    Gentrification
    Park Slope
    Touring Brooklyn
    Williamsburg

    RSS Feed

New York Like A Native: Energetic, eclectic tours of Brooklyn & beyond. Experienced guide. Personal service.
  • Home
  • Brooklyn tours
    • Brooklyn 101 tour >
      • Brooklyn 202 tour
    • North & west of Prospect Park >
      • Fort Greene & Clinton Hill tour
      • DUMBO, Fulton Ferry, Brooklyn Heights tour
      • Park Slope tour
      • Viewing (and Walking) Brooklyn Bridge (+ More)
      • Atlantic Avenue & Downtown Brooklyn
      • Cobble Hill/Carroll Gardens tour
      • Red Hook tour
    • Williamsburg & north Brooklyn >
      • Williamsburg tour
      • Greenpoint tour
      • Bushwick and East Williamsburg tour
    • Central Brooklyn >
      • Bedford-Stuyvesant tour
      • Crown Heights tour
      • (Not Just) Victorian Flatbush tour
      • Sunset Park tour
      • Green-Wood Cemetery tour
    • Coney Island and southern Brooklyn >
      • Coney Island Webinar, Virtual Tour, & Resources
      • Coney Island (& Brighton Beach) tour
      • Bensonhurst tour
      • Bay Ridge tour
    • Jewish, food, and Xmas lights tours >
      • Jewish Neighborhood Tours
      • Food, dessert, ice cream tours
      • Dyker Heights Christmas Lights tour
    • Moving to Brooklyn/layover tours >
      • Moving to/Studying in/Retiring in Brooklyn
      • Airport/Cruise/Layover tours in Brooklyn
    • Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park/Barclays Center
  • Beyond Brooklyn
    • East Village tour
    • Jackson Heights tour
    • Lower East Side tour
    • Long Island City tour
    • Ridgewood tour
    • Sunnyside & LIC East
  • About your guide
  • Fees/Schedule/FAQ
    • Fees for private tours
    • Schedule
    • FAQ
    • Vehicle and custom tours
    • Tours for classes
    • Resources on Brooklyn
    • How to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge
    • Picking a Hotel in Brooklyn
    • Picking an AirBnB in Brooklyn
  • Contact me/Book
  • Blog