WHERE FLATLANDS BEGINS

EAST Flatbush and Flatlands comprise block upon block of neat, well-kept detached homes, with an occasional shopping strip and apartment building for contrast. Its southern flank, Mill Basin, was the home for Brooklyn’s first “modern” mall, the kind you drive to, the kind the teenagers hang out in: Kings Plaza, built in 1970. East Flatbush and Flatlands have been settled since the mid-1600s, however, when the area was called Nieuw Amersfoort, and a few of its ancient homes built by Dutch settlers are still hidden among the ones built after World War II, when the neighborhood started attracting families. These homes are at least 150 years older than their neighbors, though many have been altered over the years to look more modern.

Named for its decidedly nonhilly nature, Flatlands was one of the original five towns of Kings County after the Dutch swindled obtained the land from the Lenape Indians and then drove them out. It was an independent town beginning in 1661 and survived as an entity relatively late because of its remoteness, until its annexation by the City of Brooklyn in 1896; Brooklyn would in turn join Greater New York two years later. This was a choice area for me when biycling east from Bay Ridge due to its nonchallenging terrain.

Flatlands Avenue runs straight as an extension of Avenue N at East 35th Street, where this photo was taken, through Flatlands and then gains a couple of lanes and roars into Canarsie, becoming its main east-west shopping street. It runs past Starrett City (Spring Creek Towers) and finally peters out at Brooklyn’s main US Postal Service sorting facility near the borough line.

A few years ago I walked its length into Canarsie, and the photos from that journey will be posted sooner or later.

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9/6/23