Ditmas Park/ South Prospect Park
Hello- Looking for some feedback from someone has lives/has lived in the Ditmas or South Prospect Park area. Married Mom with a 10month old and another on the way and looking for info on general neighborhood vibe, schools, restuarants and cafes, etc… currently live in Cobble Hill. Know the change will be big to this…
Hello- Looking for some feedback from someone has lives/has lived in the Ditmas or South Prospect Park area. Married Mom with a 10month old and another on the way and looking for info on general neighborhood vibe, schools, restuarants and cafes, etc… currently live in Cobble Hill. Know the change will be big to this area, but would love honest pros and cons. Thanks much!!
Lived in the area for 8 years and it’s really a nice nabe: calm, several new places on Cortelyou, great veggies on Church and Pakistani takeout on Coney Island & McDonald Avenues, tons of kids and generally really friendly. But as mentioned above, farther. Farther from the Slope, from downtown, from Manhattan, so people visit less and it’s more of an effort to go see them. We moved to Crown Hghts b/c one of us works at Columbia and the hour and half commute was too much. But we really like the area – much under-rated I think, and often a real bargain for the space, trees, friendliness, great mix of multiple cultures and now all kinds of restaurants, etc on Cortelyou. And the elementary school on Newkirk is really interesting, great leadership, etc. Go hang out for sure (esp now that spring is in the air.)
there was a long thread about schools on Ditmas Park Blog recently–within 4 weeks. pretty favorable.
Thanks BHS and BKLnite- all really helpful. I assume best thing to do is wander around that area one weekend and check it all out.
I’m hearing schools are pretty decent there, does anyone know that to be true?
Check out http://ditmasparkblog.com/
Pros: more space space for your money, houses with windows on all sides (bright & spacious), trees, yards, quiet, easy parking. Some good stuff on Cortelyou and easy to get to other nabes for what you can’t find close by. Close to Prospect Park, parade grounds. Easy commute on B/Q.
Cons: You can walk to a several restaurants, but not scores of them like Smith St. Big old detached houses are harder to heat and more expensive to maintain than row houses. If you like the energy of urban density, maybe too quiet & suburban to have 25 neighbors on your block instead of 100. More space than you need when your kids are gone (but that’s a long way off).
My commute to the Church Ave B/Q is roughly the same duration as south slope, via the 4th/9th stop, so would be maybe five minutes longer than the F to Carroll. Cortelyou is similar to Court St in look and vibe though it is smaller. There are lots of families with young kids on Cortelyou on the weekends at the playground, coffee shops, farmers market, food coop, etc. Cobble Hill is actually one of the less convenient places to get to from Flatbush–bus along Church Ave to F–but most other places including Manhattan are a breeze. You may want a car, but you will actually have a driveway or street parking in Prospect Park South or Ditmas. Church Ave is less gentrified than Cortelyou by far, but is bustling late into the night, which makes me feel comfortable walking home late. There are also lots of inexpensive grocery shops on Church, with exciting options if you’re the kind of person who gets a thrill from fresh cheap herbs, locally made Chinese noodles, tons of fresh fish choices, 18,000 types of salt cod, mustard greens and sour oranges. The biggest con is that most of my friends live elsewhere so I often have to travel to where they are.