Park Slope is New York's largest and most intact mid to late 19th century brownstone district. It received a historic district designation in 1973 within the boundaries shown on the map left (click on it to enlarge). At the time the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission stated "that the Park Slope Historic District is one of the most beautifully situated residential neighborhoods in the City, that its history and development is closely related to that of Prospect Park, that it is almost exclusively residential in character with minimal inroads by commerce, that it retains an aura of the past to an extent which is unusual in New York, that the wide sunny avenues and tree-lined streets, with houses of relatively uniform height punctuated by church spires, provide a living illustration of the 19th century characterization of Brooklyn as a city of homes and churches".
Go and see for yourself! You will find block after block of quiet tree-lined streets that run gently uphill towards splendid Prospect Park. Admire the well preserved Italiante, Neo-Grec, Queen Anne, Romanesque, Renaissance Revival and Colonial Revival style row houses only occasionally interrupted by handsome churches. A wonderful Victorian neighborhood! Most people start their walking tour at Grand Army Plaza - the 2,3,4 and 5 IRT subway lines take you there. Grand Army Plaza is an impressive traffic oval fashioned after the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Its white marble arch, constructed in 1892 is half the size of the Arc de Triomphe and commemorates the soldiers and sailors of the Civil War.
But we rather recommend you walk two blocks back on Flatbush Avenue (towards Downtown Brooklyn) and start at Sixth Avenue. This way you can work your way up the hill and literally up history. Because this is the area where the first brownstones were constructed in the 1860s. It was closest to Downtown Brooklyn and the streetcars leading up Flatbush Avenue. You see a lot of identical Italiante and Neo-Grec style brownstones. They were built by speculative homebuilders. These rows of houses are interspersed by architect designed houses constructed by well off families later. They filled the empty lots left between the spec builders' developments.
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