One neighborhood name vigilante is relabeling Prospect Lefferts Gardens – literally. Stickers reading “This Is Flatbush” have been pasted over references to Prospect Lefferts Gardens on neighborhood infrastructure recently, according to locals posting in the nabe’s Facebook group.
The anonymous sticker-er sparked quite the debate within the group among area residents, despite the fact that the sticker simply states the fact – Prospect Lefferts Gardens IS within the neighborhood boundaries of the larger Flatbush area. The crux of the debate, then, revolves around whether it is also PLG. In the same way that a square is a rectangle but a rectangle is not a square, Flatbush (for those of you who don’t know) encompasses a large swath of “micro-nabes” like Ditmas Park, Prospect Park South, and PLG that are fair game to be referred to by their more specific monikers or simply Flatbush (now you know) – however, calling the area either is LOADED. Judgments will be passed.
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There was a time not so long ago when Brooklyn contained South Brooklyn, Flatbush and, like, five other neighborhoods. Exponentially increased property rates and a number of other factors have changed that.
The Prospect Lefferts Gardens moniker can be traced back to the 1960s with the creation of the Prospect Lefferts Gardens Neighborhood Association. For more in-depth history, check out this article from The Q at Parkside.
If only it were still 2007 and “This is Sparta” hadn’t already been memed into a long overdue grave, it would be an appropriate reference here.
View Comments (3)
The word is not "nabe" Thats a gentifying hipster word. The word is neighborhood. Also This is,Flatbush is not "vigilante" shit. This is,Flatbush relates to the disgusting and racist gentrification that Blasio is enforcing. I live in zFlatbush It aint no "vigilante". °All you white hipster gentrifiers GET OUT of our neighborhood. Go back to where you came from.
Can you cite this? "Flatbush... encompasses a large swath of “micro-nabes” like Ditmas Park, Prospect Park South, and PLG..." I have never read evidence of this claim. While there are no city endorsed boundaries for neighborhoods (only zip code boundaries), there are some commonly agreed upon boundaries. And while they have changed dramatically over the years (Flatbush used to be much larger), even google mined current data for a map which clearly shows that Flatbush is its own neighborhood separate from PLG, etc. [https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1VYN-6Vkk01byUCF7P13rT6ORT5g&hl=en_US&ll=40.63867453782072%2C-73.95697799999999&z=14]
You can't trust a google map, especially one who's author isn't cited, or maybe it's just that I can't figure out who made it, but that map was made in "my maps" by an everyday user. Their boundary for PLG is larger than anything I've ever seen anyone try to defend as being PLG (Utica, are you kidding me?). Even a google maps search for Prospect Lefferts Gardens shows a smaller boundary and also quotes Wikipedia: "Prospect Lefferts Gardens is a residential neighborhood in the Flatbush area of the New York City borough of Brooklyn." https://www.google.com/maps/place/Prospect+Lefferts+Gardens,+Brooklyn,+NY/@40.6555753,-73.9622181,14.35z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x89c25b6a115ce57b:0xc1ea690586812456!8m2!3d40.6590448!4d-73.9506774
However, you don't need Google or Wikipedia to know that long-time locals, who have called this neighborhood PLG for decades, also identify with it being a part of the larger Flatbush neighborhood. Same goes for Ditmas Park.
There are people who claim that PLG doesn't exist, and they are wrong. But there are people that are upset that the boundaries of PLG are being stretched by real estate agents to include areas of Flatbush that were never a part of PLG. These people, and their efforts, should be supported.