Prospect Lefferts Gardens is the name given to a neighborhood in Flatbush located in the borough of Brooklyn, New York. It is part of Brooklyn Community Board 9 which is a comfortable 35-minute commute to the center of Manhattan.
The neighborhood is surrounded by Empire Boulevard (formerly Malbone Street) to the north, Clarkson Avenue to the south, New York Avenue to the east, and Ocean Avenue/Prospect Park to the West. Prospect Lefferts Gardens is mainly served by Q and B trains (BMT Brighton Line) at the Prospect Park and Parkside Avenue stops, as well as the Sterling Street and Winthrop Street stops on the IRT Nostrand Avenue Line (2 and 5 trains).
In 1660, the area was originally founded by a Dutch family. Lefferts Manor was the former and merged name for Prospect Lefferts Gardens. In 1893, James Lefferts divided the Lefferts estate into 600 building lots, now known as Lefferts Manor. In order to ensure that the neighborhood would contain homes of a substantial nature, he attached land-use deed restrictions, ordering that each lot contain a single family residence made of brick or stone at least two stories in height. The land-use covenant still exists in Lefferts Manor.
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission granted the landmark status of Lefferts Manor and parts of Lefferts Avenue and Sterling Street which considered not a single-family covenant in 1979. Other areas of Prospect Lefferts Gardens contain a mixture of single-family and multi-family homes as well as larger apartment houses.
Prospect Lefferts Gardens contains an ethnically diverse community with a largely Caribbean population. However significant numbers of Asians and people of all backgrounds have been interjected to give Prospect Lefferts Gardens a truly assorted and international flavor. There are Public Schools in the neighborhood other than Erasmus Hall are not the best in terms of their education. Many families have still preferred to send children to Park Slope for good education.
Prospect Park is one of the famous parks in Prospect Lefferts Gardens. The park has activities range from skating to birding to pedal boating to picnicking on the Long Meadow on beautiful days. It also boasts a stunning variety of natural and geological features. The commitment to land and neighborhood rubbed off on to people who invested in the individual plots put up for sale, and soon a Lefferts Manor Association was formed. It works in many ways to make the neighborhood a pleasant place to live. They help in maintaining and improving the historic neighborhood, enforce the restrictive one-family dwelling covenant, and bring together residents for their better acquaintance and mutual benefit.
