Prospect Park South is a neighborhood within the community of Flatbush located in the borough of Brooklyn, New York. It is bounded by Church Avenue to the north, the BMT Brighton Line of the New York Subway to the east, Beverley Road to the south, and between Stratford Road, and Coney Island Avenue to the West.
Prospect Park adds immeasurable value to the locality, with the kind of greenery that is most unusual for the vicinity of a large metro. It also ensures unwavering preservation of quality design for streets, side-walks and all areas that people need to share and live in together. Every tree is loved and preserved by the residents who lived there.
As of 2010 census, there were 1,344 people residing in the area. The median income for a household in the village is $55,771.
At the end of the 19th century, a developer named Dean Alvord began acquiring the Prospect Park South as a community of large, individually-designed homes. Its motto was rus in urb (country in the city). He secured 40 acres of Flatbush from the Dutch Reformed Church and started to develop his idyllic residential community. Alvord also gave British names to the streets and he made sure utility lines and the subway being built went in below street level. Careful attention to fundamentals was the key ingredient for success. Plots in Prospect Park South have always been of standard and minimum size. Open space, proportions and frontage are never allowed to transgress planned specifications.
In 1955, the nearby Alvord Mansion, built by the developer of Prospect Park South for his own family, and later the home of the Matz family, the founders of the Ex-lax Company was abandoned and then torn down after a fire. Prospect Park South was designated as a historic district by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1979. Although Prospect Park South is known as the lowest crime rate in the 70th Precinct, there are still muggings and thefts occur along peripheral commercial strips and subways on Church Avenue and Cortelyou Road.
Notable people living in Prospect Park South include Dr. Vernon E. Lattin, the president of Brooklyn College. Some children go to P.S. 139 (Alexine Fenty School), a magnet school in the arts, a short walk to Beverly Square West, which has a chess club and a program for gifted students. Many of their students are immigrants from different countries. Other goes to nearby Midwood High School, and 98 percent go on to higher education.
The school offers 11 advanced placement courses for college credit. The Cortelyou Library which is adjacent to the public school offers 29,800 volumes of books, as well as a toddlers program, a bridge club, and many more. It helps for those wishing to improve how to speak English well, in addition to serving the needs of area public, parochial, and private school children. Prospect Park South has also outstanding homes and is active in support of the total community with very affordable home rates which starts at $250,000 up to $560,000.
