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35. Best Block for Pretending
it’s the 1950s:
Marlborough Road
(between Beverly and Cortelyou, Ditmas Park)
Seriously, is this where they shot
Tree of Life?
36. Best Block for Pretending
it’s the 1970s:
Jefferson Avenue
(between Tompkins and Throop, Bed-Stuy)
This block shimmies along the shaky continuum between newly revived Bed-Stuy and the bad old days: here an elegant single-family home, there the sun-baked stoop of a stately, subdivided brownstone in desperate need of renovation, and a scattering of empty lots (at least for now).
37. Best Block for Schadenfreude:
9th STREET
(between Seventh and Eighth, Park Slope)
Have fun pushing your strollers up and down that hill, breeders.
38. Best Block for Weltschmerz:
Third Avenue
(between 29th and 30th, Sunset Park)
As if the mammoth, light-blocking Gowanus Expressway overhead weren’t dispiriting enough, the east side of the street houses a XXX video store while the west side of the street is home to a federal prison.
39. Best Block for Art:
Fifth Avenue
(from about 70th Street to 90th Street, Bay Ridge)
Not in the ‘Burg and not in the ‘Wick, and only for a couple months or so in early summer, the best block for art is Bay Ridge’s bustling Fifth Avenue, when it’s taken over by the annual Bay Ridge Art Walk—storefront after storefront adorned with artworks by artists from all over Brooklyn. (And yes, it’s not one block, but it’s like a block party!)
40. Best Block for a Date:
Van Brunt Street
(between Pioneer and Visitation, Red Hook)
Of the many charming spots that make Van Brunt the platonic ideal of a small-city Main Street, we’re especially partial to the slick, homey seafood at Kevin’s and the perfect, blissfully coexistent dive bars Bait & Tackle and the Brooklyn Ice House. “Let’s lean our heads in together and close the place down…”
