Borough and State: Brooklyn, New York
Listed: 1973
Type of district: National Register historic district, state historic district, local historic district
Main Streets: Prospect Park West and Eighth Avenue
Park Slope National Register Historic District Report
Park Slope National Register Historic District Map
The Park Slope Historic District is a Brooklyn neighborhood known for its outstanding architecture, dating for the most part, from the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Adjacent to Prospect Park, the district is an exceptionally homogeneous residential neighborhood with few commercial intrusions. Park Slope is comprised of wide avenues and tree-lined streets with houses of relatively uniform height, punctuated by church spires. The community has been largely undisturbed and today still provides a living illustration of what it looked like in the 19th century.
The district is credited as being a splendid example of what careful coordination among architects and builders can create. The thoughtful planning expended on the design of so many of the town houses in the district has resulted in homes of generally high quality form, materials and architectural details, and blocks of remarkable consistency, even in areas where individual houses, row houses and low apartment houses are combined. The entire district is a cross-section of the important trends of American architecture of the time. The styles in Park Slope principally include late Italianate, French Second Empire, Greek Revival, Victorian Gothic, Queen Anne and exceptionally noteworthy examples of Romanesque Revival houses. The latter are regarded among the finest in New York. There also are examples of designs popular in the early part of the 20th century. These include homes built in the Renaissance, Classical, Federal and Georgian revivals.