PROSPECT-LEFFERTS GARDENS — This weekend, mark your calendar to learn a ton about the neighborhood.
To honor Jane Jacobs, one of the city’s greatest urbanist thinkers and activists, the Municipal Art Society is once again hosting their annual “Jane’s Walk” festival in which historians, knowledgeable locals and urban planning fanatics get together to explore the city’s neighborhoods and culture by foot.
► READ MORE: How Jane Jacobs Changed the Conversation About City Life
This year, six themed walks will focus on — or pass through — Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, exploring the architecture, transit history and cocktails (really!) of the area, among other things.
Each of the walks will take place this weekend on Saturday, May 7 or Sunday, May 8 and are free and open to the public. Dozens of other walks are set to take place through the city; for a full list, visit the MAS website.
To help you find the right Jane’s Walk in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens for you, DNAInfo New York rounded up the six walks set to take place in the neighborhood. Check them out:
► Historic Districts of Prospect-Lefferts Gardens
When: Saturday, May 7 at 11:00 a.m.
Where: Lincoln Road entrance of the Prospect Park Q train station
Explore the three historic districts in the neighborhood, including the main Prospect-Lefferts Gardens district and the two newer districts, Ocean on the Park and Chester Court. The two-hour tour will be led by Robert Marvin, a longtime neighborhood resident and member of the Lefferts Manor Association who helped push for historic designations in the area.
► A Man, A Plan, Stranahan: Realizing Prospect Park
When: Saturday, May 7 at 11:00 a.m.
Where: Grand Army Plaza entrance to Prospect Park
Consider the politics behind the planning of Prospect Park in this two-and-a-half-hour tour of the park and the life of James S.T. Stranahan, longtime president of the Park Commission. The tour, led by historian Matthew Wills, will end at Stranahan’s grave in Green-Wood Cemetery.
When: Saturday, May 7 at 6:00 p.m.
Where: Flatbush Caton Market at 794 Flatbush Ave.
Join Shelley Vidia Worrell, the founder of caribBEING and the Flatbush Film Festival, for a one-hour walk exploring Caribbean food and culture at local restaurants and institutions.
► Walk-and-Sip in Crown Heights and PLG
When: Sunday, May 8 at 1:00 p.m.
Where: Eastern Parkway and Franklin Avenue
Get to know the neighborhood through its watering holes on this bar crawl through Crown Heights and Prospect-Lefferts Gardens. Walk organizer Amparo Abel-Bey says it will not be “rowdy,” but rather “a contemplative and enjoyable way to appreciate these diverse and rapidly changing residential neighborhoods.”
► Transit Museum Takes on Prospect Park South
When: Sunday, May 8 at 2:00 p.m.
Where: Flatbush Avenue entrance of the Prospect Park Q train station
Learn about the transportation history of the area by exploring the routes of horse-drawn carriages and the BRT and BMT lines in the neighborhood, as well as the Malbone Street Wreck of 1918, a streetcar crash on what is now Empire Boulevard that killed dozens of people. Transit Museum educator Katherine Reeves is set to lead the walk.
When: Sunday, May 8 at 3:00 p.m.
Where: The arch at Grand Army Plaza
Explore the history of Flatbush on this meandering walk through the Vale of Cashmere in Prospect Park, the Revolutionary War site Battle Hill (near the Empire Boulevard entrance to the park) and Look Out Hill, “one of the best views of Brooklyn,” says walk organizer and Guggenheim Fellow Matthew Jensen.
