Dark City: One of a Kind Victoriana in Ditmas Park
Photos Shane Lyons
It’s poised to be the next Bedford Avenue. So it’s hard to imagine that Cortelyou Road, one of Ditmas Park’s main drags, once ran through desolate farmlands. Originally owned by the Ditmas family, this sub-section of Flatbush, located just south of Prospect Park, began to take on its strangely suburban aura around the turn of the 20th century, a vibe that has hardly changed despite the shift from residential calm to gentrifiying commotion. With the industrial grit of Coney Island Avenue to its west, the neighborhood feels like an eerie oasis amid run-of-the-mill Brooklyn blight.
The commercial streets that slice Ditmas Park into horizontal strips are lined with the brick-and mortar low-rises that dominate many Brooklyn neighborhoods. But side streets like Rugby Road—whose English-sounding name, like others in the neighborhood, was intended to lure the well-to-do—reveal the neighborhood’s true character: beautifully constructed homes, ranging from Victorian mansions to Swiss-inspired chalets, mostly built between 1899 and 1915. “To attract the wealthy from