How Healthy Is Your Neighborhood?
Park Slope
Score: 43/50
Available Green Space: 9
Dude, Prospect Park! The borough’s premier park, 585 acres whose western side starts at the neighborhood’s northern edge and extends all the way to its southern border. If you live at the bottom of the slope, it can be a trudge to walk up there, but, hey, it’s healthy to walk uphill!
Fresh Air: 8
Aside from all that greenspace, most of Park Slope is lucky to be uphill from Brooklyn’s favorite Superfund site, the Gowanus Canal, and away from most highways, except for the Prospect Expressway on its southern edge. As long as you don’t live on the north sides of 17th Street or Prospect Avenue, you should be ok.
Bicycling Infrastructure: 8
Presently, the southernmost Citi Bike station in Brooklyn is near the Atlantic Terminal, which means it’s inaccessible to most Park Slope residents—but at least it’s within walking distance, unlike in many neighborhoods farther south. But, hey, the neighborhood has what you want when it comes to bike lanes: plenty of east-west access as well as north-south, providing intercommunity access as well as that to other hoods, including the protected lane on Prospect Park West, controversial, maybe, sort of (if you’re a grouchy rich person!), but which feels safe-as-hell when you’re, you know, on a bicycle or a pedestrian or someone who prefers not to be hit by speeding cars.
Gyms: 9
There are two YMCAs less than a 10-minute walk away from each other, so you tell us? Not to mention all the other chain-gyms. Plus, there’s that Prospect Park loop for people who like to run for free outside.
Healthy Food Availability: 9
The Grand Army Plaza farmer’s market is the borough’s biggest, our Union Square. Then there’s the Food Coop, a Brooklyn punchline but still an efficient and enviable way to get groceries. This is in addition to all the supermarkets in the area, which offer fresh produce. Curiously, Park Slope lacks independent green grocers—maybe because with so many other options, its residents don’t need them.