Sterling / Lefferts / Lincoln / Maple

- August 17, 2025

This was my first venture into Prospect Lefferts Garden, which many folks on reddit suggested going to. I figured that I could zigzag between the 2/5 and the B/Q trains. (The 2 and 3 are easy to switch to at Atlantic Ave and involve the fewest stairs.) I think I strayed a little into East Flatbush because I wasn't sure where the boundaries are. You can see that the buildings change a bit the farther you get from the park.

I started off on Sterling Street at Nostrand Ave (where the 2 train stops) and immediately came to the Lefferts Playground, which is also Marc and Jason's Playground.

A couple blocks down Sterling ends but there are a couple of short north-south blocks, Balfour Place and Lamont Court.

This brings me to Lefferts Ave, which gives the neighborhood it's name. (Actually, the Lefferts Homestead does that, but it sounded cool.) There was a sign on a lamppost explaining the history of the area. And, of course, there were a lot of cool looking old buildings.

Washington Ave merges into Flatbush Ave at Lincoln Road (not to be confused with Lincoln Ave). There were some nice houses along the way. (Longtime readers of this blog know that I like houses with towers or spires or whatever.)

I'm not sure where the neighborhoods change, where the boundaries are, but I didn't immediately notice that Lincoln Road had suddenly become a two-way street or that the name of the street had changed to East New York Ave (which I'd already walked the other end of). Those both happened a block after passing St. Francis of Assisi-St. Blaise.

Maple Street has three small courts: Tampa, Palm, and Maimi. These go through to the next block, but not all of them were unlocked on the far side. I also met one fellow who was watering his plants who didn't seem to happy to have a visitor to his block. Had he said anything to me, I would've pointed to the "For Sale" sign in one of the windows. But he didn't say anything -- he just glared.

The flipside to these little courts is that they have garages behind them, so there were also a couple of alleys in really bad shape. I didn't walk down these.

The public library wasn't open yet, and that was definitely not the correct time. It was off by more than an hour. Continuing on, I got to the Maple Street Community Garden. The picture after that, something I don't usually post on this blog, there was a Little Free Library box. I always like to stop and check these. Unfortunately, instead of being near the sidewalk (usually there in front yards by the fence), this one was inside the garden, which didn't appear to be open at this hour. I felt like I'd be transpassing, so I skipped it.

And now we get toward the end of the street and closer to the park. You can tell by how the houses change. I could've taken a dozen more pictures like these!

Wrapping up today's walk with a Dead End street. Beekman Place runs for a single block between Flatbush Ave and the subway. (It doesn't continue on the other side.)

The mural at the end of the block was impressive and I'm glad I noticed the attributions on the side before I walked off the block.

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