Flatbush Avenue, including the extension, is 9.9 miles (15.9 km) long. The avenue is a four-lane street throughout the majority of its run. North of Atlantic Avenue and south of Utica Avenue, it is a six-lane-wide median-divided street.
Prior to European settlement, several Native American trails crossed Brooklyn.[3] These were later widened into "ferry roads" by 17th-century Dutch settlers, since they were used to provide transport to the waterfront. One was the Flatbush Road, running roughly north–south to the east of the path of present-day Flatbush Avenue.[4] The road ran roughly along what is now the eastern edge of Prospect Park and taking advantage of a low point in the Heights of Guan that form the spine of Long Island. A monument beside the former Flatbush Road, now inside the park, commemorates an attempt to block the road at Battle Pass during the Battle of Long Island. For much of the 19th century, it had a plank road run by a turnpike company. Historic homes line the neighborhoods around the avenue, which in the late 1920s was straightened to its current form. Streets such as Amersfort Place that are remnants of old parts of the avenue remain in the city grid as an echo of the past.
Transportation
The majority of Flatbush Avenue is served by the B41 route of MTA Regional Bus Operations, though the Q35 route also serves Flatbush Avenue south of Nostrand Avenue. Several bus routes also use the avenue for shorter stretches.[5]
^Pollak, Michael. "Twain's Magical Mystery Tour", The New York Times, June 18, 2006. Accessed December 9, 2007. "The Flatbush Avenue extension was built 100 years ago through the 1850s-era Vinegar Hill neighborhood to connect Flatbush Avenue with the anticipated Manhattan Bridge, which opened in 1909."
Belt Parkway at Floyd Bennett Field
NY 27 in Flatbush
I-278 / Manhattan Bridge in Downtown Brooklyn
