Eastern Parkway is a major east–west boulevard in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, it was built between 1870 and 1874 and has been credited as the world's first parkway. At the time of its construction, Eastern Parkway extended to the eastern edge of the then-independent city of Brooklyn.
The road begins at Grand Army Plaza (the main entrance to Prospect Park) and runs east to Bushwick Avenue. The initial portion of Eastern Parkway, west of Ralph Avenue, consists of a main road and two service roads separated by landscaped medians, which include bike paths and walkways. The section west of Ralph Avenue is a New York City scenic landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places. The part east of Ralph Avenue is narrower and is officially known as the Eastern Parkway Extension.
Olmsted and Vaux designed Eastern Parkway, along with Ocean Parkway, in the 1860s to connect Prospect Park with neighborhoods further afield. Eastern Parkway was built with the expectation that it would be the centerpiece of a neighborhood with "first-class" housing. Ultimately, the resulting development encompassed a variety of building styles including single-family homes, mansions, and apartment buildings. Eastern Parkway has been modified several times over the years. The extension east of Ralph Avenue was built in the late 1890s, and the original parkway's service roads were widened in the 1900s. The neighborhoods around the parkway developed into Doctor's Row in the late 19th century, and further development occurred with the opening of the New York City Subway’s IRT Eastern Parkway Line in 1920. Following a period of deterioration, the section between Washington and Ralph avenues was rebuilt between 1987 and 1993, and the section west of Washington Avenue was rebuilt in the 2000s. By the 21st century, Eastern Parkway had some of Brooklyn's most dangerous intersections.
Route description Eastern Parkway is an arterial road extending across Brooklyn from west to east. Its western terminus is at Grand Army Plaza (originally Prospect Park Plaza), the main entrance to Prospect Park, where it intersects with Prospect Park West, Flatbush Avenue, and Vanderbilt Avenue. From Grand Army Plaza to Washington Avenue, the parkway consists of a broad, bidirectional avenue of six lanes, separated by a median from a narrow parallel service road on the north side. It passes Brooklyn Central Library, Brooklyn Museum, Mount Prospect Park, and Brooklyn Botanic Garden in this area; all of these are located on the south side of Eastern Parkway. The section between Washington and Ralph avenues has a second service road on the south side, separated by another median. The parkway makes a slight bend at Bedford Avenue, and it continues east to Ralph Avenue.
East of Ralph Avenue, the road is reduced to six lanes, heading in a northeasterly direction toward Bushwick Avenue. Here, Eastern Parkway officially becomes the Eastern Parkway Extension and curves to intersect with Howard Avenue, Atlantic Avenue, Fulton Street, and Broadway. In this area, Eastern Parkway runs diagonally to the rest of the street grid, creating several oblique intersections. At Bushwick Avenue, the extension becomes Vanderveer Street, a dead-end street. The extension connects to the Jackie Robinson Parkway, three blocks southeast, via Bushwick Avenue.
East of Ralph Avenue, the address numbers on Eastern Parkway continue down Pitkin Avenue toward Aqueduct Racetrack. Pitkin Avenue was created by the late 1890s when the Eastern Parkway Extension was constructed. Eastern Park, the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers before Ebbets Field, was located at Eastern Parkway and Vesta Avenue (now Pitkin Avenue at Van Sinderen Avenue, respectively).
In Crown Heights, Eastern Parkway divides the black community to the north and the Jewish community to the south. There have historically been tensions between the two demographic groups, especially after the 1991 Crown Heights riot, which occurred after one of the cars in Chabad-Lubavitch Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson's motorcade struck two Guyanese children. Eastern Parkway also divides the two community boards that serve Crown Heights: Brooklyn Community Board 8 to the north and Brooklyn Community Board 9 to the south. One news reporter wrote in the 1990s that, although Eastern Parkway's apartment buildings and rowhouses were typical of a mid-20th-century American middle-class neighborhood, its West Indian and Jewish populations "created a world that sometimes resembles two vastly different countries".
Design
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission and New York City Department of Parks and Recreation credit Eastern Parkway as the world's first parkway, built explicitly for personal and recreational traffic while restricting commercial traffic. Frederick Law Olmsted, the parkway's co-designer, described a parkway as "a shaded green ribbon" which might "be absolutely formal or strikingly picturesque, according to circumstances."
Eastern and Ocean parkways were planned together, though Eastern Parkway was intended to be the more grand of the two. The parkway is similar to Ocean Parkway in its layout. West of Washington Avenue, the roadway is about wide. The section between Washington and Ralph Avenues is wide between outer sidewalks, with a main road, two service roads, and two medians. The main roads are around wide, while the service roads and medians are each around wide. Both medians are about wide and have trees, concrete and wood benches, and paths for pedestrians. The medians' walkways were originally paved in gravel, but these have since been replaced with hexagonal asphalt tiles. Residents along the parkway tend to use the medians as gathering spaces.
The Eastern Parkway Extension is wide between curbs, with two sidewalks, for a total width of . This section has a narrower median of between separating each direction of traffic. There are three lanes in each direction.
Originally, there were 1,100 trees planted in the medians. As such, Olmsted placed elm trees along the main road and a variety of trees consisting mostly of maples on the service roads. These were provided by John Condor's Brooklyn nursery. The southern median has a bike path, which part of the Brooklyn-Queens Greenway. The greenway runs south from the western end through Prospect Park to Ocean Parkway and east from the eastern end through Forest Park. The southern median's bike and pedestrian paths are separated by a rumble strip. The northern median is for pedestrians only. Many trees along the parkway bear plaques commemorating soldiers fallen in World War I. , there are about 25 different species of trees. The block of Eastern Parkway between Bedford and Franklin avenues won the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's "Greenest Block in Brooklyn" contest in 2025, in part because of the efforts of the Crown Heights Keepers, a community group that maintains planters on Eastern Parkway.
Traffic and safety
West of Ralph Avenue, most traffic uses the main road of Eastern Parkway, while the service roads tend to be used by local traffic. Commercial vehicles are prohibited on all three roadways west of Ralph Avenue, since that section of Eastern Parkway is classified as part of the New York City parks system. Trucks are allowed east of Ralph Avenue, where traffic loads are heavy throughout the day. Neither section of Eastern Parkway is designated as a local truck route. By the late 1990s, the parkway was used by 44,440 vehicles a day, traveling at an average speed of . , segments of the original parkway are used by up to 45,000 vehicles a day, while segments of the extension average up to 35,000 a day.
Between Grand Army Plaza and Ralph Avenue, the main road has traffic lights at every intersection. At several intersections, only one of the two service roads have traffic lights, while the other service road has a stop sign. At intersections with two-way streets, both service roads and the main roads generally contain a traffic light. Since the parkway was not designed for modern traffic loads, traffic lights and crosswalks at the service roads are installed in a piecemeal fashion, creating inconsistencies even between adjacent intersections. At many intersections, there are also no crosswalks between the medians or on the service roads. Furthermore, drivers frequently exceed the speed limit of due to the design of the main road, which is long, wide, and straight. Due to the parkway's width and the lack of traffic lights on some service roads, several intersections on Eastern Parkway record high rates of accidents. This is exacerbated by cars attempting to turn from the main road onto the side streets, which frequently block the crosswalk or make quick turns onto these streets. The medians are also crowded during rush hours, since several New York City Subway stations have entrances in the medians.
The intersection with Utica Avenue, a two-way street, was regarded in the 2010s as the most dangerous intersection in Brooklyn. This was once the second-most-dangerous intersection in the city, with 88 pedestrians being hurt and four being killed between 1995 and 2001. Another intersection with Washington Avenue, a two-way street, formerly lacked a traffic light for the northbound service road. Between 1995 and 2005, the intersection of Eastern Parkway and Washington Avenue saw one fatality and 39 injuries, though the intersection with Washington Avenue was later upgraded with a traffic light. The New York City Police Department also identified other intersections, such as Eastern Parkway's junctions with Kingston Avenue and Nostrand Avenue, as dangerous during the late 20th century. Four people were killed at the intersection with Nostrand Avenue between 1988 and 1993 alone.
Because of the high number of traffic incidents on Eastern Parkway, the parkway is designated as a Vision Zero traffic safety "priority corridor". In an effort to reduce injuries, the city proposed installing traffic signals on all of the service roads during the 2010s. In addition, dedicated turn lanes were added, and traffic signal phases were modified so cars did not conflict with pedestrians and cyclists.
History
Development
Planning and construction Eastern Parkway is located on the high edge of Harbor Hill Moraine, a terminal moraine. Approximately 17,000 years ago, the moraine of the receding Wisconsin Glacier, which formed Long Island, established a string of hills. Mount Prospect (or Prospect Hill), near the present-day intersection of Flatbush Avenue and Eastern Parkway, is one of the tallest hills in Brooklyn, rising 200 feet (61 m) above sea level. During the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), the area was a site of the Battle of Long Island (also known as the Battle of Brooklyn). American forces attempted to hold Battle Pass, an opening in the terminal moraine where the old Flatbush Road passed from the villages of Brooklyn to Flatbush. It fell after some of the heaviest fighting in the engagement, and its loss contributed to George Washington's decision to retreat. Even though the Continental Army lost the battle, they were able to hold the British back long enough for Washington's army to escape across the East River to Manhattan.