In crowdsourced maps, Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, including Barclays Center arena, clearly in Prospect Heights, except Site 5 (Park Slope → DT Brooklyn?)

The New York Times just published An Extremely Detailed Guide to an Extremely Detailed Map of New York City Neighborhoods:

We asked New Yorkers themselves to map their neighborhoods and to tell us what they call them. The result, while imperfect, is probably the most detailed map of the city’s neighborhoods ever compiled... 

On the maps in this article, brighter solid colors signal agreement on what the area is called. Blurrier areas signal disagreement or uncertainty. Many blocks are called by three or four or even five different names. But when we stack all the drawings on top of one another, the picture that emerges is remarkably coherent.

The arena block = Prospect Heights

Interestingly enough, the arena block, including the Barclays Center and three towers, is labeled Prospect Heights by 90% of respondents, and Downtown Brooklyn by 5%. 

Screenshots from New York Times

I've said that the arena itself arguably extends Downtown Brooklyn, but the failure to build the flagship tower (aka "Miss Brooklyn") over what's now the arena plaza surely stymied the connection. (I'd say "Atlantic Terminal area" is also legit.)

The original developer, Forest City Ratner, promoted Atlantic Yards as an extension of Downtown Brooklyn, then the only nearby area with high-rises, prompting pushback and even a series of New York Times corrections.

Instead, the Downtown Brooklyn rezoning redefined that area, and Atlantic and Flatbush avenues do seem a border with Prospect Heights.

After all, as I've written, the developers of residential towers within what's now called Pacific Park would rather associate their buildings with a leafy neighborhood, Prospect Heights.

What about Site 5?

The only piece of Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park below Flatbush Avenue, known as Site 5 and longtime home to the big-box stores Modell's (now closed) and P.C. Richard, gets placed in Park Slope by 63% of respondents and Downtown Brooklyn by 15%.

Curiously enough, others place it in Boerum Hill (across Fourth Avenue), Prospect Heights (across Flatbush Avenue), and Fort Greene (across Atlantic Avenue).



Arguably, the neighborhood identifier for that parcel might shift if and when towers are built at that site.

A 25-story tower has been approved at that site, but since 2016 the project developer has floated a plan to shift most of the bulk of the unbuilt "Miss Brooklyn" across Flatbush Avenue to create a giant, two-tower project.

That could be seen as connecting more to the spine of Downtown Brooklyn, which essentially ends two blocks northwest, at the triangular block, edging into Boerum Hill, where the developer Alloy is completing the first of two towers.

Of course, as I wrote, the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership claims all nearby towers, from Prospect Heights to DUMBO.