Maple st and Kingston ave are question please.

Hi there, welcome!

Maple Street is a few blocks to the south, outside of Crown Heights, and the 600s of Maple Street appear to be between Kingston and Albany Avenues in an area that I believe is known as Wingate.

Wingate is the neighborhood just east of Prospect Lefferts Gardens, so you'd do well to pass through PLG to get to Prospect Park (which you simply *must* do, great park...).

I don't know the area you mention very well, but I am sure there are various others here that do, since I think I've noted in the past that someone on here lives at Kingston in that general area.

Good luck with the move, and again, welcome to these boards and Brooklyn in general!

:P

I know people who own houses on Maple and for the most part they love it (been there for 20 yrs.) although it is a bit of an island. The odd thing about NYC neighborhoods is that you have to judge them almost block by block.
I just googled the 600 block. My friends live in the 100s and 200s. To be honest, I wouldn't live there. It might be incredible but personally I would definitely take a very close look first.

I would not recommend it. There are good number of shootings and robberies in that area.

I lived one block from that area. It is mostly small crumbling homes, 60 year old 6 story condos, and new two story attached homes. Most people are either Orthodox jews, African American, or Caribbean. The only half decent supermarket is the jewish one on e new york and kingston or associated on e new york and utica. There is no decent restaurant or take out in the area. It is a 40-50 minute walk to prospect park and 15 min walk to the 2 train on sterling st. There is no sense of community due to the many fights between the Jews and African Americans. It was a very tough place to live for me. A lot of cars blasting loud music, motorcycle racing, people begging for money on street corners, etc. If you are not from the area or are part of a group that is from the area it is difficult to feel like you belong.

I don't live that far from Maple and Kingston, and it is not a bad area. It may not be the ultimate best but it is far from being a bad area. Most people living in the area are long time residents and it is not the easiest area to get a sense of community but that has more to do with most people associating with people they grew up with. I have lived in my apartment for over 13 years, am African American and still don't know the majority of people in my building because there has never been a reason for me to. Don't mistake me though as I think it is a normal sense of community that I share with the people that I live around it is just not the knock on the door, have tea and crumpets type of neighborhood.

But back to Maple....it is near Kings County Hospital so you have that aspect to deal with and it can be loud but all in all, nothing too extreme. You have several grocery stores in the area if you don't mind walking a little bit. There is a Kosher Supermarket on Empire and Brooklyn, the Crown Heights International Supermarket on East New York Avenue between Schenectady and Troy, the Associated or C-Town (I don't shop there so I can't remember the name) on Nostrand and Montgomery and Western Beef further up on Empire. There are a couple of 24 hour laundromats in the area. The biggest drawback too me, is the accessibility to the train. The closet stop is the Sterling stop on the 2 or 5 train but you can always catch the B12 towards Parkside and catch the Q train from there, or walk over to Empire and catch the B43 to either the Prospect Avenue stop on the Q train or the Kingston Avenue stop on the 3 train. If you are into Kosher food, you can always walk down Kingston Avenue and go to the Jewish shops on that strip. There is also a Family Dollar store on Kingston and East New York (I think) where you can pick up some discount stuff.

All in all, it is probably not that expensive due to the location not having basic amenities close by and not because it is a bad area.