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I grew up just a block away from Nostrand Ave, and loved the convenience of it as a kid and teen -- stores right nearby within a minute's walk. It's still like that, but now I realize that it is also one very dirty street. I don't know why there's such a litter problem there, but it's ugly. For me, the most fun part of Nostrand is near "the Junction" where it crosses Flatbush Ave. Here's where things get insane. The streets are lined with shops and the busniess spills out into the streets. Vendors are everywhere selling cheap goods of all kinds. There is usually music coming from stores and/or cars, and it is loud with crowds of people. It's hard to cross the street because of the incessant traffic, but it's worth heading over here for a taste of ethnic diversity and cheap shopping.

Marine Parkway runs from Nostrand Ave to Fillmore Ave at the entrance to Marine Park, about a 5-block distance. It's a fairly quiet residential street, and the main reason to be here is to be on your way to the park. Marine Park is a terrific Brooklyn park, with a smaller section including playgrounds, basketball courts, tracks for walking/running/cycling, and ballfields, and then a larger section with a nature preserve and trails through the marshlands where you can often see and hear endangered birds. I grew up less than a mile away and have many happy memories of my whole family walking or biking down Marine Parkway to the park for after-dinner play in the summertime.

The main reason to come to 18th Ave most of the time is to shop for cheap stuff. This is where you'll find socks, cheap plastic toys, bootleg DVDs, discount clothing, etc. But once a year in August, you also get the feast, an Italian-American Catholic festival in honor Santa Rosalia. You don't have to be Catholic or Italian to love this -- a parade, great food (italian, of course), and all kinds of games and performances.

The Bedford Ave that everyone knows now is the part that runs through Williamsburg, definitely a trendy, cool, and expensive place to be. But further south on Bedford, you'll find a whole different vibe. Here, you have huge old mansions from the early 1900s and earlier. It's true, most of them are in terrible disrepair, but things are picking up and some have been restored beautifully. This area has been mostly African-American for decades, and it's one spot that still hasn't been gentrified, perhaps because the only real public transit around is bus so it's not too convenient. There's not much in the way of business over here, but I do love the old homes -- there are few other areas with this particular kind of architecture to see.

Court St. has it all -- independent book stores, indie movie theater, bistros and cafes, all the way on up to the big store shopping and chain restaurants, depending on exactly what part of the street you walk. I prefer the Cobble Hill section, home to beautiful classic brownstone architecture and somewhat cleaner streets. Yes, it's a little snooty over there -- not too many of us can afford to live in this area -- but I love to visit for dinner, a movie, or a little shopping and walking around. And although it's certainly upper-middle class at the very least, it's a lot cooler than the more upscale neighborhoods of Manhattan.

Ocean Parkway is primarily residential and lined with apartment buildings and multi-family homes. It's a huge street running from Brighton Beach in the south and into the Prospect Expressway to the north. There are 3 lanes of traffic in each direction plus a service lane to the side each way, for a total of 8 lanes of often-congested roadway. The really nice thing about it, though, is the greenway on each side separating the service lane from the main throughways. It's as though you have a long, narrow park on each side of the street, filled with trees, park benches, and even chess tables. On a nice day, you'll see people out walking, kids riding bikes and scooters, folks playing chess, and just hanging out. Overall, it's an extremely pleasant place considering the amount of traffic whizzing by all the time.

I went to Brooklyn College right off Flatbush Ave, and grew up not far from there, so I have a special place in my heart for this crazy area called "the Junction" where Flatbush and Nostrand cross. Like the rest of Flatbush Ave, it is lined with shops, mostly small stores and not big chains. Retail spills out into the street and you can probably purchase just about anything you might possibly want somewhere on this block, likely for a discount! You have loads of public transit options here - at least 4 or 5 buses, and the terminal station for the 2 & 3 subway trains. Whenever I visit this area now, I get myself a Jamaican beef patty or a bagel and take walk around the Brooklyn College campus. That is not open to the public, you do have to get a temporary badge from one of the security gates, but all you have to do is show ID and tell them where you want to go (e.g., registrar, history department office). One other thing to mention about this neighborhood -- there's a Starbucks right off the Ave. These coffee shops may have taken over Manhatten, but not Brooklyn, and it is mighty hard to find a good cup of coffee in the surrounding areas. I go there often when I'm in the neighborhood.

Metropolitan Ave runs through Williamsburg, a neighborhood now famous for hipster artists and musicians. Once upon a time, this area was super-run down, cheap and kind of scary because of all the crime and poverty. But as these things happen, things changed with time. Now, you have tons of great restaurants and boutiques in the area. I especially like some of the design stores -- you'll find cool and unique objects, sometimes made by local artists. As cool as it is around this part of town, there are some major negatives. First off, it has become very pricy, both in terms of living here and in terms of the retail and restaurants in the neighborhood. Second, it's extraordinarily difficult to park your car around here. Which is important because third, public transit here is limited. Sure, you have the L train, which gets you to Manhatten in minutes, but you can't really go anyplace else from here. All in all, though, it's always fun to come down here for dinner/drinks and a walk around the neighborhood.

First off, Coney Island Avenue does not actually run through the area of Coney Island, the amusement park! The Ave does end up in (or start, depending on your perspective) in Brighton Beach, a nearby area. This is a neighborhood that was almost exclusively Russian immigrants some 15 years ago, but has been slowly gentrifying over the years. As you move north from Brighton Beach, you get into the neighborhoods of Sheepshead Bay and Gravesend, both largely residential. Along Coney Island Ave, you have shopping and restaurants, a few really excellent places, in fact. I highly recommend Sahara, a Turkish restaurant, on Coney Island Ave and Ave T. Moving further north on C.I. Ave, past Ditmas St., you enter Kensington, a gentrifying mostly residential neighborhood. Still, C.I. Ave is a hectic street of businesses, lots of retail and food. There are a number of Middle Eastern and Indian take-out places, some quite good. Keep heading north and you wind up at Prospect Park, perhaps Brooklyn's best outdoor nature experience. This is a truely awesome park, huge, many walking trails, meadows and wooded areas, plus a lake and an outdoor theater where plays are often performed in the summertime. C.I. Ave ends at the north end of the park, where you wind up in Park Slope - a famously well-off neighborhood of brownstones and upscale boutiques. Buses run up and down the entire length of C.I. Ave, though they can be slow with traffic. Same goes for cars -- it's generally a crowded street.

Kings Highway is a very long street that runs through several different neighborhoods. The area with which I'm most familiar is between Nostrand Ave and Ocean Parkway. This neighborhood is mostly working class and very ethnically diverse. There is a large Orthodox Jewish population as well as a huge number of immigrants from former Soviet states including places like Russia, Ukraine, and Georgia. The area is home to tons of businesses where Russian is spoken as a first language, and English only secondary or not at all. You can find some great food and friendly people in many of these establishments, even if you are not of Eastern European descent and do not speak the language. Food is abundant but not high-class. You'll find lots of take-out and fast food here, but you do have many options -- Chinese, Turkish, bagels, McDonalds, etc. In addition, you will find lots of retail bargain stores here. There are dollar stores and discount stores, plus just regular shops that offer quality goods of all kinds at good prices. Public transit here is fabulous -- several bus lines and the B and Q trains for a fast ride to Manhatten or Brighton Beach. On the downside, Kings Highway and the surrounding streets are not particularly clean. Litter seems to be a constant problem. Also, nightlife is lacking in this area. There are a few bars, but none very interesting, more like the neighborhood place where you go for a beer now and then just because it's nearby. Altogether, I love this area for the generally good rents, easy public transit, and great bargains and food, despite its flaws. This area has not been gentrified at all, and is still pretty much exactly like it was 30 years ago. Compared with other more trendy neighborhoods, it may not be as pretty, but it feels like real Brooklyn to me.