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Brooklyn

Crown Heights

Roti shops on Nostrand Avenue, a Labor Day carnival on Eastern Parkway, and brownstones in between.

Crown Heights is laid out along Eastern Parkway, the grand tree-lined boulevard Olmsted and Vaux designed in the 1870s to carry Prospect Park's greenery east. The blocks on either side hold some of Brooklyn's finest late-nineteenth-century rowhouses and freestanding mansions, and two very different communities share them: one of the largest West Indian populations in the country and the world headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.

Nostrand Avenue is the Caribbean food spine. Trinidadian roti shops serve curry goat, channa, and pumpkin wrapped in dhalpuri or torn into buss-up-shut; doubles go out in paper by the hundreds every morning; Jamaican kitchens send out jerk chicken and oxtail with rice and peas. Bakeries stock coconut drops, currant rolls, and black cake. Along Kingston Avenue, kosher bakeries and groceries keep a different calendar.

Every Labor Day, Eastern Parkway becomes the stage for the West Indian American Day Carnival, one of the largest parades in North America — steel pan, masquerade bands in feathers and sequins, and food vendors from end to end. The rest of the year, Franklin Avenue's newer restaurants and bars give the western edge a looser evening mood.

Eastern Parkway's tree-lined malls and benches

Roti, doubles, and jerk smoke along Nostrand Avenue

Kosher bakeries and Hasidic life on Kingston Avenue

Steel pan and masquerade on Labor Day

Local notes

West Indian American Day Carnival

Held every Labor Day on Eastern Parkway, preceded by the predawn J'ouvert celebration. Masquerade bands, steel pan, soca trucks, and a long corridor of food vendors selling jerk, curry, and fresh coconut water. The largest public celebration of Caribbean culture in the city.

Nostrand Avenue's roti shops

Between Atlantic Avenue and Eastern Parkway, Nostrand is lined with Trinidadian roti shops, bakeries, and West Indian groceries. Gloria's, long a neighborhood mainstay, is known for buss-up-shut with oxtail or pumpkin. Shop around — each counter has its own loyalists.

770 Eastern Parkway

The Gothic Revival building that serves as the world headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, and the center of Crown Heights' Hasidic community. Kingston Avenue, a block away, holds kosher bakeries, butchers, and Judaica shops.

Through the lens

Eastern Parkway's malls are best under autumn color or at Labor Day, when the parade turns them into a river of costume. Nostrand Avenue's storefronts take warm late-day light. Be respectful around Kingston Avenue on Shabbat and holidays, when photography is unwelcome.

Editorial draft — core details last reviewed October 13, 2026. Confirm practical details with the official site before you go.

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