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Brooklyn

Flatbush

Little Caribbean and Little Haiti around a 1929 movie palace on Flatbush Avenue.

Flatbush was a Dutch village before Brooklyn was a city, and the old bones are still there: a Reformed church on Flatbush Avenue whose congregation dates to 1654, and Erasmus Hall across the street, one of the oldest high schools in the country. Around them, the twentieth century added a dense commercial strip and, in 1929, one of the most lavish movie palaces ever built.

Today Flatbush is the heart of Caribbean Brooklyn, officially designated Little Caribbean in 2017, with a Little Haiti cultural district alongside. Church Avenue and Flatbush Avenue are lined with Jamaican patty shops and jerk counters, Trinidadian doubles stands, Haitian restaurants serving griot, pikliz, and diri ak djon djon, and bakeries selling hard dough bread, coco bread, and spiced bun.

Walk Church Avenue east from the Flatbush junction, eating as you go, then come back to the restored Kings Theatre for a show under its gilded ceiling. On summer Sundays, the drummers' circle at the edge of Prospect Park, a few blocks north, is the neighborhood's open-air encore.

Patty shops and jerk smoke along Church Avenue

Haitian griot and pikliz in Little Haiti

A restored 1929 movie palace on Flatbush Avenue

A Dutch Reformed churchyard older than the republic

Local notes

Kings Theatre

Opened in 1929 as one of Loew's five Wonder Theatres, abandoned for decades, and reopened in 2015 after a meticulous restoration of its French Renaissance interior. Concerts and comedy fill its three thousand seats; the lobby alone is worth the ticket.

Little Caribbean

The district along Flatbush, Church, and Nostrand Avenues was formally named Little Caribbean in 2017 after a push led by Shelley Worrell of I AM CARIBBEING. Jamaican, Trinidadian, Guyanese, Haitian, Grenadian, and Vincentian businesses share the blocks. Patties and doubles make the easiest first course.

Flatbush Reformed Dutch Church

The congregation was chartered in 1654 under Peter Stuyvesant; the current stone church at Flatbush and Church Avenues dates to the 1790s and is a city landmark. Its churchyard holds the graves of the old Dutch families whose names still mark Brooklyn's streets.

Through the lens

The Kings Theatre facade and marquee come alive after dark. Church Avenue is a daytime street for storefronts and bakery windows, at its best in late afternoon. The Dutch Reformed churchyard is a quiet frame of old stones and steeple in morning light.

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

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