One name, two community districts
Eastern Parkway runs through the middle of Crown Heights, and the official statistics split along roughly the same line. The Census Bureau labels its two survey areas "Brooklyn Community District 8--Crown Heights (North)", which also takes in Prospect Heights, and "Brooklyn Community District 9--Crown Heights (South)", shared with Prospect-Lefferts Gardens. The Census Bureau publishes housing figures for each district separately, and set side by side they describe two different purchases. All numbers below come from the 2024 five-year American Community Survey, tables B25034 (year built) and B25024 (units in structure). Each is district-wide, not a count of Crown Heights alone.
North of Eastern Parkway (District 8)
Of 52,123 housing units (year built, units in structure), 60.5% are in structures that predate 1940. One in four units is in a building of two to four apartments (10.1% in two-unit houses, 14.9% in three- and four-unit buildings). This is the rowhouse half. The first two historic districts described below both take Eastern Parkway as their southern edge.
South of Eastern Parkway (District 9)
Of 43,814 units (year built, units in structure), 57.0% predate 1940, but the building sizes flip. More than half of all units are in large buildings, 22.8% in buildings of 20 to 49 apartments and 34.8% in buildings of 50 or more, while three- and four-unit buildings drop to 7.8%. A buyer here is more likely to be looking at an apartment in a large building, often a pre-war one, than at a whole house.
Three landmark designations in eight years
The northern rowhouse blocks are heavily landmarked, and the Landmarks Preservation Commission did it in stages:
- Crown Heights North Historic District, designated April 24, 2007, "roughly bounded by Atlantic Avenue and Eastern Parkway on the north and south, and by Bedford and Albany Avenues on the west and east" (LPC report LP-2204).
- Crown Heights North II, designated June 28, 2011, more than 600 buildings bounded by Bergen Street, Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn Avenue and Nostrand Avenue, as reported by CityLand.
- Crown Heights North III, designated March 24, 2015, with "more than 600 buildings, including single- and two-family row houses, flats buildings, and apartment houses primarily built from the 1870s to the 1930s" (LPC report LP-2489).
Before you budget for new windows, a rebuilt stoop or a roof deck, look the address up on the LPC's map. If it sits inside one of these districts, exterior work generally requires an LPC permit first. An inspection report that lists a bulging limestone lintel or a rusted cornice is also, on these blocks, a list of repairs with a review step attached.
If you are buying a rowhouse
Row houses "primarily built from the 1870s to the 1930s", the span LPC gives for Crown Heights North III, share a set of weak points that come from age and design. Limestone and brownstone facings spall when water gets in behind them, usually starting at sills, lintels and the stoop. The party walls shared with both neighbors carry chimney flues that may now vent a gas boiler they were never lined for. Roofs are flat, drain to one rear leader, and leak first at the parapets and at the skylight over the stair. Inside, expect steam radiators, a cast-iron waste stack original to the house, and an electrical service sized for a time before air conditioners. We open the panel, run water at the top floor, walk the roof where it is safe and spend real time in the cellar, because that is where a rowhouse shows its history.
If you are buying an apartment
In a pre-war co-op the inspection covers your unit and whatever common areas the building lets us see. Inside the apartment: window operation and lintel staining, steam risers and radiator valves, water pressure with two fixtures running, the age of branch wiring and whether the panel has room for what you plan to add, and ceiling stains below the bathroom upstairs. In the building: the boiler room, roof and cellar if the super will open them. Heating fuel is worth a question to the managing agent. The census counts 8.6% of occupied homes in District 8 and 11.0% in District 9 as oil-heated, and a building that still burns oil has a tank and, sooner or later, a conversion to pay for through maintenance charges.
Dates on the calendar: zoning and gas piping
City Planning announced on March 18, 2013 the start of public review for "a 55-block rezoning of the western part of the Crown Heights neighborhood in Community District 8" (DCP press release). That release marks the start of review, not the final map, so if you plan to enlarge a house in the western part of the neighborhood, have an architect read the current zoning map for the lot.
Both districts are in sub-cycle C of the Department of Buildings' Local Law 152 schedule, which sets periodic gas piping inspections for 2026 and 2030. One- and two-family homes are exempt. Buyers of three-family houses and board members of small co-ops should know where their building stands for the 2026 round.
Subway
According to the MTA station dataset, the Eastern Parkway line stops at Franklin Av–Medgar Evers College (2, 3, 4 and 5 trains), Nostrand Av and Kingston Av (3 train) and Crown Hts–Utica Av (3 and 4). The 2 and 5 trains turn down Nostrand Avenue to President St–Medgar Evers College and Sterling St. The Franklin Avenue shuttle stops at Botanic Garden and Park Pl on its way up to the C train at Franklin Av on Fulton Street.
Rumi Home Inspections comes to Crown Heights from East New York. You can walk the property with the inspector in English or Bangla and have the report the same day. For a house, start with general home inspections; for two to four units, see multi-family; or go straight to the contact page.