amNY profiles Flatbush

Tomorrow's amNY includes an extensive profile of Flatbush in their City Living (real estate) section:

Good luck trying to get a straight answer on where Flatbush is. Encompassing 11 neighborhood associations, all of which can claim some stake in this emerging community, the boundaries are amorphous--something in which local civic leaders seem to take pride, given the great diversity that exists here.
- New York real estate: Flatbush, amNY, May 8, 2008

In a refreshing change, the article expands the focus beyond "Ditmas Park." A photo of a halal meat store on Coney Island Avenue illustrates the article.

While most of the recent attention has focused on the historic neighborhoods around Ditmas Park, other areas of Flatbush are thriving and on the radar for capital improvements.

One of several humming commercial strips that reflect the rich diversity of the neighborhood, Flatbush Avenue is lined with businesses catering to Dominican, Spanish, West Indian, Jamaican and Haitian populations (as well as blocks-long stretches of Pentecostal storefront churches). Indian, Pakistani and Afghan restaurants and markets occupy blocks of Coney Island Avenue. Target will be the anchor tenant in a new mall at Brooklyn Junction. And the long-closed historic Loews' King Theater, a 1929 Art Deco movie palace ( Barbra Streisand worked the doors here as a teenager) may get a renovation.

All eyes are on the Newkirk Plaza area, one of America's oldest pedestrian shopping malls, spruced up with decorative pavement and fencing, lighting and planters. The French bistro, Pomme de Terre, recently planted a stake near here, signaling to the rest of Flatbush that Newkirk is ready for its photo opp.