Here’s why we think Brooklyn’s Fifth Avenue is NYC’s coolest street right now (2024)

Park Slope’s Fifth Avenue has some of the best shops and restaurants in the city!

Every year, Time Out picks the coolest streets in the world, tapping up-and-coming and under-the-radar stretches that deserve a shout-out.

While almost every street in New York City can take some credit for making our city the best, some streets rise above the rest for what they currently offer.

This year, we’ve picked Fifth Avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn as the city’s coolest street—the 13th coolest in the world. You might be confused because the neighborhood has a reputation forits mommy mafia (or family-oriented character). This is not a strike againstit in our book. If anything, it means the area is walkable, safe and has something for everyone.

Fifth Avenue, which is bordered by the Barclays Center to its north and the Prospect Expressway toits south, is where we’re setting our sights this year. Its cool Revolutionary War history, myriad local restaurants,mom-and-popshops and third spaces, from museums to board game lounges, make it the coolest in 2024.

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Its history can be found at the Old Stone House at Washington Park. Itis a reconstruction of the 1699 Vechte-Cortelyou House, an original Dutch farmstead that became a Revolutionary War landmark. Its land was where the first battle of the Battle of Long Island took place just after the Declaration of Independence was issued. In 1897, the house was burned and razed but its remnants were used to reconstruct it in 1934. For a while, it served as the clubhouse for a winter skating team and the Brooklyn Superbas (later known as the Brooklyn Dodgers). Today it is used as a memorial to the Battle of Long Island and a venue for concerts, readings, lectures and school trips.

You can learn more about the neighborhood’s cool history here.

Today, revolutionaries aren’t runningthe street, but small mom-and-pops are. Unlike the famous Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, “The Other Fifth” is full of trendy and beloved indy shopslikeBrooklyn Superhero Supply Store, Annie’s Blue Ribbon Supply Store, the nearbyCommunity Bookstore and Life Boutique Thrift for quite some time. And its bars and restaurants have kept us coming back time and again, from Ginger’s Bar and Good Judy to Miriam and Stone Park Cafe.

But relative newcomers like The Ripped Bodice bookstore, Honeycomb Hi-Fi Lounge, the Sip N Play board game cafe, Miatzil and are keeping the stretch fresh and making it harder to keep this gem under the radar or, at least, harder to keep its “stroller army” reputation.

Its Business Improvement District, Fifth Avenue Park Slope, sets it apart, too. The nonprofit organization, which is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year,is always throwing fun community events that get people out on the street regularly to celebrate its shops, restaurants and community. Its job is tokeep the street clean and support theover500 merchants fromDean to 18th Street and more.

You can follow it at @theother5th on Instagram to find out what’s happening on the street.

As we mentioned in our blurb in Time Out’s Coolest Streets of 2024ranking, these are our current recommendations on how to enjoy Fifth Avenue:

EAT

One of the best restaurants in all of NYC in 2022 was Masalawala & Sons from Unapologetic Foods. The vibrant, warmly lit space boasts actually good creative co*cktails and its cuisine is "a celebration of India’s yesteryears” with wonderful macher dim, keema kaleji and unforgettably comforting rice, according to our Food Critic Amber Sutherland-Namako.

DRINK

We like the low-key, vintage living room feel of Skylark with dozens of drafts on tap or Blueprint for something a little more high-end with speakeasy vibes. Order the My Dear Julius.

DO

Check out the Old Stone House in the morning and then play some games at Sip N Play, which has good boba tea. Shop along Fifth at the aforementioned stores and finish off your day with a Nets game at the Barclays Center or grab a tipple at Ginger's with friends or the nearby Union Hall, which will likely have a comedy show, karaoke or trivia going on.

• Shaye Weaver
  Editor, Time Out New York

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