Gravesend (East)-Homecrest

Neighborhood · Brooklyn

Gravesend (East)-Homecrest holds the old village center of Gravesend and the western part of Homecrest, where Kings Highway is a major shopping street.

  • 1.25 square miles
  • 52,797 residents, 2020 Census
  • 222 street corners
  • 5 subway stations
  • 9 bus routes

Lady Deborah Moody's settlement, chartered in 1645, was laid out as a palisaded 16-acre square split into quarters by two roads, today's McDonald Avenue and Gravesend Neck Road, a design credited as the only early colonial town plan made by a woman. Gravesend Cemetery sits beside that crossing; the town's earliest recorded death, in 1650, may also have been its first burial. Nearby on Gravesend Neck Road, the largely stone Van Sicklen House, built in the early 1700s or before, ranks among Brooklyn's oldest Dutch-American houses.

Sources: Gravesend Cemetery (LP-0921) (NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission); Van Sicklen House (LP-2145) (NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission); Homecrest, Brooklyn (Wikipedia).

Map

Open the map full size

Gravesend (East)-Homecrest borders six areas.

Street map of Gravesend (East)-Homecrest, Brooklyn, outlined among Gravesend (West), Gravesend (South), Madison and Sheepshead Bay-Manhattan Beach-Gerritsen Beach, with its five subway stations and McDonald Playground.Mapleton-Midwood (West)MidwoodMadisonSheepshead Bay-Manhattan Beach-Gerritsen BeachGravesend (South)Gravesend (West)
  • Gravesend (East)-Homecrest
  • A neighboring area
  • Park
  • A station in the list
  • Another station

Neighborhood areas and streets: NYC Department of City Planning. Parks: NYC Parks. Stations: MTA.

Neighboring areas

Subway stations

  • Avenue P lines F
  • Kings Hwy lines B Q accessible
  • Kings Hwy lines F accessible
  • Avenue U lines F
  • 86 St lines N

Getting around

Five subway stations and buses on nine routes stop in or at the edge of Gravesend (East)-Homecrest.

  • 5 subway stations
  • 2 of them listed by the MTA as fully accessible
  • 9 local bus routes

Local bus routes

  • B1
  • B3
  • B4
  • B7
  • B36
  • B68
  • B82
  • B82-SBS
  • B90

Safety record

Between 2021 and 2025, its corners averaged fewer police-reported crashes than the average Brooklyn corner.

  • 1,704 police-reported crashes at its corners
  • 7.7 a corner, on average
  • 10.5 the average Brooklyn corner
  • 24 corners with a clean record

Signal or safety changes on City record, at 64 of its corners

Leading pedestrian intervals
54
Turn calming
18
Accessible pedestrian signals
17

Camera tickets

In 2025 its corners had more school-zone speed camera tickets than red-light or bus-lane tickets.

  • 14,450 red-light camera tickets at five corners
  • 24,653 school-zone speed camera tickets at 21 corners
  • 2,868 bus-lane camera tickets at one corner
Most red-light tickets
Ocean Parkway & Avenue W, 10,267
Most speed tickets
Ocean Parkway & Gravesend Neck Road, 7,016
Most bus-lane tickets
Kings Highway & McDonald Avenue, 2,868

People and homes

The 2020 Census counted 52,797 residents in Gravesend (East)-Homecrest, about 42,200 per square mile.

  • 19,681 homes, 2020 Census
  • 122 homes added since April 2010, net, by City Planning's count

Half of its 6,219 residential lots hold buildings from 1930 or earlier, and 76% of them date from before 1940, by the City's tax lot records.

Parks and landmarks

Parkland
7.2 acres of NYC Parks property
The largest pieces
McDonald Playground (3.5 acres), Kelly Park Playground (2.4 acres) and Mellett Playground (1.1 acres)
Designated landmark
The Gravesend Cemetery

Streets and trees

Trees
4,734 in NYC Parks' records, most often London planetree, thornless honeylocust and Japanese zelkova
Street with the most corners
Avenue U, with 19 of the area's 222
Height above sea level
From 8 feet at Avenue X & East 1st Street to 29 feet at Avenue O & East 10th Street
Honorary street names
10 at its corners, enacted by local law

Schools and libraries

The City lists 22 schools and two libraries in Gravesend (East)-Homecrest.

Public schools
4
Charter and private schools
18
Libraries
Gravesend Library and Homecrest Library

Public art

The City's public art inventory lists one work in Gravesend (East)-Homecrest: William E. Kelly (1930).

  • 1 work of public art

Public safety

How complaints are counted

In 2025 the NYPD recorded 345 major felonies at places in Gravesend (East)-Homecrest.

Recorded by the NYPD at places in Gravesend (East)-Homecrest

  • 322 major felonies in 2024
  • 1,212 other felonies, misdemeanors and violations in 2025

In 2025, on the streets along the edge of Gravesend (East)-Homecrest, the NYPD recorded another 113 major felonies. Counting the streets along its edge, in 2025 the NYPD recorded 8.7 major felonies for every thousand residents the 2020 Census counted in Gravesend (East)-Homecrest.

Map of Gravesend (East)-Homecrest: 16 shaded patches of its streets, each numbered with the major felonies the NYPD recorded at public places there in 2025; unshaded areas are not counted on this map.
Major felonies recorded at public places in Gravesend (East)-Homecrest, 2025
  • 5 to 9
  • 10 to 19
  • 20 to 49
  • 50 to 99
  • 100 or more
  • Not shaded: fewer than 5, held back under the rules in How complaints are counted, parks and public-housing grounds, and land in no patch
Each shaded patch is a set of whole street blocks and corners of Gravesend (East)-Homecrest, most about 1,250 feet across, and its number counts the major felonies the NYPD recorded at public places on those streets and corners in 2025. The streets along or across the edge of Gravesend (East)-Homecrest are not shaded. Homes, shelters, schools, child care, health care, houses of worship, hotels, mailboxes inside buildings, private parking lots and garages, buses and taxis, parks and cemeteries, highways, bridges, tunnels, the tramway and places the NYPD did not name count in the figure above for Gravesend (East)-Homecrest and stay off the map. How complaints are counted gives every rule.
Police precincts
61st (most of the area), 66th
Major felonies recorded at places in Gravesend (East)-Homecrest, 2021 to 2025

From January to June 2026 the NYPD recorded 151 major felonies at places in Gravesend (East)-Homecrest, against 171 in the same months of 2025.

Sources: the NYPD's Complaint Data Historic, updated April 28, 2026, and Complaint Data Current (Year To Date), updated July 27, 2026, on NYC Open Data. Figures to June 30, 2026.

Street corners

How the figures above are measured: Methodology.