Carroll Gardens is a beautiful neighborhood in Brooklyn filled with brownstones, most with iron fencing surrounding a small green space in the front of the house. Thus the naming. The area, originally settled by Italians, is very popular due to its highly rated elementary school & beautiful brownstones on tree lined streets. Many have been totally renovated on the interior with some sadly renovated as pricey apartments. Some have remained in the family over the years. Restaurants choices are plentiful, both in the neighborhood & further down Court or Smith into adjacent neighborhoods. Before the pandemic there was a plethora of fun shops along Court Street in the heart of the neighborhood. Court & Smith are main arteries that features shopping & restaurants. I'm sad to report that my restaurant of choice for pizza was a casualty of the pandemic. Also a victim was a fun clothing store. There's easy walking access to the Subway Station. Serious grocery shopping requires a vehicle to get to the nearby Whole Foods in Gowanus, Union Market, Trader Joe's (with extremely challenging street parking), Wegmans, Costco, etc. Fairway in Red Hook was a huge store with a beautiful view from the parking lot. I haven't been to the store that took its place. Shopping via vehicle comes with the additional challenge of finding street parking to get purchases inside. It's easier for small quantities or taking someone along to stay with the vehicle (obviously parked in a no parking area) while the other takes the groceries inside. Gourmet Fresh on Court Street is a small store with a limited selection. But it's fine for quick pickups. Speaking of street parking, it's not easy to find a spot on the narrow one way streets. It's especially challenging on alternate side parking days. Most people double park then rush to get a good spot when the time period ends. When I was taking my Grandson to preschool in Williamsburg we would have to circle the blocks continuously waiting for a spot to become vacant. Young children don't have much patience for that. One becomes extremely experienced at judging the size of an opening between parked vehicles. Difficult parallel parking quickly becomes an expertise. Carroll Park has something for every age kid with basketball courts, playgrounds & spaces to bike, scoot, take batting practice and such. There's usually someone friendly to visit with on a bench. Carroll School is directly across the side street. All that said, if the prices of the brownstones hadn't gotten so steep I would buy one in a minute. It's a great neighborhood. read more

3.0 stars, Carroll Gardens and it's not because I don't love you but I have a few bones to pick as of late (okay, the last several years). I am old enough to witness the profound changes that continue to take place, yet young enough to predict what's to come (at times allowing me to gesture "gasp"). In the attempt to remain fair, here's my humble review/opinion: The Good: 1) CG has always been a visually gorgeous (charming brownstones) and safe neighborhood. 2) A selection of very good restaurants with just about every cuisine in close proximity 3) Very convenient, accessible and a short ride to Manhattan 4) Borders other great 'hoods such as Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn Heights, DUMBO and Park Slope. 5) No need for a car 6) Diversity of many backgrounds, religions and cultures There's a little France feeling to it. 7) Some of the nicest, artistic and intelligent people within a community 8) Family friendly 9) Some of the best local flavor specialty food shops and bakeries The Bad: 1) Outrageous and insane increase in real estate. Come on, enough already as people are being priced out. Some old timers bought these brownstones for a mere $2000 way back when. 2) Over development. Do we really need more luxury high rises? Some are eyesores and doesn't fit in. 3) Very overcrowded. I realize CG is trendy but I sometimes have to allow a couple trains to go by because I can't squeeze on during morning rush hour. 4) Due to the unreasonable real estate conditions, smaller, independent merchants have been driven out and being replaced by huge franchise businesses. We don't need more CVS or banks. In fact, we lost two bookstores in 2016. 5) Citibike docking stations. I know biking is efficient, healthy and environmentally friendly but no more! People need space to park their cars--you know the machinery with 4 wheels 6) A parking nightmare 7) The loss of a tighter knit community feeling. 8) The residence of some rude and self entitled individuals The Ugly: 1) Way too overpriced with a continuation in that trend 2) The endless MTA track work and changes that disrupt an entire commute on weeekends and even weekdays. There's been too many occasions when my commute has taken 90 minutes! You'd think I was traveling from/to CT. 3) Oftentimes, neighborhood reeks of excessive pot. I'm sorry but I don't like drugs---enough already! Please shape up a bit more Carroll Gardens. With your extreme face lift, I sometimes don't recognize you anymore. I realize this requires a community effort. Yet, I still adore you. read more

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In my life travels I enter Carroll Gardens in Kings Borough. Surrounding neighborhoods are Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill, Gowanus, Red Hook, and Columbia Street Waterfront District to the west. Overlooking from Smith 9th Street, F train station surfaces a scenic view of Gowanus Canal with the city landscape in the background. A residential area flooded with annoying Citi bikes but a historic district backed by Landmarks Preservation Foundation. read more

Carroll Gardens - Local Flavor Near Me - Brooklyn, New York

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Carroll Gardens is like my second home, my aunt has lived here my entire life and i've watched the trasnformation with my very own eyes. You can consider Carroll Gardens a transitional point on the map, with the BQE and Red Hook one way and the ultra cool Cobble Hill the other way. You know you are getting into Carroll Gardens when you drive along Court Street and you begin to find parking spots a bit easier! Carroll Gardens is trapped in the middle of these worlds and is slowly going in the Cobble Hill direction. Alot of the mom and pop shops are on their way out, like the Baseball Card Dugout on Court Street that was a mainstay for years. The 'for sale" sign is still up on the vacant little store. You really don't have any "destination" places but if you live here you at least have options. The Carroll Gardens fish market is a good choice and Gormet Fresh is an adequate grocery store. Mezcals is a decent place to eat and Vinny's Pizza is also good. Wing Hua is one of my favorite mom and pop fast Chinese food options, there's also a few bars in the area that are fine too. Overall Carroll Gardens is changing and the property value is on the rise, but it will always be my little quiet untouched neighborhood. read more

Carroll Gardens - Local Flavor Near Me - Brooklyn, New York

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Used to be a great place. Now every corner is taken up by those god awful Citibikes. This is a residential neighborhood where people come home and get away for the weekends. Because of this addition, there are no longer parking spaces. Residents that have parked their cars with no problems since the 70s are now hunting for a spot, circling the neighborhood over and over with other drivers only to cause more headache, traffic and have more cars on the road. Ironically the situation citibike is trying to solve. So thank you centralized government for dictating what a neighborhood youve never lived in should do. Unlike hipster douchebags that use these things to go from one internet cafe to another all day long, there are people who need a hassle-free trip home, there are people who need to park their vans to unload all the organic crap these organic stores sell, there are people that need to park their HVAC vans to fix the refrigerators that store said organic, gluten-free, CO2 neutral, human-footprint-reversal crap, there are people, especially in this neighborhood that need to park after their IKEA trip and cant haul the 300lbs dresser from the free buses to the 5-block walk, 4-story walk up, there are people that are visiting from out of state just by car and cannot do your idea of parking in a $20 an hour parking lot, take the train on the opposite direction because its on weekend schedule and take the train going back. Use your head NYC! read more

This is what I am a fan of: - Old timey Carroll Gardens residents who don't hate the new residents outright. We, too, are looking for the same things you did when you moved in. I love my Italians and they love me back. We listen to their stories (some are very, very scary, good God) and we help older folks with their groceries, and we generously give our neighbors compliments. - Well-knowns and celebrities who are decent people who want to live normally, just like you and me. - The front lawns flush full of green grass, plants, and peonies, wild English-style gardens and other beautiful gardens. - Walk score of almost 100. You can also bike to everywhere. - Citibikes. Exercise and fresh air are a good thing. I don't ride Citibikes but I extol the clean air that results from these bikes. - Cargo bikes with kids in them. It's like Amsterdam during rush hour. It's awesome. - Carroll Park. - The library. - Cotta Bene and Ferdinando's being so close by. - Frankie's Spuntino. - Sunny's. Yeah, that's Red Hook, but who cares. It's close by and Sunny Balzano wound up at Scotto's Funeral Home when all was said and done, and we will all wind up at Scotto's in a custom Sicilian box if we stick around long enough. - Halloween. Especially at Scotto's Funeral Home. It's a party. - Wiseguys stories. Except about the Scottos. From you know, A LONG TIME AGO. I don't want to know. - French restaurants and patisseries that are popping up. - Bastille Day is an actual huge event in the neighborhood, with petanque played in several places, a guillotine for show and fun, lots of good food. Also awesome. - The "hyggeligt" nature of the neighborhood. It is the MOST hyggeligt neighborhood of all in New York City. Period. This is what I am not a fan of: - Old-timey CG residents who hate the new residents. It's not "West Side Story," people. - Homes priced at $3.5 million and more. For just the bones, the rest could be falling apart, and buyer assumes demo + full renovation. Thank you, old-timey CG residents for that. - Old-timey CG residents who fail to realize that by charging $3.5M and more per house that need a full renovation, they will NOT GET RESIDENTS WHO ARE JUST LIKE THEM MOVING IN anymore. - Front lawns made of brick and no grass or foliage. It's called "Carroll Gardens." Make an effort. - The lack of decent, basic, grocery stores in CG. Gourmet Fresh Market whatever is not a decent grocery store. Try finding decent meats there. Whole Foods is in Gowanus and Union Market...let's just not discuss these places. They are not "basic." Trader Joe's is in Cobble Hill. There is one basic grocery store and that is Key Food. - New beauty/creative/tech/finance-industry residents and hipsters who flaunt their money and never look up from their phones while walking into their neighbors on Court Street. - Rats in Carroll Park. - Sassy French kids who yell "putain" within earshot of others hearing them. - New money people who move in to the houses the Italians are selling for $3.5M and yet all that money can't buy their kids into some good manners. - Italian shops that sell ugly, dying plants at $40 a pop and think we new residents are so flush with cash that we're stupid enough to pay for those. - The racism of old, still here today. Trump signs still exist for some people here for mainly that reason, but they'll never 'fess up to it. (Sure, some of you voted for Melania, she's so beautiful. I get it.) - Double parking. C'mon people. Ride a cargo bike instead. - The idea that bikes are somehow a hipster thing. My grandfather rode one until he was 100 years old and he lived in the Old Country. He was not fat, and did not drive a VAN that took up 2 1/2 parking spaces. - Wiseguy stories by the old-timey folks about how great the neighborhood used to be, that end on "And that little boy was shot 13 times RIGHT INSIDE MY HUSBAND'S BUSINESS AND IT WAS NOT HIS FAULT." Whatever you say, Mrs. Capone. - How "great Mussolini was." - The idea that some of us new folks fall on hard times, too, without a big fat trust fund to save us. Something to consider. read more

Love it here! What more can you ask for with a neighborhood with a walk score of 98! Just a quick tip though - don't live close to the BQE cause it's loud as hell. read more

My one star is not for Carroll Gardens, not for the old residents who make this wonderful neighborhood what it was. My one star is for the yuppies, the people that came from Manhattan, the old Borough president Marty and all the greedy people that raise the prices of the rent and forced the honest working class families to move away and leave such a wonderful Brooklyn gem. My family arrived in 1968 and they live in Court Street since then. The rest of my family arrived in 1991 and we live here as well. Back then there was a real community, there was unity, the neighbors talk to each other, they helped each other and you felt happy to live here. Since all this Manhattan people arrived, the rent increased so much. The old borough president helped a lot in Brooklyn, but did very little to stop this ridiculous prices and in a way he helped the rich dudes to killed the middle class. Worst of all is that many this new people that arrived to OUR NEIGHBORHOOD look at the oldies down, like if we are their servants, many of this new people are nice, but the majority are kind of racists. Also many stores that made Carroll Gardens such a wonderful place had to move out due to the rent increase. For months we try to stay in this neighborhood but due to the greedy owners and their ridiculous prices on the rent we were forced to leave our home, we did find a wonderful place to live, but we now have to loose our doctors, changed our entire life. I honestly wish that our local officials do something so families can stay in the place they grow and they don´t have to move away from the place they love, but once again we are middle class and we will never have rights. read more

I've lived here my whole life and I USE to love this place. I loved it when Smith St. was filled with sandwich shops and crazy characters. I loved it when Court St. had shoe makers and butcher shops and the classic mamma and pop shops. That's all gone thanks to the yuppies who have once ruined this place. Ask anyone who has lived in Carroll Gardens or owns a home here, we all have one simple message- Yuppies suck and go back to where ever you came from. Thank You read more

One of its greatest advantages is it's location, Red Hook, Park Slope, and Downtown Brooklyn are all adjacent neighborhoods. Thus you have some of North Brooklyn's best attractions at your fingertips. read more

I like my home. Id give it five stars. But my rent might rise too much for me to continue living here.

I like what another post said about citi bikes, this ridiculous seasonal hobby of hipsters and air bnb tourists is madness, if the city wants to turn Carroll gardens into some type of Disney land for the rich so be it, but please let us few left middle class slobs have our parking. We need our cars to get to our jobs, we don't have nannys and uber it everywhere. Put these ridiculous stations in city parks, not taking up blocks of spaces. It's a complete insult to all of us that have lived here all our lives and have kept Carroll gardens safe and clean so the yuppies can price us out of existence. Carroll gardens is like Dresden after ww2, its construction everywhere , cement trucks illegally closing streets and construction blocking more parking and making it impossible just to go down a street.they are destroying the things that made this area attractive and a get away from manhattan. Greed and selfishness are killing it, overbuilding doesn't make a area better, the Carroll st subway station is at over capacity during the week and they still build more . Same roads and they still build more , no one sees this but me? read more