Ditmas Park, created as late as 1902, is its own neighborhood within Flatbush and has been recognized as a historic district.
What’s unusual about its history is that all of its sewers, sidewalks, paved streets and landscaping were designed before a single home. The area was eventually filled with freestanding, single-family homes with wide front lawns.
Some of the most impressive of its buildings are in the longest row of bungalow-type houses in Brooklyn on Ocean Avenue and East 16th Street, all built in 1908 and 1909.
Brooklyn-born Norm Goldstein is retired, after working 44 years for the Associated Press, the global news agency, where he served as a reporter, feature writer, editor, author and administrator. He also worked for AP as director of Educational Services and editor of the AP Stylebook.
He graduated from Brooklyn College and the Penn State Graduate School of Journalism.
He currently lives in Brooklyn Heights.