When Prospect Park was built in the 1860s and 1870s at the far reaches of the City of Brooklyn, the adjoining Town of Flatbush was still entirely rural. Many people believed, however, that the rise in land values brought about by the park, together with the extension of horsecar service, would soon make of Flatbush a rich suburb — possibly even an urban rival to Brooklyn.

The City of Brooklyn dearly wanted to annex Flatbush, but Flatbush residents held out until 1894, just four years before Brooklyn itself became part of New York City. Flatbush did become a prosperous suburb, and its main commercial district, centered on the intersection of Flatbush and Church avenues, later became a second downtown for the borough.

Flatbush and Church avenues, whose commerce today serves a largely Caribbean population, remain among the most vibrant retail thoroughfares in the city. The area is also rich in reminders of Flatbush’s remarkably diverse history. At the southwest corner of Flatbush and Church stands the Flatbush Reformed Dutch Church, built in the 1790s. It is a handsome pattern-book Georgian church — the congregation’s third on the site — with a surrounding graveyard. Abutting the southwest corner of the churchyard, on East 21st Street (one block east of Flatbush Avenue) is the church’s lovely 1850s Greek revival parsonage. The parsonage originally stood next to the church on Flatbush, but was moved to its present location in 1918 when the charming cul-de-sac of houses called Kenmore Terrace, designed by the excellent Brooklyn architects Slee & Bryson, was built. A little to the south on East 21st is Slee & Bryson’s even more charming Albemarle Terrace.

Back on Flatbush, fabled Erasmus Hall High School stands right across the avenue from the church. Built in four phases between 1905 and 1940, and one of pubic school architect C.B.J. Snyder’s many felicitous works, Erasmus Hall is most famous for its illustrious alumni, including Barbra Streisand, kooky chess great Bobby Fischer, Moe Howard, and Beverly Sills. It is also famous as the successor to Erasmus Hall Academy, the first secondary school chartered by New York State. The academy’s original clapboarded structure, from 1787, still stands within the courtyard of the high school.

At the end of Snyder Avenue, one block to the south, is the Flatbush Town Hall, built between 1874 and 1875. This Victorian Gothic structure came right as nearby Prospect Park was being completed, and Flatbush felt poised for — something. The Gothic style is of a piece with the park: The naturalism of the one and the medievalism of the other were really part of the same romantic turning away from the distressing realities of the industrial city.

Nearby are several old movie palaces — the Kenmore on Church just west of Flatbush, the Albemarle at Flatbush and Albemarle, the Loews Kings at Flatbush and Tilden. All are shuttered or given to other uses, but they remind us of when this was Brooklyn’s second downtown. Nothing is more quintessentially New York than when the dynamism of new immigrants exists against the backdrop of layers of visible history.