Flushing Avenue

Flushing Avenue

Flushing Avenue in Maspeth
Namesake	Vlissingen
Owner	City of New York
Maintained by	NYCDOT
Length	4.8 mi (7.7 km)
Location	Brooklyn, Queens
Postal code	11201, 11205, 11211, 11206, 11237, 11385, 11378
Nearest metro station	Flushing Avenue Flushing Avenue Jefferson Street
West end	Nassau Street / Navy Street in Fort Greene
Major junctions	I-278 in Clinton Hill
East end	Grand Avenue (Queens) in Maspeth
South	Park Avenue

Flushing Avenue is a street running through northern Brooklyn and western Queens, beginning at Nassau Street in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, and ending at Grand Avenue in Maspeth. It divides the neighborhood of Williamsburg from Clinton Hill and East Williamsburg from Bushwick. After crossing the Queens border, the avenue serves as the dividing line between Ridgewood, Queens and West Maspeth. Flushing Avenue then terminates in Maspeth. Despite its name, however, the avenue does not extend to Flushing.

Flushing Avenue has seen considerable decline since its heyday in the early and mid-20th century. Some sections began to gentrify, to varying degrees, at the turn of the 21st century. In 2004, the city began a project to upgrade the water and sewer infrastructure on the western part of the road, and to repave it. The project was completed in 2008.

The avenue is primarily an industrial thoroughfare, especially on its extreme western end, where it serves the Brooklyn Navy Yard Industrial Park to the north. The industrial park rents to over 200 tenants, primarily distributorships and light manufacturing concerns, though they also rent to a few artists. Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed a redevelopment of the yard that would put retail space in the yard's west side and television and film studios the yard's east side. In this district, the south side of Flushing Avenue contains many abandoned business that were supported by sailors and ship workers before the government closed the yard.

Continuing eastward, Flushing Avenue crosses the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. This section of Flushing Avenue, between the expressway and Broadway, has seen considerable redevelopment over recent years by Williamsburg's Hasidic population, as young urban professionals have moved into the northern end of Williamsburg. The north side of Flushing Avenue in this section is a primarily residential area, whereas the south side is primarily industrial, the most notable exception being the Marcy Houses housing project. The Flushing Avenue subway station is at Flushing and Marcy Avenues.