#pigtown

A basketball court at night.

This week, for my project visiting and documenting every neighborhood in NYC, I went to Pigtown in the heart of Brooklyn.

If you have never heard of Pigtown, that’s because it hasn’t been called that since the 60s when the name Wingate was reluctantly assigned to the neighborhood. Realtors preferred to list their apartments for rent in Wingate rather than Pigtown for obvious reasons. The name didn’t really catch on, so most people consider this neighborhood either Crown Heights, Prospect Lefferts or East Flatbush. Still, I’m calling it Pigtown.

It’s where Rudy Guliani grew up, where Patrick Scully instigated a fight with a pack of 100 pigs under the mistaken assumption that they were dogs, and where Thomas “The Terror of Pigtown” McCormick walked into a barbershop and ate two live canaries for no good reason.

Today, it’s home to the African Record Center and the hottest falafel in New York City.

If you want to see/read/hear more visit the link up above. The Neighborhoods is a free email newsletter that covers a different neighborhood in NYC each week.

Baltimore: No more food deserts! Stop PriceRite Market closing in Pigtown, December 17, 2022.

Downtown Baltimore as seen from Pigtown, August 16, 2022.