Ditmas Park Does Not Exist, Census Map Shows

DITMAS PARK FLATBUSH, BROOKLYN — Ditmas Park is not a thing, according to New York City's census team.

NYC Census 2020 — the group established by Mayor Bill de Blasio to promote participation in the nationwide population tally — has created a map to help organize volunteers to make sure as many New Yorkers as possible are counted.

According to the map, the number of Ditmas Park residents to be counted will be zero as it doesn't exist. It's Flatbush.

View the map here.

Ditmas Park is a neighborhood according to the city's Landmark Preservation Commission, which issued special zoning protections in 1981 to the area bordered by East 16th Street, Newkirk Avenue, Ocean Avenue and Dorchester Road.

The New York Times also acknowledges its existence with an homage to the neighborhood's porches.

But, according to a group of Brooklyn housing advocates, it's absolutely not.

Equality For Flatbush organizers published a documentary in 2017 arguing the quaint name was a corporate tactic designed to manipulate the real estate market.

"The ‘re-branding’ of a neighborhood is done, in order to distance it from whatever the real estate industry feels is ‘problematic,'" said East Flatbush resident and E4E activist Victor Moses when the film was released.

"The re-branding of Flatbush, it is about the erasure of Caribbean and other migrant families of color who have built this community."

The group's organizing hashtag is #ThisIsFlatbush.

Regardless of whether they identify as Ditmas Park dwellers or forever Flatbush, the city hopes residents of the central Brooklyn region's 17 census tracts will all be counted in the 2020 census.

That's why the map includes a link to volunteer form, which the group says will help the city claim its fair share of $650 billion in federal funds for public services and infrastructure improvements.

"Because so much is at stake," they write, "it's critical that New Yorkers stand up and be counted."