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WEDGED BETWEEN PARK SLOPE AND FORT GREENE, Prospect Heights has always been the forgotten neighborhood at the heart of Brooklyn's brownstone revival, quietly evolving from seventies poverty to small-scale gentrification-until Frank Gehry's gargantuan Atlantic Yards project last year. Now, this diverse trianglepopulated by Caribbean immigrants, African-Americans, and, increasingly, comelately families priced out of Park Slope-is a battleground for the meaning of Brooklyn. And it's a perfect illustration of the busts and boons of development: from fiatbush Avenue's invading chain stores to Eastern Parkway's beautifully renovated civic institutions, to the Richard Meier condos rising above Grand Army Plaza. LOGAN HILL
1 Brooklyn Public Library-Central Library
Grand Army Plaza at Eastern Pkwy.; 718-230-2100 Brooklyn's central library will soon add a new plaza and a 200-seat auditorium as part of an almost-completed $16.5 million renovation. The children's reading room is often packed, and parents and nannies show up at 9 a.m. to get tickets to afternoon story time. Telecommuters adore the international reading room-not just for thr 1.5 million books in a riot of languages, but also for the free Wi-Fi and plentiful Aeron chairs.
2 Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket
Grand Army Plaza, Prospect Park entrance, every Saturday Trumansburg Trees rushes fresh-cut evergreens down from Ithaca. But before you pick out a tree, pick out your halibut at the stocked fish marketmost of the fish is gone by noon.
3 The Soldiers' and Sailors' Arch at Grand Army Plaza
General Sherman laid the cornerstone of our own little Arc de Triomphe. Now there are performances below the arch (where the acoustics aren't bad) and occasionally within the arch itself, where actors recently staged a Halloween production of F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu.
4 Pieces
671 Vanderbilt Ave., at Park Pl. 718-857-7211 Owners Colin and Latisha Daring's Vanderbilt Avenue boutique specializes in tough urban flair with a kick, from small designers (Filippa K, Triko, True Religion), celebs (Gwen Stefani), and their new, ruffled-and-sexy Pieces line.
5 Joyce
646 Vanderbilt Ave., nr. Park Pl. 718-623-7470 Telecommuting freelancers are already clogging up this stylish little bakery, which opened in September. Joyce Quitasol serves Gorilla coffee, homemade granola ($4), tasty lemon tarts ($4), and light vanilla madeleines ($1), but the Bourbon pecan cookies (75 cents) are especially addictive.
6 Delicacies
635 Vanderbilt Ave.,...