Good news is growing in Brooklyn — literally. Brooklyn Botanic Garden has announced the winners of the 2026 Greenest Block in Brooklyn contest, and the crown for the borough’s most beautiful residential street goes to Lincoln Place between New York Avenue and Nostrand Avenue in Crown Heights.
The announcement was made at a press conference right on the winning block, with neighbors, Brooklyn Botanic Garden leadership, and elected officials gathered among the blooms to celebrate. It is a particularly sweet victory for Lincoln Place, which is stewarded by the gardening committee P.L.A.N.T — a group of neighbors whose plantings have now taken first place four times, including wins in 2024, 2022, and 2019.
This year’s contest marked the 30th anniversary of the beloved competition, and Brooklyn turned out in force: 139 blocks entered, including a record 47 first-time participants, from Bath Beach in the south to Greenpoint’s Meeker Avenue in the north. Under the 2026 theme, “When the Big Apple Goes Green,” residents turned sidewalks into gardens and street trees into thriving beds of plants.
To mark three decades of greening, the Garden is celebrating with Block by Block exhibitions honoring past winners, a sold-out summer Block Party, more free plants for community gardeners, and special honors including Lifetime Achievement Awards and a Greenest Block in Brownsville initiative.
For thirty years, this contest has proven that when neighbors plant side by side, a whole borough grows more beautiful — one block at a time.
Photo: Andre Carrotflower, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
