Carroll Gardens

The boundaries of Carroll Gardens don't look particularly inviting; the Gowanus Canal on one side was once a shipping hub before becoming unbearably polluted (though it doesn't smell as bad as it once did); the Gowanus Expressway is loud and littered with broken glass and garbage; and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway is rarely anything other than a noisy traffic artery.

It's difficult to believe that there's such a lovely oasis of brownstone houses and leafy streets inside these sketchy borders.

Most of the row houses of Carroll Gardens went up in the late 19th century when the neighborhood was mostly Irish. But from the late-1800s into the 1950s, the neighborhood saw a tremendous influx of Italian dock-workers who plied their trade in Red Hook and, later, worked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. And you can still find a lot of red sauce joints, like Vinny's on Smith Street, that have been in the neighborhood for decades.

Starting in the 1960s hippies and, later, young professionals started moving in, and the neighborhood has definitely benefited from the boom of restaurants along Smith Street over the last 10 years.

Being that most of Carroll Gardens is landmarked, there is very little in the way of new development, but the Greek Revival houses are magnificent, with breathtaking gardens out front. These houses can run from around $1 million to $3 million (though prices are usually under $2 million); some of them have been split apart into condos which can fetch anywhere from $300,000 to $800,000.