Bedford Avenue is the longest[1] street in Brooklyn, New York City, stretching 10.2 miles (16.4 km) and 132 blocks from Greenpoint south to Sheepshead Bay, and passing through the neighborhoods of Williamsburg, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, Flatbush and Midwood.
Automobile traffic flows in two directions on the southern half of the avenue (south of Grant Square at Dean Street), and one-way northbound north of that location. Northbound and southbound bicycle lanes are painted on the avenue south of Grant Square. There are two New York City Subway stations named for the avenue, the Bedford Avenue (BMT Canarsie Line) station at Bedford Avenue and North 7th Street in Williamsburg and the Bedford–Nostrand Avenues (IND Crosstown Line) station at Bedford Avenue and Lafayette Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
The many different building types common in Brooklyn are evident at some point on the avenue, from attached and detached single family houses in Sheepshead Bay and Midwood, to brownstone rowhouses in Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant, to medium and large apartment buildings in Williamsburg and Greenpoint. In addition, the avenue passes through neighborhoods representative of Brooklyn's famous cultural and ethnic diversity. African-American, Hasidic, Hispanic, Russian, and Polish neighborhoods are all found along the avenue.
Bedford Road, passing through Bedford Pass, was an important north-south route in the 18th century for traffic between the farming village of Flatbush and the headwaters of Newtown Creek. In the 19th century it was extended south to the shore, and late in the century became one of the earliest paved roads in the rapidly growing eastern suburbs of the City of Brooklyn. Designated landmarks include the Studebaker Building and the 23d Regiment Armory.