Why visit
The Dyker Heights Holiday Lights are not a single attraction but a neighborhood tradition created by homeowners in southwest Brooklyn. Displays became prominent in the 1980s and now concentrate especially around the blocks between 11th and 13th avenues and 83rd and 86th streets during the weeks before Christmas.
What to see
Individual façades compete in scale through dense strings of lights, illuminated trees, motorized figures, oversized toy soldiers, wreaths and themed tableaux. Some households design and install their own arrangements while others hire specialist decorating companies, producing sharp variations from one property to the next rather than a unified municipal display.
Plan your visit
The streets remain residential and open to ordinary traffic, so the spectacle occupies sidewalks, front gardens and house fronts rather than a ticketed venue. Large evening crowds and tour vehicles have also made noise, access and neighborhood control recurring local issues, inseparable from the tradition's unusual popularity.
