The 7 runs above Roosevelt Avenue along the neighborhood's southern edge and meets the underground E, F, M and R at . North of the station, is a Little India of sari and jewelry stores and Indian and Bengali music and movie sellers. The HBO series The Night Of shows these shops in its first episode as the neighborhood where Naz's family lives. Ocean's 8 shot here in December 2016, extras shopping at tables of saris and jewelry.
is the everyday shopping street. East of 77th Street there is a Little Colombia, and Colombian and Peruvian businesses line Northern Boulevard from 80th Street to Junction Boulevard. Food carts on Roosevelt Avenue sell Bengali fuchka, Nepalese momo and Colombian arepas.
Away from the shopping streets, the blocks are garden apartments. The Queensboro Corporation bought 325 acres of marsh and farms in 1909. It coined the term garden apartment for the brick blocks it built around shared planted courts. went up on both sides of 80th Street in 1918. followed in 1919, ten buildings between 84th and 85th Streets around a gated garden of linden trees, with the area's first co-op. The gardens are inside the blocks and private.
Almost 600 of the buildings became a city historic district in 1993, from 76th to 88th Streets between Roosevelt Avenue and Northern Boulevard.
Alfred Mosher Butts co-invented Scrabble while living here. The street sign at spells the avenue's name in letter tiles, point values included.
