Carroll Gardens is a neighborhood in the northwestern portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Taking up around 40 city blocks, it is bounded by Degraw and Warren Streets (north), Hoyt and Smith Streets (east), Ninth Street or the Gowanus Expressway (south), and Interstate 278, the Gowanus and Brooklyn–Queens Expressways (west).^[3][4][5] The neighborhoods that surround it are Cobble Hill to the northwest, Boerum Hill to the northeast, Gowanus to the east, Red Hook to the south and southwest, and the Columbia Street Waterfront District to the west.^[6]

Originally considered to be part of the area once known as South Brooklyn (or, more specifically, Red Hook), the area started to have its own identity in the 1960s.^[3][7] The neighborhood was named after Charles Carroll, the only Roman Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence, and whose name was already attached to Carroll Street and Carroll Park.^[8] The name also reflects the large front gardens of brownstones in the Carroll Gardens Historic District and elsewhere in the neighborhood. Despite having an Irish surname, in recent times it has been known as an Italian American neighborhood.