Everything about Crown Heights Brooklyn totally explained
Crown Heights is a neighborhood in the central portion of the
New York City borough of
Brooklyn. The main thoroughfare through this neighborhood is
Eastern Parkway, a tree-lined boulevard designed by Frederick Law Olmsted extending two miles east and west.
For most of its history, the area was known as
Crow Hill. It was a succession of hills running east and west from Utica Avenue to Classon Avenue, and south to Empire Boulevard and New York Avenue. The name was changed when Crown Street was cut through in
1916.
Crown Heights is bounded by Washington Avenue (to the west), Atlantic Avenue (to the north), Ralph Avenue (to the east) and Clarkson Avenue (to the south). It is about two miles long and two miles deep. The neighborhoods that border Crown Heights are:
Prospect Heights (to the west);
Prospect Lefferts Gardens (to the southwest); Wingate and Rugby (to the south);
Brownsville (to the east); and
Bedford-Stuyvesant (to the north).
This neighborhood extends through much of
Brooklyn Community Board 8 and
9. It is under the jurisdiction of two
Precincts of the
New York City Police Department. The 77th Precinct is part of Brooklyn North, which covers Crown Heights,
Prospect Heights and
Weeksville). The 71st Precinct is part of Brooklyn South and covers the southern end of Crown Heights.
History
Early History
Although no known evidence remains in the Crown Heights vicinity, prior to the
European colonization of the Americas large portions of what is now called
Long Island including present-day Brooklyn were occupied by the
Lenape, (later renamed
Delaware Indians by the
European colonizers). The
Lenape lived in communities of bark- or grass-covered
wigwams, and in their larger settlements—typically located on high ground adjacent to fresh water, and occupied in the fall, winter, and spring—they fished, harvested shellfish, trapped animals, gathered wild fruits and vegetables, and cultivated corn, tobacco, beans, and other crops.
The first recorded contact between the indigenous people of the
New York City region and
Europeans was with the explorer
Giovanni da Verrazzano in
1524 when he anchored at the approximate location where the
Verrazano-Narrows Bridge touches down in
Brooklyn today. There he was visited by a
canoe party of
Lenape. The next contact was in
1609 when the explorerer
Henry Hudson arrived in what is now
New York Harbor aboard a
Dutch East India Company ship the
Halve Maen (Half Moon) commissioned by the
Dutch Republic.
European habitation in the
New York City area began in earnest with the founding of a
Dutch fur trading settlement, later called
"Nieuw Amsterdam" (
New Amsterdam), on the southern tip of
Manhattan in
1614.
By
1630, Dutch and English colonists started moving into the western end of
Long Island. In
1637, Joris Jansen de Rapalje
“purchased” about 335 acres around
Wallabout Bay and over the following two years, Director Kieft of the
Dutch West India Company "purchased" title to nearly all the land in what is now
Kings County and
Queens County from the indigenous inhabitants.
Finally, the areas around present-day Crown Heights saw its first
European settlements starting in about
1661/
1662 when several men each received, from
Governor Pieter Stuyvesant and the
Directors of the
Dutch West India Company what was described as
“a parcel of free (unoccupied) woodland there” on the condition that they situate their houses “within one of the other concentration, which would suit them best, but not to make a hamlet.”
Development in the 1880s
Crown Heights had begun as a posh residential neighborhood, a "bedroom" for Manhattan's growing
bourgeois class. Beginning in the 1880s, many upper-class residences, including characteristic
brownstone buildings, were erected along Eastern Parkway. Away from the parkway were a mixture of lower middle-class residences. This development peaked in the 1920s. Before
World War II Crown Heights was among New York City's premier neighborhoods, with tree-lined streets, an array of cultural institutions and parks, and numerous fraternal, social and community organizations. Many second and third generation people of Jewish descent had settled in the area.
Mid-20th Century
Population changes began in the 1930s with immigrants from Jamaica, African Americans from the South in the 1940s and Haitians in the 1970s. Newer Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe also settled throughout the area.
During the '40s, '50s and '60s, many middle class Jews lived in Crown Heights. There were a number of large synagogues on Eatern Parkway, including Chovevei Torah (just off the corner of Albany Avenue), also known as the Murphy Shul, and the Young Israel of Eastern Parkway (between Albany and Troy), where Rabbi Harold B. Kanatopsky was the rabbi for some 25 years.
There were two very prominent Yeshiva elementary schools in the neighborhood, Crown Heights Yeshiva on Crown Street between New York and Nostrand Avenues and the Yeshiva of Eastern Parkway, located on Eastern Parkway between Troy and Schenectady Avenues. Another famous school in the neighborhood was the Reines Talmud Torah which wasn't a day school, having only afternoon and Sunday morning classes.
In the mid-twentieth century, many of the more established residents left for newer housing and jobs in the suburbs. With increased apartment vacancies, property owners rented to tenants who wouldn't have been able to afford the area earlier. Concurrently, the values of private homes began to fall. Both white and non-white middle class families felt compelled to move out before their houses were devalued further. Their places were taken by African Americans, later immigrants from the Caribbean, and Latinos.
The 1960s Through the Early 1990s
The 1960s and 1970s were a time of turbulent race relations. With increasing poverty in the city, racial conflicts plagued some New York neighborhoods. With its racially and culturally mixed populations, Crown Heights was mired in this strife. The neighborhood's relatively large population of
Hasidic Jews composed a prominent white minority who had stayed in the community after other whites left.
With increasing immigration from rural areas of the Caribbean, Crown Heights became an area of population with low skills for the urban environment. During the Johnson administration, Crown Heights was declared a primary poverty area due to a high unemployment rate, high juvenile and adult crime rate, poor nutrition for lack of family income, relative absence of job skills and readiness to work, and a relatively high concentration of elderly residents.
Violence has erupted in the neighborhood on more than one occasion, including during the
New York City blackout of 1977. In 1991 there was an outbreak known as the
Crown Heights Riot.
Through the 1990s, crime, racial conflict, and violence decreased in New York. Urban renewal and
gentrification began to change the face of Crown Heights, diversifying its population economically, socially, and racially.
The Crown Heights Riot
The events referred to as the
Crown Heights Riot were a multi-day disturbance that took place in August 1991.
Longstanding resentments, fears and sensational rumors fed on an automobile accident on
19 August 1991 at 8:30 pm and erupted into neighborhood violence. The accident involving a Jewish driver caused the injury of one Black child and death of another. After the police told a Jewish volunteer ambulance to remove the driver from the scene before a city ambulance took the injured children, African American and Caribbean residents took out their anger on Jewish residents. Stones and other objects were thrown by both sides, fires were set and shops were looted. On the same day black teenagers attacked and Lemrick Nelson Jr. stabbed Jewish student Yankel Rosenbaum, from Australia, who later died.
Current renaissance
Crown Heights today has extreme contrasts between lovely architecture and vacant, run-down buildings, and variety of peoples and shops, ranging from variously hatted and top-coated Lubavitcher residents to vegan rasta Afro-Caribbean restaurants. Rising real estate values and gentrification have also recently become part of this mix.
Some real estate developers are already trying to increase prices of area housing. Crime rates remain relatively high, and racial tensions still exist. Murders, rapes, and other violent crimes dipped significantly in the mid-90s, and continue to fall.
NYC.GOV statistics for 2007 reveal that the 77th precinct, which includes a significant part of Crown Heights, has experienced a year-to-date decline of 40% in the number of murders (a total of 9, down from 15), and of 20% in the number of rapes (12, down from 15). However, felonious assaults and burglaries have increased significantly (16.8 and 24.8%, respectively)
CNN reported that some racial tensions appeared in 2008.
Demographics
As of
2007, of the approximately 150,000 residents in Crown Heights, 90 percent were of
African descent (70 percent from the Caribbean and 20 percent of American birth), 8 percent were
Hasidic Jews, and 2 percent were Latino, Asian and other ethnic groups.
Reflecting the most varied population of Caribbean immigrants outside the West Indies, Crown Heights is known for its annual
West Indian Carnival. The main event is the West Indian Carnival Parade, also known as
"The Labor Day Parade." The parade route goes along
Eastern Parkway, from Utica Avenue to
Grand Army Plaza. According to the West Indian-American Day Carnival Association, over 3.5 million people participate in the parade each year.
It is also the location of the worldwide headquarters of the
Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic Jewish movement, at
770 Eastern Parkway. A thriving
Orthodox Jewish community has grown up around that location.
Due to its favorable housing prices, convenient access via
mass transit to
Downtown Brooklyn and
Manhattan, as well as proximity to cultural attractions such as
Prospect Park, the
Brooklyn Museum and the
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Crown Heights has attracted an influx of artists, professionals and students of all ethnic and social backgrounds, including members of the
LGBT Community.
Political representation
In
City government, Crown Heights is part of
New York City Council Districts 35 and 36..
Crown Heights is represented in
State government as part of the State Senate 19th District and the State Senate 20th District. In the
New York State Assembly, Crown Heights is part of State Assembly District 43 and State Assembly District 57.
Landmarks
Notable natives
Clive Davis, music industry executive.
Stephanie Mills, singer.
Noel Pointer, jazz violinist
Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994), seventh Rebbe (spiritual leader) of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement
Beverly Sills, opera singer and administrator
Dr. Susan McKinney Stewart, first African American woman to earn medical degree in New YorkFurther Information
Get more info on 'Crown Heights Brooklyn'.
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