Crown Heights, Brooklyn

This article or section needs to be updated.
Parts of this article or section are no longer up to date.
Please update the article to reflect recent events, and remove this template when finished.

Crown Heights is a neighborhood in the central portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Until 1916, the area was known as Crow Hill. The name was changed when Crown Street was cut through.^[1]

This neighborhood extends through much of Brooklyn Community Board 8 and 9. The main thoroughfare through this neighborhood is Eastern Parkway, which divides the north and south sides of this neighborhood.

Crown Heights is bounded by Washington Avenue (west), Atlantic Avenue (north) and Ralph Avenue (east), Clarkson Avenue (south). 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); Bedford-Stuyvesant (to the north).

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 explorere 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 Hansen de Raplje^[2] “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.”^[3]^[4]

development in the 1880's

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. This development peaked in the 1920s, and 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 a large number of fraternal, social and community organizations.

after World War II

In the mid-twentieth century, however, white flight from New York and other American cities occurred, and many of the more established residents left. Apartment vacancies increased, mounting pressure on property owners to rent to tenants who would formerly have been excluded from the area. Concurrently, the values of private homes began to fall, and both white and non-white middle class families felt compelled to move out before their houses were devalued further. Their place was taken by Blacks, Hispanics, and Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe.

the 1960's thru the early '90's

The 1960s and '70s were a time of turbulent race relations, and riots and conflict plagued New York along with other American cities. With its racially mixed population, Crown Heights was mired in this strife, particularly experiencing many acts of violence targeting the neighborhood's large population of Hasidic Jews.

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 and as late as 1991 there were a series of disturbances refered to as the Crown Heights Riots.

Through the 1990s, crime, racial conflict, and violence decreased across the United States. Urban renewal and gentrification began to change the face of Crown Heights, further diversifying its population economically, socially, and racially.

The Crown Heights Riot

Main article: Crown Heights Riot

The events refered to as the Crown Heights Riots were a multi-day disturbance that took place in August 1991.^[5]

They were precipitated by an automobile accident on 19 August 1991 at approximately 8:30 pm that occured near the corner of Eastern Parkway and Utica Avenue in which two seven-year-old Guyanese American children, a boy named Gavin Cato and his cousin Angela Cato were struck by a car. Angela Cato suffered a fractured leg but Gavin Cato succumbed to his injuries at Kings County Hospital.

The car involved in the accident was part of a three car motorcade led by an unmarked police car that was accompanying the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Schneerson who was returning from his father-in-law's grave. As the car crossed the intersection, it was hit by another car, causing it to veer out of control, jump the sidewalk and run over the children.

Fueled by the belief that the treatment of the car accident victims was unequal the neighborhood residents squared off against each other. On one side were primarily some members of the local Chabad-Lubavitch branch of Hasidic Jewish Community and on the other were some members of the local African-American/Caribbean-American community. Stones and other objects were thrown, fires were set and shops were looted.

Yankel Rosenbaum, 29, a visiting scholar from Australia was stabbed and though his wounds were not initially considered life-threatening he passes away several hours later at Kings County Hospital. The hospital later agreed to pay the family $1.25 million and agreed that they had negligently failed to detect Mr. Rosenbaum's four-inch stab wounds for more than an hour and as a result he bled to death internally.^[6]

Current renaissance

Crown Heights today is a series of interesting paradoxes, from its lovely architecture to its vacant, run-down buildings, from variously hatted and top-coated Lubavitcher communities to vegan rasta Afro-Caribbean restaurants. Rising real estate values and gentrification have also recently become part of this mix.^[7]

The lovely brownstones, Medgar Evers College-CUNY, proximity to Park Slope, and great train access mean that some real estate developers are already trying to shift the prices of area housing while ignoring what are still some of the highest crime rates and worst racial tension anywhere in the five boroughs.

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)^[8]

Demographics

The worldwide headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic Jewish community, at 770 Eastern Parkway, is located in Crown Heights.

A large Black population from the Caribbean exists in Crown Heights. In recent years, a considerable number of Latin American and Russian immigrants have also moved into the neighborhood.

More recently, (see below), Crown Heights has seen an upwardly mobile influx -- a racial mix of artists, professionals, students including members of the LGBT Community. These new inhabitants are mostly young, middle-class professionals, or couples who shun condos but can’t afford settled brownstone communities like Park Slope and Cobble Hill.

Crown Heights is also known for its annual West Indian Carnival. Its 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.