Crown Heights was one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Brooklyn at the turn of the last century, and the alluring architecture of that era, along with new residential development, is attracting newcomers and spurring rapid change.
Between 1890 and 1910, Crown Heights was one of the most affluent neighborhoods in Brooklyn, according to the Crown Heights North Association. In the early 20th century, Irish, Russian Jewish and Italian immigrants, among others, moved to the area, as did early Caribbean arrivals. People from Harlem migrated to Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant with the opening of the A subway line in the 1930s. Large numbers of Caribbean immigrants joined them, and by the end of the 1960s, Crown Heights was predominantly African-American and Caribbean.
Roughly two square miles, with about 130,000 residents, Crown Heights was dogged for years by a reputation for intolerance and violence after the 1991 riots involving blacks and Hasidic Jews.
The majority of residents in Crown Heights are African-American, Caribbean and Caribbean-American. The neighborhood also has a populous Lubavitcher Hasidic section, centering around Kingston Avenue south of Eastern Parkway.
Crown Heights is roughly bordered by Washington, Atlantic and Ralph Avenues and Empire Boulevard. With four historic districts, it is notable for its streets lined with rowhouses. Structures tend to be two or three stories, though there are four-story homes, for example, along Eastern Parkway, a promenade with a pedestrian mall on either side designed by Frederick Law Olmsted with Charles Vaux.
Crown Heights has the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, the Jewish Children’s Museum and the Weeksville Heritage Center, dedicated to the history of one of the country’s first free black communities, called Weeksville. Prospect Park, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the Brooklyn Museum and the Brooklyn Public Library are all just west of Crown Heights. Eastern Parkway is the route of the West Indian American Day Parade on Labor Day.November 2014 | Brooklyn, NY