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2
members of other ethnic groups left. Organizations were established to give
financial and social
assistance to Blacks, among them was the Paragon Progressive Federal Credit Union formed by E. Levi
other West Indians in 1937. Black churches moved
to Stuyvesant Avenue and other parts of the
neighborhood and worked with the National Urban League, and the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People to fight racial discrimination, segregation and poverty. However,
inadequate housing and unemployment persisted and impoverished the neighborhood. [3]
At the same time residents began to exert a stronger political influence and in 1968 they elected Shirley
Chisholm to Congress, where she was the first Black woman to serve. Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s visit
to the neighborhood in the late 1960s inspired his support for the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration
Corporation. The 1980s saw large-scale settlement of Black immigrants form the Caribbean, primarily
Guyana, Jamaica and Barbados and to a lesser extent, Trinidad and Tobago, Haiti and St. Vincent and
the Grenadines. [3]
Today, as in many other parts of NYC, Bedford Stuyvesant is slowly going through a revival of sorts.
Ironically, this is not a result of a targeted effort by government to revitalize the neighborhood, but rather
a result of NYC’s soaring real estate market that is forcing people to look outside the boundaries of what
had traditionally been desirable neighborhoods. Attractive houses whose aesthetics had been veiled by
years of neglect are becoming desirable properties after costly renovation. [3]
Crown Heights was once considered Bed-Stuy. Weeksville and Carville were formed by free Blacks in
the 1830s. After mid-century, development accelerated and mansions were built on former farmland
followed by limestone row houses. Blocks of detached houses and apartment buildings (some with
elevators) were later built in the same area and along Eastern Parkway. According to folklore Crown
Heights was named for the largest hill in the area, which was infested with crows; the Brooklyn Eagle in
1873 suggested that the area was named for a settlement begun in “crows” by Whites. Many residents
worked in the fish and meat markets in Manhattan and lived in shanties on the hill. [3]
As the city limits were extended and Whites bought property in the area, Blacks who moved in the 1830s
were forced out. The 1920s saw an influx of Germans, Scandinavians, Irish, Italians, and Jews who by
the early 1940s accounted for much of the population. Many of the Jews were Lubavitch Hasidim from
the Soviet Union. A number of White residents moved to the suburbs after WWII and many Black
immigrants from the Caribbean moved in after 1965. During the 1960s the abandonment of apartment
buildings led to a cycle of decay and arson that was halted in the 1970s and 1980s by efforts at
preservation. [3]
In August 1991 racial tensions rose after a Black child was accidentally killed by an automobile driven
by a Lubavitch Hasid. Riots ensued in which a Hasid visiting the city was killed in retaliation. In the late
1980s and early 1990s Black immigrants from the Caribbean continued to settle in Crown Heights.
About a quarter were Jamaican and almost as many Haitian, with large numbers from Guyana, Trinidad
& Tobago, Barbados, Grenada, Panama, the Dominican Republic, St. Vincent & The Grenadines. (See
page for more recent information on immigrants.) [3]
Brownsville - more closely associated with East New York then Bed-Stuy, Crown Heights - has a long
history of poverty. Brownsville began as a German-Jewish community
- largely a Jewish slum, with
sweatshops and pushcarts, no sewers or paved streets. Typically, Jews who moved up the residential
ladder left Brownsville for East Flatbush and from there went on to Flatbush or Eastern Parkway. One
contemporary observer noted that “If God is good, a Brownsvillian moves to Eastern Parkway.” [3]