EAST NEW YORK
Geographic Setting
Bounded by Atlantic Avenue to the north, Conduit Avenue and the Queens border to the northeast and east, Jamaica Bay to the south, and Hendrix Creek, Williams Avenue, and Van Sinderen Avenue to the west, East New York encompasses one of Brooklyn’s largest and most historically complex territories—a vast, low-lying expanse that marks both the eastern edge of the borough and one of the oldest crossroads of settlement and migration in New York City. It stretches from the industrial corridor of Atlantic Avenue to the marshy shorelines of Jamaica Bay, a patchwork of residential blocks, rail lines, parks, and public housing developments that mirror two centuries of urban ambition, upheaval, and renewal.
Geographically, East New York lies upon the terminal moraine where the last Ice Age glacier leveled into coastal plain, creating both the fertile soils that first attracted Dutch farmers and the drainage challenges that have persisted ever since. Its major arteries—Atlantic Avenue, Linden Boulevard, Pennsylvania Avenue, and Pitkin Avenue—form a lattice of commerce and transit, connecting it to the rest of Brooklyn while maintaining a self-contained urban character. The neighborhood includes several distinct subsections—New Lots, City Line, Cypress Hills, and Starrett City (Spring Creek Towers)—each with its own local history but sharing a common identity rooted in endurance and community rebuilding.
Etymology and Origins
The name East New York was coined in 1835 by Connecticut merchant and developer John Pitkin, who envisioned a new urban suburb on Brooklyn’s far eastern frontier—“a city of the future” that would rival Manhattan itself. Pitkin purchased farmland from the descendants of the original Dutch settlers of Nieuw Amersfoort and Flatbush, subdividing it into lots and naming streets after early American statesmen and ideals. His dream of a thriving city, connected by ferry and turnpike to Manhattan, faltered amid economic recession, but the name endured.
The area’s earliest European roots date to the 1650s, when Dutch farmers established Nieuw Lots (New Lots) as the easternmost agricultural outpost of Flatbush. They built along the ancient Jamaica Pass, the route that linked Brooklyn to the South Shore of Long Island. By the 18th century, the land was dotted with farms, mills, and taverns serving travelers en route to Jamaica and Hempstead. During the Revolutionary War, troops under General Washington crossed these fields retreating from the Battle of Long Island.
The Neighborhood
19th Century: Railroad Suburb and Industrial Frontier
After Pitkin’s speculative failure in the 1830s, East New York slowly revived through the arrival of the Long Island Rail Road (1836), which established stops at Atlantic Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue, linking the area directly to downtown Brooklyn and Long Island towns. The open farmland gave way to worker housing, factories, and warehouses serving the rapidly expanding port and manufacturing base of the borough.
By the 1880s–1890s, East New York had become a dense working-class district populated largely by German, Irish, and Italian immigrants employed in nearby factories, breweries, and rail yards. Brick rowhouses and modest frame homes lined Liberty, Pitkin, and Sutter Avenues, while trolleys ran down the length of Fulton and Atlantic Avenues. Churches—St. Michael’s Roman Catholic (1892), St. Malachy’s, and Our Lady of Loreto—anchored community life.
Incorporated into Brooklyn proper by the 1860s, the neighborhood’s once-rural character was gone by the turn of the 20th century. East New York’s mixture of factories, warehouses, and small homes gave it a gritty but productive energy—a classic example of the industrial suburb.
Early–Mid 20th Century: Expansion and Hardship
Through the first half of the 20th century, East New York thrived as a working-class community. The population swelled with Eastern European Jews, Italians, and later African Americans and Puerto Ricans, many drawn by affordable housing and jobs in nearby Brownsville, Canarsie, and Bush Terminal. The construction of the IND subway line (1936) along Pitkin Avenue and the Fulton Elevated made East New York one of Brooklyn’s most accessible outer districts.
World War II brought industrial prosperity, but the postwar years ushered in profound change. The closure of factories, suburban migration, and disinvestment left East New York vulnerable to decline. As white flight accelerated in the 1950s–1960s, the neighborhood’s demographics shifted dramatically. Predatory real estate practices—redlining, blockbusting, and speculative flipping—exacerbated economic hardship. Public housing projects such as Pink Houses (1959) and Louis Heaton Pink Houses and Penn-Wortman Houses were built to replace decaying tenements, but the concentration of poverty and lack of city support deepened the crisis.
By the 1970s, East New York had become a symbol of urban decline: its once-thriving commercial strips scarred by arson, vacancy, and disinvestment. The 1977 blackout riots and ongoing property abandonment devastated blocks across New Lots and Linden Boulevard. Newspapers described the area as a “war zone”—a shorthand that ignored the resilience of those who stayed.
Late 20th Century: Community Rebuilding and Self-Renewal
Even amid hardship, East New York’s residents—African American, Puerto Rican, and later Caribbean families—laid the groundwork for revival. Churches, block associations, and grassroots nonprofits emerged as stabilizing forces. Organizations like the East Brooklyn Congregations (EBC), founded in 1979, mobilized faith-based coalitions to demand housing, safety, and investment. Their efforts culminated in the Nehemiah Housing Program (1983), which built thousands of affordable single-family brick homes across the empty lots of East New York and Brownsville.
The Nehemiah houses became national symbols of community-led urban renewal, proving that residents could rebuild their own neighborhoods when the city would not. Schools, gardens, and churches followed, breathing life back into desolate streets. By the 1990s, crime rates fell sharply, new parks were established, and local commerce began to revive along Pennsylvania Avenue, Linden Boulevard, and Atlantic Avenue.
At the same time, Starrett City (now Spring Creek Towers)—a privately built Mitchell-Lama complex completed in 1974 on Jamaica Bay—offered 5,800 affordable apartments and became a model of integrated, large-scale housing. Though isolated geographically, Starrett City provided modern amenities, green space, and social stability, setting it apart from the turmoil of earlier decades.
21st Century: Renewal, Development, and Displacement Debates
In the 21st century, East New York has once again found itself at the center of the city’s debates about development and equity. The 2016 East New York Neighborhood Plan, the first major rezoning under Mayor Bill de Blasio, aimed to encourage new housing, retail, and infrastructure investment along Atlantic Avenue and Pitkin Avenue while preserving affordability for existing residents. The plan spurred both optimism and concern: new apartment buildings and commercial complexes have emerged, but many residents fear displacement and rising rents.
Despite these pressures, East New York remains one of Brooklyn’s most culturally grounded neighborhoods. Caribbean, Latin American, and African American traditions coexist along its avenues: jerk chicken and empanadas sold beside Pentecostal churches, reggae echoing from car stereos near storefront mosques. Local schools and nonprofits continue to nurture the next generation, while new residents—drawn by affordability and transit access—add another layer to the neighborhood’s story.
Green spaces like Gateway Center Park and the Shirley Chisholm State Park on the Jamaica Bay waterfront have reconnected East New York to its natural heritage, transforming former landfills into miles of trails and wetlands. The sound of trains on elevated tracks, the calls of gulls over the bay, and the steady hum of small businesses along Linden Boulevard all signal a neighborhood that, while changed, remains deeply alive.
Spirit and Legacy
East New York’s legacy is one of endurance and self-determination. It has lived every chapter of the American urban story: settlement, growth, neglect, and rebirth. Its people—immigrants, workers, and visionaries—have rebuilt it again and again, proving that community, not policy, defines survival. From Dutch farms to Pitkin Avenue brownstones, from the ashes of the 1970s to the new skyline rising along Atlantic Avenue, East New York continues to evolve while holding fast to its spirit of resilience.
New York City
Use this custom Google map to explore where every neighborhood in all five boroughs of New York City is located.
The Five Boroughs
One of New York City’s unique qualities is its organization in to 5 boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, and Staten Island. These boroughs are part pragmatic administrative districts, and part vestiges of the region’s past. Each borough is an entire county in New York State - in fact, Brooklyn is, officially, Kings County, while Staten Island is, officially Richmond County. But that’s not the whole story …
Initially, New York City was located on the southern tip of Manhattan (now the Financial District) that was once the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. Across the East River, another city was rising: Brooklyn. In time, the city planners realized that unification between the rapidly rising cities would create commercial and industrial opportunities - through streamlined administration of the region.
So powerful was the pull of unification between New York and Brooklyn that three more counties were pulled into the unification: The Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island. And on January 1, 1898, the City of New York unified two cities and three counties into one Greater City of New York - containing the five boroughs we know today.
But because each borough developed differently and distinctly until unification, their neighborhoods likewise uniquely developed. Today, there are nearly 390 neighborhoods, each with their own histories, cultures, cuisines, and personalities - and each with residents who are fiercely proud of their corner of The Big Apple.
