Canarsie Brooklyn

Early history

The Canarsie Indians were the first to colonize the coastal regions around Jamaica Bay, which included what is now Canarsie.[12]: 4 Canarsie, as it exists now, was one of the Canarsie tribe’s principal villages. They most likely lived around the intersection of present-day Seaview and Remsen Avenues. Cornfields spread from the shore to as far inland as Avenue J, centered on East 92nd Street. The Canarsie Indians planted cornfields on three flats in the area.9 As late as the 1930s, “immense shell heaps” could be found on the site. These shells may have used as planting grounds.Canarsie Point was renamed Vischers Hook (“fishers’ hook”) in 1660. The name was derived from Hoorn, a Dutch fisherman who had constructed a house on the site. At the time, a collection of islands stretched into Jamaica Bay south of Canarsie, up to and including Barren Island.n 1660, present-day Canarsie Point was given the name Vischers Hook (“fishers’ hook”). The name referred to Hoorn, a Dutch fisherman who had built a house at that location. At the time, a group of islands extended into Jamaica Bay south of Canarsie, up to and including Barren Island The only way to get to Canarsie was to take a train to Jamaica and then switch to a stagecoach, where passengers would endure a “long and uncomfortable ride” through the marshy woodlands that the road wound through.

Seaside resort

The Brooklyn and Rockaway Beach Railroad, which opened on October 21, 1865, supplied rail service from the Long Island Rail Road at the East New York station to a dock at Canarsie Landing, near the modern confluence of Rockaway Parkway and the Belt Parkway.Less than a year later, in summer 1866, the railroad began running a ferry to Rockaway Beach, kicking off the area’s transition into a summer beach resort.That year, there were ten daily round trips over the Canarsie railroad but only three on the Rockaway ferry, thus vacationers who traveled to the Rockaways by train and ferry would frequently spend a few hours on Canarsie Landing. Railroad service was doubled in 1867, with trains operating every hour on weekdays and every half hour on Sundays; that year, the railroad handled 122,567 passengers.Five hotels immediately appeared on the Canarsie shore, beginning with the Bay View House in July 1867. Furthermore, restaurants and saloons began to open along Canarsie Landing.43 According to a Brooklyn Daily Eagle correspondent in 1867, there were two railroads: the Canarsie steam dummy, which only went to East New York, and the Nostrand Avenue Line, which connected to other streetcar lines throughout Brooklyn. According to the reporter, “it has enough hotel accommodations for boarders or casual tourists, and all it requires is a suitable roadway along the waterfront for promenade and driving.

Canarsie also developed into a fishing hub by the late nineteenth century. In 1850, there were 75 fisherman in Flatlands, while 191 other people worked in agriculture. By 1880, Flatlands had 200 fisherman, with Canarsie accounting for approximately 90% of the total. The New York Times described the fishing village as a self-sufficient community that was “a place of much resort for fishing, and one of the best near to the city” in an 1865 account.Boatbuilding also gained popularity; the number of boatbuilders in Canarsie increased from one in 1868 to eight in 1887. If these visitors had enough money, they could rent a large sloop and head to the open ocean to fish.

Fishing and amusement heyday

By the turn of the century, Canarsie had become a thriving amusement area. Eighteen of the 50 buildings along Canarsie Bay’s shoreline were hotels. Three ferry systems provided service to Bergen Island, Barren Island, Rockaway Beach, and other Jamaica Bay destinations. A fourth began operations in 1915 but closed in 1918 after several poor seasons.Murphy’s Carousel was built in 1912 by the Stein and Goldstein Artistic Carousel Company of Brooklyn and erected in Golden City Park. A reporter for The New York Times subsequently wrote that “the horses were carved in Coney Island style, which eschewed the look of docile ponies and prancing fillies and produced much more muscular, ferocious creatures with bared teeth and heads often lifted in motion.”

Decline of fishing and amusement

By the twentieth century, the fishing sector had begun to dwindle as pollution damaged the oysters that inhabited the bay.In 1904, an outbreak of typhoid illness was related to a haul of shellfish in Inwood, New York, a village on the Jamaica Bay shore, indicating chemical contamination in the bay’s shellfish.152 In 1912, a typhoid outbreak in upstate Goshen, New York, was ascribed to a banquet served Jamaica Bay oysters.In 1915, 27 people of Canarsie developed typhoid from that year’s shellfish catch.  152 An additional 100 instances of gastroenteritis were linked to that year’s shellfish catch. By 1917, an estimated 50,000,000 US gallons (190,000,000 L) of sewage were thrown into the bay each day. The entire industry was shut down in 1921 because too many of the shellfish population had been sick.In 1928, the Canarsie Railroad was converted into the Canarsie Subway Line, which provided direct access to Manhattan. After the subway line opened, officials began advocating for a new boat service between Canarsie and Rockaway Beach. The subway line was also intended to facilitate access to the proposed harbor, however the seaport was not built.The area remained a rather distant outpost until the 1920s. Southern Italian immigrants, together with Jews, quickly settled in the area.

Residential development

Canarsie only experienced significant residential construction following World War II. Much of the area’s residential buildings were constructed from the postwar era to the 1970s. The marshland in the vicinity had been filled in.201 Due to the significant housing scarcity in New York City during the war, the city announced the construction of over a thousand Quonset huts for veterans along the Jamaica Bay shore. The first huts were delivered in February 1946 and were ready for occupancy by June of the same year.Starting in the 1950s, a series of suburban waterfront communities were being rapidly developed in Southeast Brooklyn, including in present-day Bergen Beach, Canarsie, and Mill Basin.Beginning in the 1950s, a series of suburban waterfront developments were swiftly created in Southeast Brooklyn, including what is now Bergen Beach, Canarsie, and Mill Basin. The majority of the new residents were whites who were leaving neighborhoods like East New York and Brownsville, which were seeing an increase in black people. In August 1951, construction began on the Breukelen Houses, a 1,600-unit New York City Housing Authority property between East 103rd and East 105th Streets. The development was completed in October 1952. The Bayview Houses, another NYCHA property, began construction in 1954 and opened in 1955.The latter NYCHA construction includes a shopping mall.In conjunction with this development, the federal and city governments each provided hundreds of thousands of dollars to help improve Canarsie’s parks and beaches.According to the New York Times, Canarsie has the potential to become “the next Jones Beach,” a type of beach resort. Canarsie’s public and parochial schools were extended to accommodate the estimated 5,000 additional school-aged pupils.Between 1950 and 1955, Canarsie’s population increased from 3,500 to 4,500.By 1963, the New York City Police Department needed to build a new 69th Precinct headquarters to serve its rising population. Many young families relocated to Canarsie, and Canarsie High School was created to accommodate the newcomers. Canarsie High School opened in 1964.

Racial tensions and growing black population

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, white parents protested the New York City Department of Education’s efforts to desegregate its District 18, which included schools in Canarsie and East Flatbush, by “busing” black students into Canarsie schools.Many of the minority children came from Brownsville, a predominantly black neighborhood that bordered Canarsie to the north but was part of a different school district. Racial conflicts arose in 1964, when the NYCDOE assigned some Brownsville pupils to Canarsie High School.In 1969, a fight between a white student and a black student at Canarsie High School led the school to close for three days.South Shore High School debuted in 1970, albeit in a physically incomplete state: several rooms lacked furniture, plumbing, and public announcement systems until the middle of the academic year. Major clashes between white and black students erupted in September 1970 and April 1971. By the conclusion of its first year, the principal was stepping down, and a coalition dubbed “Friends of South Shore” had emerged to oppose the school’s lack of resources and possibilities.