Kensington Brooklyn

Early histor

Certainly, here’s a rephrased version:

The land where Kensington stands today was initially settled by Dutch farmers in the seventeenth century within Flatbush town. It was later resettled by British colonizers in 1737. Development began in 1885 following the completion of Ocean Parkway, with the neighborhood named after a place in West London around the turn of the century.

A distinctive area within Kensington, located between 18th and Foster Avenues in the southern part of the neighborhood, features a slightly diagonal street grid and is known as Parkville. Originally part of Flatbush, this area was initially called Greenville. It was acquired by the Freeman’s Association in 1852, shortly after the completion of Coney Island Avenue, which forms the eastern boundary of Kensington and Parkville. Public School 92 (later known as P.S. 134) and the Roman Catholic Church of St. Rose of Lima were established to serve this subsection in 1870. Despite its historical significance, Parkville is often overlooked due to its small size, as noted by a librarian at the Brooklyn Public Library.

Early and mid-20th century

Here’s a paraphrased version:

During the rezoning spurred by the construction of the IND Brooklyn Line, tall elevator apartment buildings began replacing suburban villas in Kensington and its surroundings from the late 1920s to 1941. After World War II, luxury buildings, now often exceeding six stories due to code revisions and zoning changes, continued to rise, especially along Ocean Parkway and nearby, until the mid-1960s. Since the 1990s, residential development has seen a resurgence, with new apartment buildings on Ocean Parkway and smaller structures on side streets.

Throughout much of the 20th century, Kensington wasn’t always recognized as a distinct neighborhood, often considered part of the western section of Flatbush. “West Flatbush” was another descriptor used by various groups before fading after 1954. While some governmental institutions still used the name “Kensington,” demographers used it to distinguish the more working-class, ethnically diverse areas west of Ocean Parkway from the historically affluent, predominantly Jewish areas east of Coney Island Avenue. A study in 1945 showed the demographic makeup, with Roman Catholics, Jews, and Protestants each forming significant portions of the population. Musician Marky Ramone, in his 2015 memoir, mentioned the area’s separation from major thoroughfares in eastern Flatbush, which required a two-fare transit to Erasmus Hall High School.

Recognition as separate neighborhood and increasing diversity

Here’s a rephrased version:

In 1966, Thelma E. Smith, Deputy Municipal Reference Librarian of New York City, referred to the Kensington tracts from McDonald Avenue to Coney Island Avenue as a “sub-neighborhood” of Flatbush. However, by early 1968, The New York Times identified Ocean Parkway as the western boundary of Flatbush. In 1969, the New York City municipal government informally designated the tracts between McDonald and Coney Island Avenues as Kensington in the Plan for New York City. Similarly, Gilbert Tauber and Samuel Kaplan defined southern Windsor Terrace, the traditional Kensington tracts, and western Midwood as the expansive “Kensington-Ocean Parkway” neighborhood in The New York City Handbook, first published in 1966.

After the establishment of community boards in 1963, much of present-day Kensington was assigned to Brooklyn Community Board 12, influenced possibly by Kensington Democratic leader Howard Golden’s ties with the powerful Roosevelt Club in Borough Park. Conversely, eastern Flatbush and Midwood were included in Brooklyn Community Board 14, a division still in place today.

Despite efforts by organizations like the Kensington-Flatbush Preservation Association to promote the name in the 1970s, press accounts continued to refer to the area as Flatbush. For instance, in April 1973, Brooklyn Borough President Sebastian Leone discussed renovations of upper Ocean Parkway as an enhancement for the Flatbush community. Even in 1976, sports journalist Stan Fischler labeled the IND Church Avenue station as part of Flatbush in his book “Uptown, Downtown,” a history of the New York City subway system. This transitional period is highlighted by conflicting descriptions of the area surrounding a March 1977 gas station shootout at 417 Dahill Road, with some reports identifying it as Borough Park and others as a “worn section of Flatbush” on the same page of the New York Daily News.