Crown Heights: Evolution

From Decoding New York

Walking through Crown Heights and observing as many hastily walk to work, meet with friends, or dine at ethnic eateries, it is easy to see that a large sector of Crown Heights, specifically Albany Avenue, consists of Hasidic Jews, and Utica Avenue contains a large Afro-Caribbean population with the various stores that cater to them. While these groups have come to define Crown Heights this was not always the case. The community as well as the population has evolved throughout time.

A Jewish Ambulance company in Crown Heights. Photo by Yuliya B.

From the time of the Dutch in the 17th century when former slaves settled there, to the second half of the 19th century, the area had farms and small homes. During the last quarter of the 19th century, as mansions were built as were row houses, similar to nearby Brooklyn neighborhoods. This continued into the early 20th century and the northern sector of Crown Heights became a desirable residential area. Even to this day Crown Heights is deemed as a “hidden jewel” due to the neighborhoods diversity, vibrancy and affordability. The nearby location of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Botanic Gardne added to the desirability of the area. One area became known as “Doctor’s Row” due to the large numbers of medical professionals, who were originally white Protestant, that settled in the area.

By the 1920s, Crown Heights was comprised of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews from Germany, Scandinavia, Ireland and Italy, many of whom moved into the large apartment buildings that were built along Eastern Parkway and adjacent streets starting. It was not until the 1940s that a large number of Lubavitch Hasidic Jews emigrated from the Soviet Union to Crown Heights. The Lubavitch Headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway became the most prized location for worshipers all over the world. As the Lubavitch movement grew in the United States, the original small synagogue underwent construction to accommodate the growing number of worshipers and students who regularly came to pray and study there and those who came from various countries to be under the teachings of the Rabbi. The continual transformation of Crown Heights led to a further increase of immigration to Crown Heights. After the conclusion of WWII, many non-Hasidic residents of the area, including veterans, began moving to the suburbs leading to the abandonment of many empty ral apartment.

An interesting juxtaposition of the two sides of Crown Heights. Photo by Natalie F.

With rents lowered to attract new residents, new immigrants from the Caribbean began to settle in Crown Heights during the 1960s and 1970s. Today, Crown Heights consists of a large Hasidic population, many of whom migrated from Israel and South Africa and the large Afro-Caribbean population with a smaller number of Caribbean Hispanics.

Even though the influx of immigrants has been stable throughout the years, tension has developed between the Afro-Caribbean and the Hasidic community. On the surface it appears that the Hasidic Jewish Community and the Afro-Caribbean Community of Crown Heights get along and tolerate each other, but there is underlying tension between the two groups. Clarence Norman Sr, a Hasidic Jew living in Crown Heights, further delineates the growing strain on each community: "the Hasidic community was already in place in Crown Heights by the early sixties, as blacks were coming in. We live side-by-side, next door to each other, in a truly integrated community. However, the integration is parallel. It only becomes interactive when there’s crisis. There have been serious problems between the black and the Hasidim in Crown Heights, and the media certainly has not helped.” Even though the Afro-Carribeans and the Jews are located relatively close to one another are neighbors, they do not necessarily interact with one another. In fact, you do not see many Hasidic Jews in the Afro-Caribbean zone of Crow Heights and visa versa. The covert feelings that each community possessed for the other were finally exposed in the 1991 Crown Heights Riot and it reshaped how each community continued to perceive and interact with each other.

During 19991, a seven-year-old Guyanese boy was killed by a motorcade that was returning from the Lubavitch Rebbe’s father in law’s grave. The West Indian-American community rioted because the treatment of the car accident victims was perceived as unequal, since a private Hatzolah ambulance came first to the scene to remove the Hasidic driver while the little boy hit by the vehicle was not similarly attended to in a haste manner. The riot spun out of control and crowds began throwing stones at one another, and fires were set to shops. People began chanting "Hail Hitler, Kill the Jews, and Heat Up the Ovens.” The animosity toward each other grew to such an extent that an African-American gang member, Lemrick Nelson, killed Yankel Rosenbaum, a visiting Australian rabbinical student.

Upon the conclusion of the riot, several organizations developed to ease racial differences between the communities. Project Cure has been established to bring together young men of different ethnicities as a cure inorder to support a racial understanding amongst each other and to mitigate tension among the groups. This is a solid building block for individual to not develop feelings of animosity toward others, which can prevent future acts of violence.

Furthermore, the Unity Day organization has been created by the Caribbean and Hasidic community to bring together 10,000 people in order to display how a community can be strengthened through diversity. In addition, operating out of a community-based storefront since 1998, the Crown Heights Community Mediation Center is a safe, neutral place where young people and adults can come to express concerns, settle disputes, and work together to achieve common goals. By promoting public safety, encouraging communication and understanding, and fostering the strengths of the community and the people who reside there, the Mediation Center provides Crown Heights with a unique approach to violence prevention, conflict resolution, and community building.

The development of these various organizations has in theory helped the communities to settle their conflicts. However, even though tension between the Hasidic and the Afro-Caribbean has declined, there are still slight feelings of detachment between the communities. Rarely do you see a Hasidic Jew walking through Albany Avenue and interacting with the Afro-Caribbeans, and it is just the same for the Afro-Caribbeans. Trough an interview, a Hasidic Jewish mother stated that as residents “have assimilated, throughout the years they have become less modest,” which clearly indicates that the two communities are still not on the same level and that the two groups continue to clash socially. As Crown Heights has continued to evolve, racially it can be segregated to “black and white in which everyone wears their roots on their heads. The Hasidic men wear yamakas and black hats, and the women wear wigs. The African American and Caribbean Americans frequently had on hats with Afro-centric meaning, or dreadlocks and shells in their hair.” The cultural lines between these two communities continue to stay thin as they conceal their personal feelings for one another.