Canarsie, Brooklyn
Canarsie is a mostly residential neighborhood in the southeastern portion of Brooklyn, New York City. Canarsie is bordered on the east by Fresh Creek Basin, East 108th Street, and Louisiana Avenue; on the north by Linden Boulevard; on the west by Ralph Avenue; on the southwest by Paerdegat Basin; and on the south by Jamaica Bay. It is adjacent to the neighborhoods of East Flatbush to the west, Flatlands and Bergen Beach to the southwest, Starrett City to the east, East New York to the northeast, and Brownsville to the north.
The area near Canarsie was originally settled by the Canarse Native Americans. The community's name is adapted from a Lenape word meaning "fenced area". After European settlement, Canarsie was initially a fishing community, but became a popular summer resort in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By the late 1930s and early 1940, the resorts had been destroyed, and Canarsie was developed as a largely Italian American and Jewish suburb. In the 1970s, racial tensions developed around an argument over the zoning of the area's schools, and in the aftermath, Canarsie became a mainly black neighborhood with a high West Indian population in the late 1990s.
Canarsie is part of Brooklyn Community District 18 and its primary ZIP Code is 11236. It is patrolled by the 69th Precinct of the New York City Police Department. Fire services are provided by the New York City Fire Department's Engine Co. 257/Ladder Co. 170/Battalion 58. Politically it is represented by the New York City Council's 42nd and 46th Districts.
Etymology
"Canarsie" is an adaptation to English phonology of a word in the Lenape language for 'fenced land' or 'fort'. Europeans would often refer to the indigenous people living in an area by the local place-name, though it is unclear whether the "Canarsie" name originally referred to their entire ancestral land, or whether it merely referred to a single "fenced village". References may be found in contemporary documents to "Canarsie Indians". Their name has also been transcribed as "Connarie See", "Conorasset", "Canarisse", "Canaryssen", "Canause", "Canarisea", and "Kanarsingh". The village itself was referred to as "Keskachauge" or "Kestateuw", alternatively transcribed as "Castateuw". After European settlement, the area became variously known as "Flatlands Neck", "Vischers Hook", and "Great Neck"."By way of Canarsie" became a mid-twentieth century American English figure of speech meaning "to come to one's destination by a roundabout way or from a distant point". The expression has dropped from modern common parlance.
Canarsie was described as "the butt of vaudeville jokes" in the 1939 WPA Guide to New York City. A New York Times article in 1955 characterized Canarsie as a former "lame vaudeville gag". By the 2010s, "The Flossy" was also being used as a local nickname for Canarsie.
Geography
Canarsie is bordered on the east by Fresh Creek Basin and Williams Avenue; on the north by Linden Boulevard and the Bay Ridge Branch; on the west by Ralph Avenue; on the southwest by Paerdegat Basin; and on the southeast by Belt Parkway and Jamaica Bay. It is adjacent to the neighborhoods of East Flatbush on the northwest, Flatlands on the west, Bergen Beach on the southwest, Brownsville on the north, and the Spring Creek subsection of East New York on the east and northeast.Prior to European settlement, Canarsie featured the only large swath of uplands along the Jamaica Bay coast within the town of Flatlands. The islands in the bay, such as Bergen, Mill, and Barren islands, mostly featured marshy land with small pieces of uplands. In the 19th century, a few ports along the coast were built for limited industrial use. The coast was more significantly modified in the early 20th century, when more than of shoreline was filled in with a bulkhead.
History
Early history
The coastal lands around Jamaica Bay, including present-day Canarsie, were originally settled by the Canarsie Indians. The present-day neighborhood of Canarsie was one of the Canarsie tribe's main villages. They probably lived near the intersection of present-day Seaview and Remsen Avenues. Cornfields grew from the shore to as far inland as Avenue J, and were centered around East 92nd Street. The Canarsie Indians grew cornfields on three flats within the area. As late as the 1930s, "immense shell heaps" could be found at the site. These shells might have served as planting fields.In 1624, the Dutch Republic incorporated much of the current New York City area into the colony of New Netherland. In 1636, as the Dutch was expanding outward from present-day Manhattan, Dutch settlers founded the town of Achtervelt and purchased around Jamaica Bay. Amersfoort was centered around the present-day intersection of Flatbush Avenue and Flatlands Avenue. Canarsie Indian leaders such as Penhawitz had signed three land agreements with Dutch settlers between 1636 and 1667, handing ownership of much of their historic land to the Dutch. Many of the tribe's members started moving away, and Dutch settlers rented the cornfields that had formerly belonged to the Indians. Much of the remaining land was located in the present-day neighborhood of Canarsie. The first European settler in the area was Pieter Claesen Wyckoff, a former indentured servant who built a house in Flatlands circa 1652. Wyckoff's house still stands along Clarendon Road, and it is believed to be the oldest structure in New York State.
In 1660, present-day Canarsie Point was given the name Vischers 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 Indians still managed the land at Canarsie until the English took over New Amsterdam. In 1665, Canarsie Indians signed a land agreement that gave total ownership of almost all their land to the Dutch. By the time the land agreement was signed, only three Native American families remained in the area. In 1670, Daniel Denton, a co-founder of the nearby town of Jamaica, wrote: "It is to be admired how strangely they have decreast by the Hand of God for since my time, when there were six towns, they are reduced to two small villages." Through 1684, the Dutch and the Native Americans had signed twenty-two deeds regarding the sale of different plots of land in Flatlands. By the beginning of the 18th century, the only Canarsie Indians living in the New York City area were a few small groups in the town of Canarsie, as well as at Gerritsen Beach and Staten Island. At this time, their ancestral land in Canarsie had been fragmented and sold off to different settlers. Some plots were subsequently merged to create large plantation-style farms. An observer noted in 1832 that "the Canarsie Indians are at this time totally extinct; not a single member of that ill-fated race is in existence". However, a few members still remained, albeit via mixed lineage. Joel Skidmore, the last member of the tribe through his mother's side, was a tax collector from the town of Flatlands who lived in Canarsie until he died in 1907.
The towns of Flatbush and Flatlands laid competing claims to the western shore of Fresh Creek, within present-day Canarsie. A 1685 confirmation of Flatlands' boundaries did not recognize this small patch of land; instead, this land was classified as part of New Lots, then a subdivision of Flatbush. This dispute continued into the 19th century, as seen by maps from 1797 and 1873. Through this time, Canarsie remained sparsely populated. In an 1852 map, Jeremiah Schenck and James Schenck were listed as the only two landowners at Canarsie Point. They each owned of land. The only road in the area was what would later be Rockaway Parkway. The only way to Canarsie was by taking a train to Jamaica and transferring to a stagecoach, where passengers would endure a "long and uncomfortable ride" through the marshy woodlands that the road winded through.
Seaside resort
The Brooklyn and Rockaway Beach Railroad, which opened on October 21, 1865, offered train service from the Long Island Rail Road at the East New York station to a pier at Canarsie Landing, very close to the current junction of Rockaway Parkway and the Belt Parkway. The railroad built a pier extending into Jamaica Bay, which was used for lumber deliveries and was later enlarged. Less than a year later, in summer 1866, the railroad started operating a ferry to Rockaway Beach, marking the start of the area's transformation into a summer beach resort. That year, there were ten daily round trips along the Canarsie railroad, but only three on the Rockaway ferry, so vacationers traveling to the Rockaways via the railroad and ferry would often stay on Canarsie Landing for a few hours. Railroad service was increased in 1867, with trains running every hour on weekdays and every half hour on Sundays; the railroad handled 122,567 passengers that year.Five hotels soon opened on the Canarsie shore, starting with Bay View House in July 1867. In addition, restaurants and saloons began operating along Canarsie Landing. An 1867 account from a Brooklyn Daily Eagle correspondent stated that there were two railroads: the Canarsie steam dummy, which ran only to East New York, and the Nostrand Avenue Line, which connected with other streetcar lines that ran across Brooklyn. The correspondent wrote that "it has ample hotel accommodations for boarders or casual visitors, and all it needs is a good roadway along the waterside for promenade and drive." The next year, an article from the Eagle noted that although Canarsie still had a reputation for being a fisherman's village, it "will be largely patronized as soon as people get the means of going there". German, Dutch, Scottish, and Irish settlers started moving to Canarsie in large numbers during the 1870s.
Ferry service remained infrequent because any increase to ferry service would require new vessels, and in order to do that, Jamaica Bay would need to be dredged at a very high cost. At the time, the bay was a few inches deep during low tide, and a narrow, channel stretched across the bay. The Canarsie Line employed steamboats, which were able to make a round trip in two hours and navigate the bay at low tide. During its early history, the route used steamers with a capacity of 250 passengers; later boats had larger capacity. In 1878, there were two proposals to create a more frequent transportation service between Canarsie and the Rockaways, but neither was implemented. One proposal entailed extending a railroad trestle into Jamaica Bay to shorten the ferry trip, while the other involved constructing a narrow-gauge railway that ran to Broad Channel, Queens. By that year, a rectangular peninsula extended into the bay. In 1880, the New York, Woodhaven and Rockaway Railroad constructed a trestle across the bay and started operating service across it. White's Iron Steamboats, which sailed from Manhattan directly to the Rockaways, started operating two years later. Despite the existence of two competitors, the Canarsie railroad saw a healthy continued patronage because many passengers wanted to go to Canarsie itself.
The success of the Canarsie railroad and the variety of activities available at Canarsie Point both contributed to that area's prosperity. In the late 1860s, a boat-rental company opened in Canarsie, and by 1880, there were ten such companies, with each company owning 50 boats on average. Rentals ranged from $5 to $7 on weekdays, and from $7 to $10 on weekends. An 1882 newspaper article observed that after traveling to Canarsie "through a tract of country that looked like one vast lawn of green velvet", visitors could hire yachts or rowboats, or just breathe the fresh air. In 1883, a large double-decker barge for theatrical and musical performances, called the "Floating Pavilion", was permanently anchored off the Canarsie shore. The depth of the bay was only deep at this point, making it suitable for bathing. A stage extended into the water for the performers, while bathhouses were placed on the barge's lower tier. The steamer Edith Peck regularly traveled between the shore and the barge. Summer bungalows were also built along the bay shore, especially east of Canarsie Landing in an area called Sand Bay. Since the land was submerged during low tide, many of these houses were built on stilts. Electric lighting was installed in 1892 in a bid to attract visitors at night as well.
Canarsie also grew into a fishing hub by the late 19th century. In 1850, there were 75 fishermen in Flatlands, compared to 191 other individuals who worked in agriculture. By 1880, there were 200 fishermen in Flatlands, of which around 90% lived in Canarsie. In an 1865 account, 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". Boatbuilding also became popular: the number of boatbuilders in Canarsie grew from one in 1868 to eight in 1887. Much of the boats built in Canarsie were small rowboats, but some of them were large sloops. A 1900 magazine article described the Canarsie bay shore as "a level expanse of marshy meadowland indented with shallow inlets and dotted with boathouses, fishing huts, and boat builders' cabins perched high and dry on wooden piles." Visitors could rent a rowboat and catch fish at Ruffle Bar or other locations within Jamaica Bay. If these visitors had enough money, they could rent a large sloop and head to the open ocean to fish.