East Flatbush, Brooklyn

East Flatbush is a 105,000 residential neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The area is part of Brooklyn Community Board 17 East Flatbush is patrolled by the NYPD's 67th Precinct.

Description

PS 181, Tilden and New York Avenues

As with many neighborhoods in Brooklyn, the borders of East Flatbush are subjective, but its northern border is roughly at Empire Boulevard and East New York Avenue east of East 91st Street, its southern border is in the vicinity of the Long Island Rail Road Bay Ridge Branch, its eastern border is roughly at East 98th Street and its western border is Nostrand Avenue as per all historic maps.

In summer 2006, the New York City Department of Transportation co-named a portion of Church Avenue from Remsen Avenue to East 98th Street in East Flatbush as "Bob Marley Boulevard".

East Flatbush is the home of the former General George W. Wingate High School and Gov. Samuel J. Tilden High School. It is also home to three major hospitals, Kings County Hospital, SUNY Downstate Medical Center, and Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center. The former Congregation Beth Israel, now known as Mt. Zion Church of God 7th Day, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.

East Flatbush generally is very similar in nature to neighboring Flatbush; so much so that some consider the two neighborhoods to be the same community. Both are predominantly West Indian and working class. The one slight difference is that Flatbush has a higher percentage of White and Asian residents than East Flatbush. While the demographics are similar, East Flatbush does not have as much access to the New York City Subway as Flatbush. The BMT Brighton Line (B Q trains) and the IRT Nostrand Avenue Line (2 5 trains) both have stations located in Flatbush, but the latter only skirts the borders of East Flatbush. Many East Flatbush residents take a train and a bus to commute to and from work.

While crime generally had always been a problem in the community (e.g., a number of stores on Flatbush, East Flatbush and Church Avenues were looted during the New York City blackout of 1977), a drug epidemic ravaged East Flatbush during the 1980s and early 1990s, mainly in Vandeveer Estates Apartments 1952-2005 now known as Flatbush Gardens 2005–present was never own by New York City Housing Authority properties. Residents nicknamed the intersection of Foster and Nostrand avenues "the Front Page" because the drug murders there often ended up on the front pages of local papers. The area to the south they called "the Back Page" the intersection of Foster between New York & Brooklyn avenues because its many murders went unnoticed. The area around the Nostrand playground had various gangs : Crips, Jamaicans, Haitians, Trinidadians and Grenadians, particularly notorious for drug turf wars, shootouts, and pitbull fights.

Demographics

The area was populated post World War II predominantly by immigrant Jews and Italians, then in the 1960s by African Americans, but most recently has seen many West Indian immigrants such as Guyanese, Haitians, Jamaicans, St.Lucians, Trinidadians, Grenadians, Vincentians, Bajans, Panamaians and Dominicans groups coming to the area. Within its confines is the Holy Cross Cemetery, Brooklyn, which is located at 3620 Tilden Avenue. While some residents are affluent, East Flatbush is mostly populated by working-class Brooklynites. Similar to other eastern Brooklyn neighborhoods, blacks predominate East Flatbush. The area has a population of about 105,000 and is 91.4% Black or African-American and 51% foreign born, the majority of whom are from the Caribbean. Considering this data, East Flatbush has been noted as being the single largest West Indian neighborhood in all of New York City and America as a whole.

In 2010 about 105,000 people were living in East Flatbush According to the 2000 U.S. Census, the demographics were 91.4% Black or African American, 4.9% Hispanic or Latino, 3.1% White, 1.0% Asian, 0.2% Native American, 1.6% were some other race and 2.6% were two or more races. 72.8% of the residents are High School graduates or higher, 16.3% have a Bachelor's degree or higher. 22.4% of the population speak a language other than English at home. The median household income in 1999 was $37,341, the median family income in 1999 was $43,776 and the per capita income in 1999 was $16,026. 16.0% of the families are below poverty level.

Schools

Schools located in East Flatbush include:

• Cristo Rey High School (Brooklyn), a catholic college preparatory high school located at East 37 Street and Foster Avenue.
• Samuel J. Tilden High School
• Nazareth Regional High School, a co-educational private Catholic high school located at East 57th Street and Avenue D.
• St. Francis of Assisi School

Notable residents

Notable current and former residents of East Flatbush include:

• MC Lyte, rapper
• Busta Rhymes, rapper
• Bobby Shmurda, rapper
• Rowdy Rebel, rapper
• Shyne, rapper
• Roosevelt Chapman, basketball player
• Bruce Pasternack, businessman
• Flatbush Zombies, hip-hop group
• Fu-Schnickens, hip-hop group
• Edwidge Danticat, writer
• Julia A. James, D.Phil., Rhodes Scholar and HIV prevention scientist
• Michael Jordan, professional basketball player (born in East Flatbush, left at age of 2)
• Romona Moore, murdered college student
• Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York
• Jamie Hector, actor
• Dean Silvers, film director, film producer, screenwriter, and author
• Michael K. Williams, actor
• Joey Bada$$, rapper
• The Underachievers, rappers
• Jidenna, "Wondaland Records" Rapper/Singer