The Rise of West Indian Crown Heights: Brooklyn’s Great Caribbean Neighborhood

The Rise of West Indian Crown Heights: Brooklyn’s Great Caribbean Neighborhood How did a Brooklyn neighborhood bought a hundred dollars at a time become the capital of Caribbean America? This is the rise and fall of West Indian Crown Heights, the Brooklyn, New York neighborhood where families from Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Barbados, Haiti, Guyana, Grenada and Saint Vincent turned rows of brownstones and limestone row houses into a home that felt like every island at once. We start on Crow Hill, with Weeksville, one of America’s earliest free Black communities, and Eastern Parkway, the grand boulevard Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux designed in the 1870s. Then come the Brooklyn Museum, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Ebbets Field and the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the arrival of the Lubavitch headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway in 1940. Next is the first wave of West Indian immigrants in Harlem, including the parents of Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress. Paule Marshall’s novel Brown Girl, Brownstones shows the Barbadian dream to “buy house.” The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act reopened the door, and families saved through sou-sou and partner savings circles to buy the homes that built Caribbean Crown Heights. Relive the West Indian American Day Carnival on Labor Day: Harlem’s 1947 street parade, Carlos Lezama and the West Indian American Day Carnival Association, the move to Eastern Parkway in 1971, J’ouvert at daybreak, mas bands in feathers and sequins, and the Panorama steelband competition behind the Brooklyn Museum. We visit 1028 St. Johns Place, the house that held Shirley Chisholm’s 1972 campaign headquarters and then the carnival’s headquarters. Walk down Nostrand Avenue again, past Gloria’s roti, Trinidad Golden Palace’s coconut buns, A&A Bake and Doubles, steel band panyards like Despers USA, and the mas camps. Finally, see how rising brownstone prices and gentrification changed Crown Heights, why the community moved toward East Flatbush and Canarsie, and what still remains today. Chapters: 00:00 Crown Heights: Brooklyn's Caribbean Capital 01:44 Crow Hill, Weeksville & Eastern Parkway 05:58 West Indians Arrive: Harlem & Shirley Chisholm 10:09 1965: The Great Caribbean Migration to Brooklyn 12:25 Sou-Sou & Partner: How $100 Bought a Brownstone 15:55 Birth of the West Indian Day Parade 18:37 1028 St. Johns Place: Chisholm HQ to Carnival HQ 19:45 J'ouvert & Labor Day on Eastern Parkway 22:55 Nostrand Avenue & Brooklyn's Steel Pan Nights 29:03 Hard Years & Healing 31:02 Gentrification: The Brownstone Twist 35:28 What Remains of Caribbean Crown Heights 36:49 Daybreak on Eastern Parkway Sources: Irma Watkins-Owens, Blood Relations: Caribbean Immigrants and the Harlem Community (Indiana University Press) Henry Goldschmidt, Race and Religion Among the Chosen People of Crown Heights (Rutgers University Press) Paule Marshall, Brown Girl, Brownstones (1959) NYC Department of City Planning, The Newest New Yorkers (2013) NYC Department of City Planning, Community District Profiles, 2010 and 2020 Census National Archives, Prologue Magazine Brooklyn Daily Eagle NYU, Crown Heights History Project Chabad.org Immigration History (University of Texas at Austin) Weeksville Heritage Center City Lore Suzanne Spellen, Brooklyn historian Brownstoner Gothamist NPR CBS News New York DNAinfo Hell Gate Amsterdam News theGrio Hoodline Pan On The Net Redfin