Community Board 5 Brooklyn

Community Board 5 Brooklyn

Community Board 5 Neighborhoods

Cypress Hills & City Line
Cypress Hills, named for the trees growing on hills in the area during the 19th century, is a community of mostly semi-attached two-story homes and narrow tree-lined streets located near the Brooklyn/Queens border.
Originally part of New Lots, the neighborhood was at one time called Union Place, after the Union Course Racetrack was built in 1821 just over the county line in Queens. The track was one of the nation's most famous until it was torn down in 1888. At around this time, the neighborhood flourished as a suburban area.
Construction of row houses began in the early 20th century, and by the 1930s, Cypress Hills was well developed. Today, the community is bustling from around the world, with residents originally from Haiti, Jamaica, India, and Lithuania.
Fulton Street is the main commercial thoroughfare in Cypress Hills. Residents here are fiercely proud of their small community; markers reading "Welcome to Cypress Hills" have been placed in all four local subway stations. Within and around the community are several well-known cemeteries, including the only national cemetery in New York City: the Cypress Hills Cemetery, constructed in 1848.
City Line, which lies to the south of Cypress Hills, received its name when Brooklyn was still a city, before the consolidation of Greater New York in 1898. In 1943 residents erected a war memorial at Liberty Avenue and Eldert Lane. Once Italian and Irish, the population has become predominantly Latin American, with some residents originating from the Caribbean and Guyana.
Just north of the intersection of Grant and McKinley Avenues stands St. Sylvester's Roman Catholic Church, where services are given in both Spanish and English. It is also an important community center. Liberty Avenue, site of the beloved but now-closed City Line Cinema, is the main commercial district in City Line.

Famous Facts
Cypress Hills was once the home of Dexter Park, a baseball stadium that held up to 10,000 fans of barnstorming teams from the old Negro League and legendary semi-pro teams, such as the Bushwicks, the House of David, and the New York Cubans. The ballpark was torn down in the 1950s.

East New York and Highland Park

The history of East New York begins back in the late 1600s, when the area was settled by the Dutch.
A vivid reminder of East New York's past is the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church (620 New Lots Avenue), which was erected in 1823 by local Dutch farmers who were tired of trekking to the Flatbush Reformed Church. This designated historic landmark had 12 descendants of the original Dutch settlers as parishioners in 1950; now it regularly has more than 200 worshippers, most of them African-American and Caribbean.
The community remained rural, like much of New York State, from the time
of its first settlers until 1835, when John Pitkin bought large tracts of land in
the area. His hope was to turn his property and its surroundings into a city
that would rival Manhattan.
Pitkin, a wealthy Connecticut merchant, named the area "East New York" to
suggest that it was the eastern extension of the city. A financial panic in 1837 dashed his hopes, however, and the population remained limited mostly to employees of Pitkin's shoe factory, at Williams and Pitkin Avenues. In 1852, when the Town of New Lots was incorporated into a city, it absorbed both East New York and the smaller community of Cypress Hills, as well as part of what later became Brownsville. In 1886, the entire area was annexed by the City of Brooklyn.
In the latter part of the 1800s, a large German population settled in the area. The opening of the Williamsburg Bridge in 1903 and the completion of the New Lots branch of the IRT subway in 1922 added to this growth. By 1940, the densely populated northern half of East New York, above New Lots Avenue, included many Jewish,
German, Italian, Russian, Polish, and Lithuanian immigrants.
Much of East New York was populated by the 1950s, but there were still large, undeveloped, rural pockets. Linden Boulevard, for example, had so many goat farmers that children referred to it as Nanny Goat Avenue. The 1960s brought a great deal of change to East New York, as more African Americans made their homes in the community.
Over the last 20 years, East New York has been on the upswing, with the development of new housing and increased business opportunities. The Council of East Brooklyn Churches, which launched its Nehemiah Housing Program in 1985 in neighboring Brownsville, is responsible for creating almost 1,000 apartments in East New York. The Local Development Corporation of East New York built additional housing. Federally
subsidized housing for the elderly, called the Vandalia Houses, was constructed. These projects are a few examples of the new homes in this neighborhood.
The community has also lured businesses back to the area through the East Brooklyn Industrial Park, a 44-block, 70-acre commercial center opened in 1980. Through the combined efforts of Local Development Corporation of East New York, the Borough President, and other government agencies, a variety of new firms have moved in and older firms have expanded.
The main commercial thoroughfares in East New York are Pitkin Avenue, New Lots Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue.
Near East New York is Highland Park, a community named for the 141-acre park at its northern edge. The area was developed in the second half of the 19th century; by the 1890s it was a large suburb. Most recently, the neighborhood has attracted many immigrants from Guyana, the Dominican Republic, and Jamaica. In addition,
the Lithuanian Cultural Center (355 Highland Boulevard) is frequented by the many Lithuanians living in the metropolitan area.
Famous Facts:
In an effort to thwart the British invasion of New York during the Battle of Brooklyn, the Colonial Army, led by General George Washington, established guard posts at several passes through the hilly countryside in the area. However, a pass in East New York, at the corner of Atlantic and Alabama Avenues, was not covered by the Colonials, who were unfamiliar with the area. Taking advantage of the lapse in the American defenses, the British easily captured the hill there on August 27, 1776, a victory that made possible the flanking maneuver that tipped the battle in favor of the British.

Starrett City, Spring Creek and New Lots

Starrett City -- officially called Starrett at Spring Creek -- is the largest federally funded housing project in the nation. It is also a world unto itself, with its own power plant, private security force and cable television station.
Built in the early 1970s on a tract of 153 acres along Jamaica Bay, Starrett consists of 46 apartment buildings of as many as 20 stories each, containing a total of nearly 6,000 apartments surrounded by ballfields, parks, shopping areas, medical centers, public schools and religious institutions. The development took its current name in 1989. Starrett at Spring Creek is today recognized as a model integrated community.
Spring Creek, the east central Brooklyn neighborhood in which Starrett is located, was given its name in 1973 by then Borough President Sebastian Leone at the suggestion of local organizations. In the 1980s a large number of Latin Americans and blacks from the Caribbean settled in Spring Creek and its environs, principally from the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Guyana. A small commercial area lies along Pennsylvania Avenue between Linden Boulevard and Flatlands Avenue.
New Lots, located in northeastern Brooklyn adjacent to East New York, has been fighting to advance since an 80 percent population turnover in the 1960s left storefronts empty and apartment buildings vacant and unattended. In the late 1970s, a number of federally subsidized housing projects were constructed; owner-operated homes have been built and rehabilitated. The Local Development Corporation of East New
York has worked to lure businesses back with the East Brooklyn Industrial Park. For a glimpse into the area's rich history as a Dutch farming community in the 1600s, visit the Dutch Reformed Church and Cemetery at Schenck and New Lots Avenues.