Crown Heights was largely rural until the late 19th century with the exception of the “Weeksville” settlement, founded by free slaves in 1838. The majority of Crown Heights began seeing development thanks to the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883 and the subsequent creation of subway lines. into the Borough. Development continued to boom into the early 20th century. The western half of Crown Heights became known for its elegant architecture show casing Victorian, Italianate, and Renaissance Revival styles, especially along the main thoroughfare of Eastern Parkway, a tree-lined boulevard designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. Crown Heights quickly became a very fashionable neighborhood and a second home for Manhattan’s growing bourgeois class . However, as the neighborhood continued to push eastwards the character of the streets became very working class with many rowhouses constructed without ornamentation. While the neighborhood initially had a predominantly white population, by the 1930s large numbers of Ashkenazi Jewish families moved in the neighborhood along with many African American thanks to the Great Migration. By the mid-20th century, Crown Heights had become one of the most significant African American communities in New York City and also attracted many immigrants from the Caribbean. While Crown Heights still contains a sizable African American and Jewish population, it like many other Brooklyn neighborhoods has witnessed a significant amount of gentrification, especially in its western section. Currently the neighborhood has great economic and racial diversity. We shall see if this continues in the upcoming decades.
From an urban perspective this is a solid neighborhood with great walkability thanks to the 5 subway lines that service the neighborhood, convenient access to Dwtn Brooklyn, Lower Manhattan, and Midtown, great bike infrastructure, and several business districts (Washington, Franklin, Nostrand, Kingston, Utica, and Empire Avenue) serving the neighborhood. Crown Heights also has a plethora of walkable well-rated schools, great access to Prospect Park and other recreational amenities, and continues to see its crime drop. The eastern half of the neighborhood is still quite gritty which makes sense as gentrification forces are mainly coming from the west and this section of the neighborhood was built with much less elegant housing stock as the western half. Crown Heights has a significant # of permanent affordable housing units in its many mid-century housing towers and a large number of stabilized rental units. Hopefully these restrictions are strong enough to keep this a diverse community. Atlantic Avenue, the northern border, could use much better urban in-fill as the corridor hosts many autocentric and industrial uses.
Click here to view my Crown Heights album on Flickr
URBAN STRENGTHS:
* Solid density at nearly 60K residents per square mile.
* Solid ADA and sidewalk infrastructure but about 35% of curb cuts are not ADA standard.
* Excellent connectivity.
* Great access to 3 Dwtns only a 30 Min subway ride to Dwtn Brooklyn, and 40 mins to both Lower Manhattan and Midtown.
* Excellent bike infrastructure including plenty of dedicated bike lanes and bike share stations.
* Great racial and economic diversity. Crown Heights is still holding on to a large African American population and middle class households even after gentrification.
* Really solid schools with a great array of generally well rated public and charter schools covering all age groups and tons of smaller private schools.
* Solid park amenities thanks to Prospect Park on the neighborhood’s western edge with convenient access to the Brooklyn Zoo and Botanical Gardens. Decent number of small and medium parks spread through the neighborhood and a recreation center with an indoor pool.
* Solid urban form throughout most of Crown Heights. Atlantic Ave has the worst urban form with a significant amount of autocentric and industrial uses. All the north-south biz district where pretty solid. Urban form along Empire was generally good with a couple rough blocks.
* Good historic architecture especially the ornate brownstones in the western half of the neighborhood and in the Crown Heights Historic District. The eastern half of Crown Heights is characterized by much more working class rowhouses and is generally grittier. Modern In-fill generally has solid urban form but not particularly cutting edge in Crown Heights and lots of bland mid-century residential towers here.
* Lots of business districts running through Crown Heights creating great mixed-use fabric and plenty of residential corners filled with storefronts.
* Good cultural amenities including plenty of restaurants, bars & cafes, several art galleries. The food & beverage amenities tend to be focus in the more gentrified western edge. Also a good array of museums including the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, the Weeksville Heritage Center, and the Brooklyn Art Museum. Also some live music venues and night clubs, and convenient access to the Botanical Garden and Zoo.
* Great range of rentals although pretty expensive. Studios lease btwn 1.8K-3K, 1-beds btwn 2K-4.5K, 2-beds btwn 2.3K-7K, and plenty of 3-beds leasing btwn 2.7K-7K. Significantly amount of the rental supply is dedicated affordable rentals or rent stabilized as 4/5s of rental product least under 2K.
* Solid retail amenities including several supermarkets (concentrated in the gentrified western half) and plenty of small and medium grocerias (concentrated in the eastern half), plenty drug stores and hardware stores, a decent # of boutiques/clothing/gift stores, several bookstores, several home goods and furniture stores, plenty of gyms and dessert joints, a local public library and several post offices, tons of churches, no major hospital but plenty of medical centers and doctor’s offices here.
URBAN WEAKNESSES:
- Street canopy is better in the most historic western half of Crown Heights and thins out in the eastern half of the neighborhood, which historically is the more working class section.
- Crown Heights has come a long way the past decade or so with safety. Likely still rougher than Inner Brooklyn neighborhoods, especially the eastern edge of the neighborhood. Also a fair amount of grit in this section of Crown Heights.
- For sale housing is expensive but relatively reasonable compared to Inner Brooklyn neighborhoods. Studios and 1-bed condos sell btwn 300K-1.5M, 2-beds range btwn 350K-2.5M, 3 & 4-beds are quite reasonable comparatively selling anywhere btwn 650K-3M with a handful selling btwn 3-4M. Higher end product is concentrated along the western edge of Crown Heights.”
Evaluating our Urban Communities [with a focus on America] 