Bedford--Stuyvesant is a neighborhood in the north central portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Formed in 1930, the neighborhood is part of Brooklyn Community Board 3, Brooklyn Community Board 8, and Brooklyn Community Board 16. The neighborhood is patrolled by the NYPD's 79th and 81st precincts. In the City Council, the district is represented by Albert Vann of the 36th Council District. Bedford--Stuyvesant is bordered by Flushing Avenue to the north (bordering Williamsburg); Classon Avenue to the west (bordering Clinton Hill); Broadway to the east (bordering Bushwick); and Fulton Street to the south (bordering Crown Heights and Brownsville). It is served by Postal Service zip codes 11205, 11206, 11216, 11221, 11233 and 11238. For decades, it has been a cultural center for Brooklyn's black population. Following the construction of the subway line between Harlem and Bedford in 1936, African Americans left an overcrowded Harlem for more housing availability in Bedford--Stuyvesant. From Bedford--Stuyvesant, African Americans have since moved into the surrounding areas of Brooklyn, such as East New York, Crown Heights, Brownsville and Fort Greene. The main north-south thoroughfare is Nostrand Avenue, but the main shopping street is Fulton Street, which lies above the main subway line for the area (A C trains). Fulton Street runs east-west the length of the neighborhood and intersects high-traffic streets including Bedford Avenue, Nostrand Avenue and Stuyvesant Avenue. Bedford--Stuyvesant is actually made up of four neighborhoods: Bedford, Stuyvesant Heights, Ocean Hill and Weeksville. Part of Clinton Hill used to be considered part of Bedford--Stuyvesant. Early history The neighborhood name is a combination of the names of the Village of Bedford and the Stuyvesant Heights neighborhood. The name Stuyvesant derives from Peter Stuyvesant, the last governor of the colony of New Netherland. In pre-revolutionary Kings County, Bedford was the first major settlement east of the then Village of Brooklyn on the ferry road to the town of Jamaica and eastern Long Island. With the building of the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad in 1833, along Atlantic Avenue, Bedford was established as a railroad station near the intersection of current Atlantic Avenue and Franklin Avenues. In 1836, the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad was taken over by the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR). In 1878, the Brooklyn, Flatbush and Coney Island Railway established its northern terminal with a connection to the LIRR at the same location. Built in 1863, the Capitoline Grounds were the home of the Brooklyn Atlantics baseball team. The Grounds were bordered by Nostrand Ave., Halsey St., Marcy Ave., and Putnam Ave. During the winters, the operators would flood the area and open an ice-skating arena. The Grounds were demolished in 1880. Establishment as an urban neighborhood In the last decades of the 19th century, with the advent of electric trolleys and the Fulton Street Elevated, Bedford Stuyvesant became a working class and middle class bedroom community for those working in downtown Brooklyn and Manhattan in New York City. At that time, most of the pre-existing wooden homes were destroyed and replaced with brownstone rowhouses. Ethnicity of residents African Americans migrated from the Southern United States in the early-to-mid 20th century, pursuing what they perceived as the racial equality and freedoms of the north. This movement is known as the Great Migration. Many African-Americans moved North in search of new industry. The Bedford--Stuyvesant neighborhood became a popular landing ground for African-Americans. To this day, it is widely known as the black cultural mecca of Brooklyn, similar to what Harlem is to Manhattan. As of 2010, Bed-Stuy was 70.1% Black, 15% Hispanic, 10.1% White, 1.8% Asian, and 3% all other. Bedford Stuyvesant is a predominantly African-American neighborhood, though there are significant populations of Puerto Ricans and Dominican Americans in the eastern portion near Broadway, and Caucasians in the western portion towards Downtown Brooklyn. 1960s--1980s Gang wars erupted in 1961 in Bedford--Stuyvesant. During the same year, Alfred E. Clark of The New York Times referred to it as "Brooklyn's Little Harlem." One of the first urban riots of the era took place there. Social and racial divisions in the city contributed to the tensions, which climaxed when attempts at community control in the nearby Ocean Hill-Brownsville school district pitted some black community residents and activists (from both inside and outside the area) against teachers, the majority of whom were white, many of them Jewish. Charges of racism were a common part of social tensions at the time. Attribution: Article text available under CC-BY-SA Public domain image source in video

• published: 14 Nov 2013
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