Brownsville began as Brown’s Village after the land in the area was bought by Charles S. Brown, who built 250 houses in 1865, creating a community of small cottages and shops surrounded by meadows and a dairy farm.
Because the area was inaccessible by sea and difficult to reach by land, the settlements remained small until 1887 when developer Aaron Kaplan purchased tracts of land and had tenement buildings built to encourage workers from Manhattan’s Lower East Side to relocate there.
The completion of the Fulton Street elevated railway and the Williamsburg Bridge prompted even more New Yorkers to make the jump to Brownsville, and by 1910, large buildings were overflowing with immigrant families. At one point, at least 75 percent of the residents were Jewish, giving the neighborhood the nickname “Jerusalem of America.”
However, African Americans eventually moved in from other neighborhoods and faced discrimination, reduced social services and little employment opportunities.
For the next two decades, Brownsville decayed, sporting abandoned buildings, vandalism and arson. The construction of high-rise houses in the 1950s and 1906s led to more overcrowding and poverty.
By the 1970s, the neighborhood finally began to revitalize with the help of local residents and merchants joining together to ease racial tensions and fight for affordable housing.
Between 1977 and 1985, more than a thousand housing units were built or renovated, leading the way for Brownsville’s modern-day rebuild.
