Once a popular beach resort overlooking Jamaica Bay, Canarsie has become known as a stable middle-class neighborhood filled with suburban life. Tucked away to the east, the land remained rural longer than most Brooklyn neighborhoods before developers eventually realized its potential.
Originally part of the Dutch town of Flatlands, the land was named after the Native Americans living there, the Canarsees. The entire area remained quiet until the late 1880s, with fishermen casting into Jamaica Bay and farmers harvesting the soil.
Its period of growth began in the 1860s when the Brooklyn and Rockaway Beach Railroad was built, drawing visitors to the shore and soon-to-be area of a resort. Hotels popped up, and beer gardens followed as German-Americans from East New York moved alongside Dutch, Scottish and Irish immigrants.
In 1907, Golden City Amusement Park opened where the Canarsie Pier is today, and growth continued in the 1920s when Italian and Jewish families began to buy year-round homes.
Hard times came, though, when the Depression increased pollution, putting a stop to fishing in Jamaica Bay. The amusement park then burned down, and the entire site was later leveled for construction of the Belt Parkway.
The population eventually grew with the construction of public housing projects, but segregationist violence flared when black residents moved in. With integration in the 1980s, more immigrants from the Caribbean settled, opening up more Caribbean-owned stores alongside the suburban spirit of the neighborhood.
