Ant New Yorkers (City folk) familiar with Canarsie in Brooklyn?

[bluestateguy]

I have this book on my shelf that one of my professors gave to me called "Canarsie: The Jews and Italians of Brooklyn Against Liberalism", by Jonathan Reider, Harvard University Press, 1985. It's all about how the Italians and Jews of Canarsie became very conservative, and in some cases racist, in the 1960's and 1970's. There was a very ferocious reaction to black and Hispanic movement into the neighborhood. I've been skimming it and reading excerpts lately, and it's very interesting.

What is Canarsie like now? Is it a good area? What is it's ethnic makeup today?

[Fredda Weinberg]

1. It was built on a garbage dump

My cousins (Jewish) used to live there and now, the African American director where I work does. You have a lot of 2 family homes and home owners tend to be more conservative and concerned about property values.

[BrklynLiberal]

3. I believe you are thinking of some other area. The Pennsylvania Ave exit

area off the Belt Parkway was built on reclaimed land that is adjacent to a garbage dump.I believe it is called Flatlands.
Canarsie is the Rockaway Parkway exit.

Canarsie was a middle class, Jewish and Italian neighborhood for decades. As the younger generations grew up and moved away, the neighborhood evolved to a minority, ethnic neighborhood.
This was done with the help of, and for the profit of, what was called at the time, "BLOCKBUSTERS". They went around the neighborhood spreading fear and trying to buy houses for low prices. As rumors spread, people fled, selling their houses for low prices. These unprincipled real estate people then cashed in by selling the houses to minority families for much more than they had paid for them, and in the process, totally undermining any sense of neighborhood that had existed up until then.

Famous Facts About Canarsie

Located in southeast Brooklyn, Canarsie takes its name from the Canarsie Indians, members of the Algonquian linguistic group, who originally inhabited the area.

"The area that is known as Canarsie was originally part of the Dutch town of Flatlands. When the Dutch arrived, they named the area after the Native American Indians living, the Canarsees. But the exact meaning of the name Canarsie is still somewhat of a mystery. Some claim that is derived from canard, the French word for duck. Still others believe that the Native Americans coined the name after the fenced built by the Dutch farmers, using the word Canarsee.

At least three churches in the neighborhood date to the nineteenth century, including Canarsie Reformed Church on Conklin Avenue (1877), Grace Protestant Church of Brooklyn New York (1840), and Canarsie Plymouth Congregational Church (1877) on East 96th Street, founded by a colony of blacks whose ancestors had been slaves in the area.

Abbracciamento on the Pier, a restaurant that has been on Canarsie Pier for more than 13 years, sports a 900-foot dock so that diners can arrive by boat or car."

[Fredda Weinberg]

5. No, my aunt told me about the neighborhood she lived in

http://www.indypressny.org/article.php3?ArticleID=2215

Canarsie includes sub-neighborhoods such as the Paedargats, Seaview and Old Mill Basin, which is adjacent to East Flatbush. Formerly marshland the city used as landfill, the area is full of mostly two-family, brick structures

[adriennui]

2. the jews moved out of canarsie to the burbs

when all this was occurring the italians were the dominant ethnic group.

i think canarsie is mostly non-white immigrants and ethnics who couldn't afford to move.

[BrklynLiberal]

4. See post #3.