Every neighbourhood has a complex history but, Canarsie’s is perhaps the most complex in New York. Canarsie has undergone a monumental but by New York standards, slow transformation from a Dutch farming community to a vibrant West Indian community.
“Canarsie, which is located between Paerdegat Basin on the west (Paerdegat is a British corruption of Dutch words meaning “horse gate”) Jamaica Bay on the southeast, Fresh Creek Basin on the east and (this is my determination) Foster Avenue on the north, has been settled for thousands of years. It was first occupied by the Indian tribe that gave the neighbourhood its moniker, the Canarsees.”
“The name “Canarsees” etymology is in dispute, but it some scholars of Native American tongues say it means ‘fenced land’ or ‘fenced place.’ Beginning in the 1600s, years of warring with the invading Dutch took their toll on the Indians in western Long Island; most of the Canarsees retreated east and today most of the descendants of the Canarsees can be found at the Poospatuck Reservation, near Patchogue in eastern Long Island. The reservation numbered but 271 in the 2000 Census.”
“The first European to make a permanent home in the Canarsie area was Dutchman Peter Claesen Wyckoff, who arrived in 1652 after several years of indentured servitude in Albany.”
The home that he built that year at Canarsie’s outskirts, at today’s Clarendon Road and Ralph Avenue still stands. The Canarsees are part of the tribe that are supposed to have sold the island of Manhattan for twenty four dollars.
Prior to the early 20th Century, most of Canarsie east of Rockaway Parkway (which was laid out in 1870) was marshland. The Vanderveer family operated a tidal grist mill beginning in 1750 throughout the 19th Century, and farming and fishing were the main activities until the Brooklyn and Rockaway Beach Railroad was built in 1865 as a way to connect to steamboat service taking passengers to the Rockaway peninsula. But, Canarsie itself, with access to Jamaica Bay, became an option for seaside recreation as well.
A neighbourhood anchor is Holy Family Roman Catholic Church at Rockaway Parkway and Flatlands Avenue, which was constructed in 1950.
The Thomas Jefferson Democratic Club, still maintains its clubhouse on a quiet, tree-lined street in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn. The clubhouse was the nerve center from which Meade H. Esposito, the once-powerful Brooklyn Democratic chief, oversaw his borough.
Once mostly white, it has been seeking new blood among some predominantly black and Hispanic civic groups.
Map of the Village of Canarsie
John L. Sampson, a first-term State Senator and the club’s most prominent black member, said it had added new black homeowners and Caribbean natives to its roster. The club ”understood the changing demographics of the area,” Mr. Sampson said, ”and wanted to make sure everyone knew there was room for them.”
Such efforts may help secure the group’s future. ”I think the club will continue to be a power force in Brooklyn politics,” Mr. Sampson said. (NY Times, October 17, 1999)
Now Canarsie is a strong Caribbean neighbourhood that is always celebrating its ethnicity. Caribbean restaurants and other shops crowd the main throughways and encircle the remnants of the old neighbourhood. Once established as a center for the people of the islands West Indian people have flocked to the middle class enclave. West Indians make up almost all of the residents of Canarsie and don’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon.
Sources:
http://forgotten-ny.com/2008/07/canarsie-brooklyn-part-1
http://query.nytimes.com/
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