Crown Heights History: Crown Heights was Built for Rich People, Or Was it?

This series on Crown Heights History has been compiled by @crownheightshistory, a born and raised Crown Heightser, and shows some of the ongoing research taking place.

Every Crown Heightser Claims: Crown Heights was built for rich people. That was Crown Heights North of Eastern Parkway until 1900. More south had a bad name and was called Pigtown; Poor Italians and Irish lived in shanties. A place of farms and uneven roads.

In the 1920s religious Jews would travel to the farms in Pigtown to get milk since Kosher supervised dairy products were not yet available in New York. Newspapers would often write easy stories about Pigtown and follow their frequent criminal acts and happenings.

Giuliani‘s family lived there. Rudy did not like Shpielman. Anyway a few developments were created to counter that narrative. In 1910 a brand new stately hospital was erected on Crown Street between Albany and Troy; it purportedly had views of the city.

In 1903 Union Street between Kingston and Brooklyn block of single family houses a development advertised as ‘clean-town’. In 1912 they put up Ebbets Field which changed the game.

Malbone street was changed to Empire Blvd and Crown Heights was in full swing. An era of middle to upper class multi family houses were developed every few years as Union Street, President Street, Carrol Street, Crown Street (1916), Montgomery Street was cut through. Kingston Ave was a two way street with trolleys and was complete in 1927/28.