A Brief History of Flatbush
Lots of people who have never stepped foot in New York have heard of Flatbush. Like a storied American family, the name rings a bell. Baseball buffs remember Flatbush as the original home of the Dodgers. For some Americans, it brings to mind a catchy TV jingle. And since the 1990s, people with a Caribbean background have known Flatbush as a unique melting pot of island cultures.
This site is made to satisfy the curiosity of outsiders, but its more important purpose is for the people of Flatbush to have a place to learn about their history. No matter when someone lived here, they’ll usually tell you that now, it’s nothing like “back when.” But when you read more about the history of the people who have lived in this place, the communities they created, and the things they built, you may be surprised at the similarities you find.
A flat piece of land between the city and the beach, Flatbush is a place that feels extremely New York yet somehow separate from New York altogether — a small town in THE big city. Its boundaries ever-shifting, Flatbush at one time contained the present (overlapping) Brooklyn neighborhoods of Flatbush, East Flatbush, Farragut, Fiske Terrace, West Midwood, South Midwood, Ditmas Park, Prospect Park South, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Brownsville, and parts of Little Caribbean, Little Haiti, Crown Heights, Kensington, Midwood, and East Midwood. (Check out the maps section to see how it’s changed.)
The original stewards of this land were the Lenape people (now part of the Delaware tribe), who called their home “Lenapehoking.” They found food and gathered together here for thousands of years, forming a path through the woods, fields, and salt flats. The path would one day be paved, straightened, and named Flatbush Ave.
The name “Flatbush” comes from the Dutch, who seized the land from the Lenape in the 1660s and called it Vlacke Bos (meaning, basically, “a flat area with bushes”) interchangeably with Midwout (or “middle wood”). The Dutch government, also establishing the nearby port city of New Amsterdam, gave the colonizers money to build a church, and instructed them to build their homes together along the native path in order to ward off attack from other European settlers.
Generations of Dutch — 250 years’ worth — lived on the land, enslaving and then hiring African people to farm it. But no one could stop the spread of New York City, and soon steam trains came to Flatbush, bringing with them the first suburbanites. They paid to build the beautiful homes that line Stratford, Westminster, and the other roads of what we now call Victorian Flatbush. The trains turned into subways, and suburbs gave way to urban landscape; Flatbush Ave. now contains one of the longest commercial stretches in all of New York City.
The area historically known as Flatbush contains 7 New York historic districts, 14 New York City registered landmarks, and more ghost signs than you can count. Like water receding to reveal layers of pressed rock, its history is clearly on display (if you only take the time to notice): a famous diner’s “dimestore art deco” decorates a bank branch; a vintage hitching post props up a garage sale sign; and in Flatbush’s grand old movie theaters of the 1950s you can find a Target, numerous religious congregations, and a state-of-the-art concert hall. Occasionally, deeper truths are unveiled: When a historic school was torn down, an African Burial Ground was revealed.
Walking down Flatbush Ave is as instructive as a history book: its path worn by native people, the names of Dutch slaveholders, its cross-streets. Although Flatbush is unique in the United States for its particular mixture of people piled on top of each other in one place, the history of Flatbush mirrors the history of the country as a whole: it tells stories of freedom and oppression; immigration, migration, and assimilation; and triumph over racism, colonialism, and sometimes even the Yankees. But in addition to those big narratives, its history also tells the smaller stories: things people did with friends, how they got around town, and made money; stories about nostalgia and the comfort of home; and a tale about the time the circus came to town.
Although it’s well-known throughout the United States and even the world, this land made strong by the Lenape holds many secrets. I hope you will follow along as I uncover them.