CROWN HEIGHTS, PROSPECT HEIGHTS & PROSPECT-LEFFERTS GARDENS
Borough: Brooklyn
District: 17
Location
This central Brooklyn cluster of neighborhoods is located south of Atlantic Avenue, bound to the
west by Flatbush and Ocean Avenues; to the east by Ralph, New York, East New York and Utica
Avenues; and to the south by Clarkson Avenue.
• Crown Heights is north of Eastern Parkway, east of Washington Avenue
• Prospect-Lefferts Gardens is south of Eastern Parkway
• Prospect Heights is north of Eastern Parkway, west of Washington Avenue
Transportation
A, C, B, Q, S, 2, 3, 4, 5 Trains
B12, B15, B17, B43, B44, B45, B46, B49, B69, B71 Buses
Long Island Railroad
School Information
There are 36 schools located within Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Crown Heights, and Prospect
Heights. The 24 schools listed below have three or more Fellows currently teaching there,
averaging more than five Fellows per school. Nearly all of the schools qualify for Title I Funds.
More than 77 percent of students in these schools on average are eligible for the free lunch
program (see below). The majority of these schools meet the Adequate Yearly Progress
standards measured by New York State Department of Education. For more information about
specific schools, you may visit the school report card section of the Department of Education’s
website at http://schools.nyc.gov/daa.
Fellows who work in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Crown Heights, and Prospect Heights tend to
live throughout Brooklyn and downtown Manhattan. Please see the Relocation Guide for
information on finding a place to live.
Please visit www.nycteachingfellows.org/mypersonalinfo/downloads/SchoolsBriefDescriptions.pdf for more information on
Title I Funds, Free Lunch Program, and Adequate Yearly Progress.
School Type
Grade
Levels
Student
Enrollment
Paul Robeson High School
K625
High School
9 - 12
1,434
3
81.60%
Clara Barton High School
K600
High School
9 - 12
2,259
18
62.70%
Acorn Community High School
K498
High School
9 - 12
812
14
63.60%
Brooklyn HS For Music & Theatre
K548
High School
9 - 11
397
4
66.20%
Brooklyn HS For Science and The Environment
K547
High School
9 - 11
452
11
75.70%
High School for Public Service
K546
High School
9 - 11
397
8
61.50%
Prospect Heights High School
K524
High School
9 - 10
329
7
88.50%
M.S. 2
K002
Middle School
6-8
611
4
85.00%
M.S. 61 Gladstone H. Atwell School
K061
Middle School
6-8
1,004
4
93.80%
M.S. 390 Maggie L. Walker School
K390
Middle School
6-8
221
3
53.80%
P.S. 161 The Crown School
K161
K-8 School
K-8
972
9
66.90%
P.S. 138
K138
K-8 School
K-8
1,009
3
81.80%
M.S. 394K
K394
K-8 School
PK - 8
799
6
90.20%
P.S. 92 Adrian Hegeman School
K092
Elementary
PK - 5
766
3
95.70%
P.S. 241 Emma L. Johnston School
K241
Elementary
PK - 5
613
6
85.40%
K375
Elementary
PK - 5
542
6
41.30%
P.S. 375 Jackie Robinson
Number of
Fellows
Percentage
Eligible for Free
Lunch
School
Code
School Name
K009
Elementary
PK - 5
529
7
70.60%
P.S. 22
K022
Elementary
PK - 5
587
4
97.60%
P.S. 167 Parkway School
K167
Elementary
PK - 5
592
3
84.40%
P.S. 191 Paul Robeson School
K191
Elementary
PK - 5
342
3
94.70%
P.S. 289 George V. Brower School
K289
Elementary
PK - 5
833
4
87.90%
P.S. 316 Elijah G. Stroud School
K316
Elementary
PK - 5
384
3
64.70%
P.S. 335 Granville T. Woods School
K335
Elementary
PK - 5
468
3
85.40%
K141
District 75
PK - 8
378
28
88.10%
P.S. 9 Teunis G. Bergen School
P.S. 141
Neighborhood Demographic Data
Demographic data from 2000 New York City Community District Census Data
Median Household Income
$29,260
Total population under age 18
Percent of Population
27.8%
Ethnicity
Black/African American
Hispanic Origin
White
Asian or Pacific Islander
Other
77.2%
9.3
9.1
1.2
3.2
Total foreign born population
38.4%
Brief History of Crown Heights, Prospect-Lefferts Gardens and Prospect Heights
In the 1600s central Brooklyn was settled by Dutch farmers and broken into smaller, sparsely
populated settlements called Midwout, Crow Hill, and the town of Flatbush. Starting in the 1700s
and throughout the Revolutionary War, Crow Hill became a haven town for freed slaves. The
population greatly shifted in the late 1800s, when mostly Italian, Irish, and Jewish commuters
moved in with the advent of rail links and ferries between Brooklyn and Manhattan.
The building and finishing of Prospect Park in the 1870s also attracted a lot of newcomers. The
526-acre park to the east and slightly south of the settlements was designed by Frederick Law
Olmsted and Calvert Vaux and included the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The area directly north
became a real estate hotspot for its proximity to the park and soon developed an urban quality,
officially gaining the name Prospect Heights in 1892.
East of the park in 1893 a descendent of the original Dutch settlers, James Lefferts, divided the
Lefferts estate into Lefferts Manor, a 600-home town restricted by deed covenants to singlefamily homeowners. The deed also restricted house size and barred commercial development. In
1979, the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the area a historic district. The
community became known as Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, drawing its name from Prospect Park,
the Lefferts family, and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
Having maintained its rural quality longer than its neighbors, the hilly section known as Crow Hill
was finally cut through for the making of Crown Street in 1916. The area became Crown Heights
(where Ebbet’s Field housed the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1912 to 1957). Until World War II, the
residents of Crown Heights, Prospect Heights and Prospect-Lefferts Gardens were mainly
middle-class Italian and Irish, with wealthier Jews living along Eastern Parkway.
As those immigrant groups filtered out to suburbia in the 1950s and ‘60s, African Americans from
other parts of the city relocated to this, and other, Brooklyn areas. In Prospect-Lefferts Gardens,
the newcomers encountered “hate fences” -- high corrugated plastic barriers erected by
European descendants in that era. Once, the fences came down, however, Prospect-Lefferts
Gardens became one of the few comfortably integrated neighborhoods in all of New York City.
Around the same time, the Federal Housing Administration foreclosed on some residential
buildings in Prospect Heights. Many merchants along Washington Avenue were forced to close
their doors and the area started on a time of economic struggle.
The neighborhoods saw their periods of racial and economic clash, struggle and tension, though
no one expected the sort of violent eruption witnessed during the Crown Heights Riots. In August
1991, a car in the entourage of the Lubavitcher rebbe spun out of control, crushing seven-yearold Gavin Cato with his bicycle. An ambulance came for the Jewish driver and left the Guyanese
child on the ground to die. A mob took to the streets and three hours later, Yankel Rosenbaum, a
29-year-old Hasidic scholar from Australia, was fatally stabbed. For two days, throughout Crown
Heights, hundreds of Black teenagers burnt police cars, looted, hurled bottles, and beat people.
African Americans and Jews exchanged blows as the police stood by.
In the years since the chaos, African Americans and Jews in Crown Heights, a densely populated
low-income neighborhood, have made major efforts to create institutional and informal ties.
Residents conduct joint picnics and ice-skating parties; community leaders work together. There
is a storefront mediation center, a Black and Jewish mothers group, and an effort to add Black
youngsters to the private Jewish security patrols.
In the last two decades, most of the neglected structures throughout central Brooklyn have been,
or are being, renovated. Existing merchants have spruced up the facades on Vanderbilt Avenue,
a main commercial street, where many new bars, restaurants, and specialty stores have opened
as well. Newcomers have been renovating long neglected brownstones, and new tenants are
trickling in. Demographically, there has been a large influx of West Indian immigrants, with Asian
and Hispanic immigrants also adding to the mix. Every year the West Indian Day Parade, the
largest annual parade in New York City, follows Eastern Parkway, beginning in Crown Heights
and ending at Grand Army Plaza in Prospect Heights. After fifteen years, the Vanderbilt Avenue
Merchants Association reinstated an annual block party last year. Other organizations clean up
graffiti, put fencing around tree bases, and raise money for after-school programs. Today, the
area is predominantly West Indian, and as economically and ethnically diverse as ever.
*Information in this section is from the following sources:
http://www.brooklyn.net/neighborhoods/crown_heights.html
http://www.rickross.com/reference/lubavitch/lubavitch7.html
http://www.dailyheights.com/archives/517
http://www.bklyn-genealogy-info.com/Town/TheNeighborhood.html
http://www.villagevoice.com/nyclife/0218,goldstein,34368,15.html
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9503E4DA153BF93BA25757C0A96F958260&se
c=&spon=&pagewanted=2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prospect-Lefferts_Gardens,_Brooklyn
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C00E1D91339F934A35757C0A960958260&sec
=&spon=&pagewanted=3
Cultural & Recreational Institutions
• Brooklyn Museum of Art, 200 Eastern Parkway
• Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, 1000 Washington Ave
• Brooklyn Children’s Museum, Corner of St. Marks and Brooklyn Avenues
• Jewish Children’s Museum, 792 Eastern Parkway
• Brower Park, 725 St. Marks Avenue
• Saturday Farmer's Market, Grand Army Plaza
• Nkiru Center for Education & Culture, 732 Washington Avenue