History Of Canarsie

"Canarsie" is a phonetic interpretation of a word in the Lenape language for "fenced land" or "fort." The Native Americans who made the infamous sale of the island of Manhattan for 60 guilders were Lenape. Europeans would often refer to the indigenous people living in an area by the local place-name, and so reference may be found in contemporary documents to "Canarsee Indians." The current neighborhood lies within the former town of Flatlands, one of the five original Dutch towns on Long Island.

Canarsie was built on swamps near Jamaica Bay. It was a fishing village through the 1800s, until pollution killed the oysters and the edible fish. In the 1920s, Italians settled in the area, later joined by Jews. Ferry service withered away after the building of the Marine Parkway Bridge. During the 1990's, increasing crime and lower quality of life drove many of Canarsie's white population to move to Staten Island, Queens, and Long Island. This phenomenon was called 'white flight' by many. Today, Canarsie's population is mostly Black with many West Indians and African-American. [2]