Bedford-Stuyvesant is a neighborhood located in the central portion of the borough of Brooklyn, Long Island, New York. It is part of Brooklyn Community Board 3, Brooklyn Community Board 8, and Brooklyn Community Board 16. The neighborhood is officially bordered by Flushing Avenue in the north (on the Williamsburg border) to Classon Avenue on the west (bordering Clinton Hill) the east at Broadway (bordering Bushwick) the south at Park Place and Ralph Avenue on the east (bordering Crown Heights), south of East New York Avenue (bordering Brownsville), and west of Van Sinderen Avenue (bordering East New York). In fact, the nation’s first community development corporation was started in Bedford-Stuyvesant in 1967, a result of community activism and backing from Senators Robert F. Kennedy and Jacob Javits.
As of 2010 census, there were 70,713 people, 24,810 households, and 14,561 families residing in the area. The median income for a household in the village is $36,548. Bedford-Stuyvesant latitude is 40.683 and longitude is -73.941. It is in the Eastern Standard time zone. The elevation is 49 feet.
In the 1600s, the Dutch purchased a large tract of farmland from the Canarsie Indians. It was named Bedford for either Bedfordshire or the Duke of Bedford. The former and merged names include Carrville and Weeksville. They were located less than a mile from each other on the former farmland in the Southern portion of Bedford, in an area bounded approximately by present-day Atlantic Avenue, Ralph Avenue, Eastern Parkway, and Albany Avenue. With the building of the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad in 1832, taken over by the Long Island Rail Road in 1836, Bedford was recognized as a railroad station near the intersection of current Atlantic and Franklin Avenues. It grew demographically and geographically and by 1920, the population had reached 45,000. With the completion of the underground subway, the population growth increased rapidly. By the 1940s, there were 65,000 residents of African American descent living in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area. In the last decade of 19th century, Bedford-Stuyvesant became a working class and middle class bedroom community for those working in downtown Brooklyn and Manhattan in New York. At that time, most of the per-existing wooden homes were shattered and replaced with brownstone row houses. These are highly required after in the neighborhood’s contemporary renaissance.
Many well-known people live in Bedford-Stuyvesant including Shirley Chishom (first black woman elected to Congress), Jackie Robinson (baseball player), Norman Mailer (writer), Randy Weston (jazz pianist), Busta Rhymes (rapper), and Jay-Z (rapper). There are many businesses here are owned by people of Caribbean descent, typically health food stores, take-away restaurants, and house repair. The Caribbean population is often perceived as having strong moral values, and entrepreneurial skills. Several charitable institutions like the Brooklyn Orphan Asylum, the Brooklyn Home for Aged Men, the Brooklyn Home for Consumptives, and St. Mary’s Hospital are available here. Bedford-Stuyvesant Real Estate has became more in demand today for having historically significant brick and limestone houses. Home price values range from $600,000 to over $1 million.
