Brownsville Centennial Committee records

Brownsville, a neighborhood on the eastern edge of Brooklyn, was founded in 1865 when Charles S. Brown (for whom the neighborhood is named) purchased the land and built 250 houses. Originally called Brown's Village, Brownsville was a quiet and relatively remote community until 1887, when real-estate developer Aaron Kaplan purchased tracts of land for the construction of tenement buildings, in which immigrant communities from Manhattan's Lower East Side found suitable family homes. The neighborhood was also known for its large Jewish population, with roughly 75 percent of the population being composed of Jewish residents by 1926. Though the neighborhood was affected by poverty and overcrowding after World War II, revitalization efforts begun in the 1970s have brought significant community improvements.