HEALTH ASSESSMENT AND INTERVENTION PLANNING GUIDE
COMMUNITY HEALTH ASSESSMENT
Community: District 12 Borough Park
THE COMMUNITY
One of the fastest growing and vibrant neighborhoods in Brooklyn is Community District #12 Borough Park, which is home to the world’s largest Jewish community. A center of Jewish culture in the United States, Community District 12, like many other neighborhoods in previous generations, is bound to become legendary in American literature and culture. It has a unique cocktail of vibrancy, ethical identity, unique personality, and historical importance to assure its place along with other famous Brooklyn backdrops.
The earliest Jewish residents arrived in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, known today as New York City, in 1954. They left Dutch Brazil in search of religious freedom. Over the next two centuries, the immigration of Jewish settlers in America was slow but steady. Between 1830 and 1860, the first big wave of Jewish settlers arrived from Germany. They came to New York for a better future. They settled in Manhattan and then moved to Williamsburg area in Brooklyn. The largest wave of Jewish immigrants arrived in the 1880’s after fleeing persecution by the Russian and Polish governments. With this large wave of immigrants, Williamsburg became an overcrowded area and many of the Jewish settlers migrated to the Borough Park area. By the turn of the century Borough Park was on it’s way to becoming an established community.
Two thins happened that gave the rural region the impetus to become the bustling community it has become.. The construction of a steam railroad that ran from Greenwood Cemetery to Coney Island. It bisected the area owned by Charles Gunther, to become New York City’s Mayor and the opening of formerly vacant land to real estate development in 1886 by one Electus B. Litchfield, who called his development “Blythebourne” (from Scottish terms for “happy” and “home”). In 1898 Sen. William...