A Walker in Brooklyn
Image by Wiki Commons
Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree
Image by Wiki Commons
In the American Jewish imagination, the curiously named neighborhood known as East New York, Brooklyn, along with that of adjacent Brownsville, are most often associated with the nefarious activities of Murder, Inc. From its headquarters in a candy store at the intersection of Livonia and Saratoga Streets, this Brooklyn gang engaged in loan-sharking, racketeering and murder-for hire, bringing shame and notoriety to the Jewish community.
More benignly, East New York also figured in Alfred Kazin’s lyrical and evocative memoir, “A Walker in the City.” The end of the line, quite literally, it was the place where the subway quit, the place for those “who lived still beyond.” To get from Manhattan to East New York, Kazin writes, was a matter of a “long pent-up subway ride.”
An immigrant Jewish neighborhood, East New York was also home to my grandparents who, on Schenk Avenue in a brownstone that had seen better days, raised my father and his six siblings, all of whom took off for greener pastures just as soon as they could.
But these days, greener pastures can actually be found in East New York, where a non-profit group called East New York Farms has been busy cultivating a half-acre plot of farmland — and in the middle of Schenk Avenue, no less.
Providing the residents of the neighborhood with affordable and healthy food, promoting economic development and generating a sense of community are just some of the organization’s worthy objectives.
How do you like them apples?
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
