“History,” according to Raphael Samuel, “is not the prerogative of the historian.” Instead it is “a social form of knowledge; the work, in any given instance, of a thousand different hands.” Samuel wrote these words as an attack upon the professional historian who “fetishizes archive-based research” and turns history into “an esoteric form of knowledge.” In contrast, he called for “a different order of evidence, and a different kind of inquiry,” as well as a focus on what he described as “unofficial knowledge.”[1]
These words hung over the creation of Remembering Crown Heights. In the first instance it is important to recognize the countless other people who contributed knowledge, expertise or memories to the project. Furthermore I must then credit the “thousand different hands,” who at various stages in time produced the historical sources that I now present as the results of my own research. Finally, Samuel’s words encourage anyone engaged in historical research to reexamine what they consider to be significant or reliable, both in terms of sources and events. The attempt to locate and present “unofficial knowledge” was the driving methodology of this project.
The initial research for Remembering Crown Heights involved walking every street in Crown Heights. Not only did this allow me to understand the complete geography of the neighborhood but it also meant I could take extensive notes on, among other things, unique buildings, graffiti that hinted at memorial culture, and any school, street, or housing complex that was named after an individual. Most importantly I was able to engage in countless conversations with residents of Crown Heights while on these walks. This was invaluable in locating the significance of what were initially unassuming sites. In order to add some context to the notes I had taken while walking the streets of Crown Heights I subsequently examined the websites of any institutions I had noticed and made extensive use of The Brooklyn Eagle archives.
At the same time I began reading secondary source material to gain a greater understanding of the history of Crown Heights and of Brooklyn. The literature on Crown Heights is limited and overwhelmingly focuses on the 1991 riot. The two most notable books here are Crown Heights: Blacks, Jews, and the 1991 Brooklyn riot by Edward Shapiro and Race and religion among the chosen people of Crown Heights by Henry Goldschmidt. The purpose of Remembering Crown Heights is to de-center the riot in the history of Crown Heights and so these books were limited. Both books, and especially Goldschmidt’s, contained chapters that provided well researched histories of the neighborhood prior to 1991. They were, however, often presented within the context of the riot and so it was necessary to read them with a critical eye.
An integral book was Crown Heights and Weeksville by Wilhelmena Rhodes Kelly. Kelly’s book is part of the Images of America, a collection of local history books that use historic images to bring to life the people and places that define communities. Images of America is the type of series often looked down upon by historians who are dismissive of local history, but it is essential in any endeavor to understand community or place. Judith Wellman’s book Brooklyn’s Promised Land: The free black community of Weeksville was a fantastic resource in gaining greater knowledge of Weeksville. Both Kelly and Wellman’s books gave me a starting point to locate important historical sites that no longer exist or which had changed purpose.
Alongside the conversations I had with individuals while walking in Crown Heights I consulted oral history sources to gain a great insight into individual and group memories of the neighborhood. The two sources I used here were the Bridging Eastern Parkway collection at Brooklyn Historical Society and the book Bums: An oral history of the Brooklyn Dodgers by Peter Golenbock. Due to institutional constraints I was only able to consult the transcripts for Bridging Eastern Parkway and so I did not have audio recordings for either collection. Like Shapiro and Goldschmidt’s books, the interviews in Bridging Eastern Parkway were conducted in the context of the 1991 riot and so overwhelmingly focused on neighborhood tensions. At the same time narrators often spoke to ideas of community and framed these discussions in terms of landmarks and geography. Furthermore, both collections – while suffering the same constraints of nostalgia and selective memory – were extremely useful in helping me to locate historical sites that have been largely forgotten. Despite the focus of these collections on symbolic events, it was the comments between the lines and outside the main focus of the interviews that were the most enlightening.
In order to expand the range of sources used in my research I began consulting non-academic texts such as the guides produced by the Landmarks Preservation Commission and the WPA. These were useful in locating which sites had been deemed as significant in different eras and worked in parallel with the information I had found in Kelly’s book. In order to attach visual components to this research I made extensive use of the historic image collections at the Brooklyn Public Library. I would also like to thank the staff at Weeksville Heritage Center who kindly provided me with additional photographs. Images not only provided information on architectural history but they enabled me to situate my research in recognizable places.
Having conducted the research phase of the project I was in a position to add sites to the map. While there remain gaps in the history as well as contradictory information regarding addresses, dates, and names, I have accumulated enough information to piece together a broad history of Crown Heights, including contemporary memorial culture and oft-forgotten events and locations.
[1] Raphael Samuel, Theatres of Memory: Past and Present in Contemporary Culture (London; New York, NY: Verso, 2012), 3-8.