Crown Heights Timeline
1820 to 1870 – Brooklyn is a heavily forested, remote island with no bridge access to Manhattan. New York State abolishes slavery in 1827. Over the next twenty years, a small community of newly free Black farmers and craftsmen is formed where Crown Height is today.
1870 to 1890 – With the industrial revolution, the population of New York City is surging. The Brooklyn Bridge and Eastern Parkway, connecting Brooklyn to Manhattan Wealthy White New Yorkers begin moving to Brooklyn to escape crowding
1890 to 1910 – Heavy waves of Italian, Jewish, and Irish immigrants move into the area.
1910 to 1950 – Ebbets Field (Brooklyn Dodgers) is built, immediately turning the area from rural to urban. A young Rabbi Schneerson escapes pograms in Ukraine by fleeing to Germany, a few years later he flees Nazi persecution in Germany taking refuge in France. When the Nazis take Paris he flees again, this time as a refugee to Crown Heights.
1950 to 1960 – Rabbi Schneerson becomes the leader of the Lubovitcher community. There is a large influx of immigrants from the Caribbean to Crown Heights. African Americans begin moving in large numbers into Crown Heights. Ebbets Field is demolished, decimating the economy. The Long Island Expressway is built, making LI a suburb. White residents begin moving to LI.
1960 to 1970 – The demographics of Crown Heights go from being 70% White to 70% Black. Rabbi Schneerson calls “white flight” a “plague” and calls it a religious duty to stay.
1970 to 1990 – A violent period in New York. In 1979 there were over 2,000 murders in NYC (in 2024 there were 375). Feeling that the police are failing to provide adequate safety, leaders of the Black and Jewish communities each create neighborhood patrols.
In 1979 there are two highly publicized crimes. In the first, a group of Hassidic men beat a 16 year old into a coma. The men say that the teen grabbed a yarmulke off of one of their heads and they overreacted. The Black community says the men were a “vigilante patrol” who beat the teen because he refused to submit to an ID check. In the second, a Hassidic man walking home from prayer was murdered by a Black teenager who said he was part of the 5% of Black people actively resisting White exploitation.
Following those events the communities come together to try to heal the rifts. They create the Black Jewish Alliance and blame the violence on Mayor Koch’s refusal to address a need for increased policing. The group dissipates without having much success. Years later Mayor Koch, acknowledging the dangerous tension in the neighborhood insists that Rabbi Josef Spielman and Reverend Canon Heron Sam form a joint neighborhood patrol, despite the failure of the Black Jewish Alliance. Both communities vigorously oppose the idea.
Monday, August 19, 1991
8:20pm: Car Accident
8:22pm: First police officers arrive on the scene
8:25pm: Hatzollah volunteer ambulance arrives, ambulance driver takes the car driver/passengers while second Hatzollah volunteer stays behind with trauma kit to help.
8:28pm: First NYC ambulance arrives, begins treating Gavin Cato. His father tries to get to him and is pushed away.
8:29pm: Additional NYC ambulances arrive, begin treating Angela Cato (with Hatzollah volunteer).
9:00pm: Police Accident Investigation Squad sets up floodlights attracting crowds which swell to 200 people.
9:07pm: First 911 call reporting a riot between Black and Hassidic men.
9:45pm: First assault on police officers reported.
10:00pm: First media coverage (calling the events a “race riot”)
10:25pm: Mayor Dinkins informed of the situation.
10:30pm: Accident Investigation Squad reports rocks and bottles “raining down” on them from rooftops. They call City Hall and report “the shit is hitting the fan.”
11:00pm: A man in the crowd yells “Let’s take Kingston Avenue!” and the crowd begins moving. A small group splinters off breaking windows, overturning and setting cars on fire, and assaulting three Hassidic men.
11:20pm: Yankel Rosenbaum is stabbed.
Tuesday, August 20, 1991
12:00 am: Gavin Cato pronounced dead.
12:30am: Mayor Dinkins arrives at hospital.
1:30am: 350 police officers deployed to precinct.
2:00am: Hundreds of 100 Black and Jewish men face off in the courtyard of a Jewish school. Richard Green of the Crown Heights Youth Collective tries to disburse the Black group.
2:25am: Yankel Rosenbaum pronounced dead.
9:00am: The morning is largely calm.
11:00am: A four-hour community meeting begins with leadership of Black and Jewish communities.
1:45pm: Mayor holds first press conference.
2:00pm: While community leaders are in the meeting and city officials are in the press conference, Reverend Al Sharpton arrives and addresses a crowd of 150 at the accident site.
3:00pm: As the community meeting ends and Richard Green leaves to enlist youth to restore calm, Al Sharpton and Sonny Carson begin leading 250 demonstrators towards the police station where a similar number of Hassidic demonstrators have amassed. The police, outnumbered and without riot gear struggle to keep the groups apart.
4:05pm: Sonny Carson addresses the crowd saying, “Somebody’s got to pay. You know, we do a lot of talk. We ain’t talking no more.” Demonstrators march back towards the accident scene where they encounter a group of 200 Hassidic demonstrators. The groups throw rocks and bottles at one another. Sharpton later says, “bricks were coming out of the sky like raindrops.”
5:00pm: The police run for cover.
6:00pm: Throughout the night police officers witness, but do not respond to, people being dragged out of cars, beaten, burning cars, and stores being looted and firebombed.
10:00pm: The nightly news shows video of the police running for cover.
Wednesday, August 21, 1991
8:00am: Funeral for Rosenbaum. Over 1,000 attend.
1:00pm: Dinkins and Sharpton hold simultaneous press conferences. Dinkins says police are showing “great restraint”. Sharpton says that if driver isn’t arrested within 72 hours, he will make a “citizens’ arrest.”
3:00pm: 300+ Black protesters face off against 100+ Hassidim with shouts of “heil Hitler.” Rocks and bottles thrown in response.
5:11pm: Police commissioner is pelted with rocks.
7:10pm: Mayor Dinkins addresses a crowd with a bullhorn yelling “will you listen to me please?” The crowd shouts back “No!”
7:30pm: More attacks and violence throughout the night. A group of 100+ Hassidim beat down the door to a building from which rocks are being thrown at them. A sniper shoots 8 police officers from a rooftop.
Thursday, August 22, 1991
In the early hours, the Police Benevolent Association tells officers to use nightsticks and firearms if they are attacked, regardless of being ordered otherwise.
During the day, the police commissioner is replaced. The new commissioner divides Crown Heights into zones, tells officers to be more aggressive, and sends out “mobile arrest teams”. By the end of the day Crown Heights is quiet.