Canarsie In Brooklyn, NY Walking Tour

Original Film Date: Wednesday July 9th, 2025

Canarsie is a working class residential neighborhood in southeast Brooklyn. Canarsie was nicknamed as "The Flossy" or just "The Floss" as a Brooklyn slang. This slang was linked to the neighborhood's reputation for residents who act flashy, extravagant, vulgar, and known for some people showing off as their personality. The term gained attention in the 2010s and now in the 2020s. People in Canarsie claim that their hood is boujee-er than the average hood in New York.

I know Canarsie personally, because I actually used to grow up and live here. I know the history of this hood and how it's a place I'm familiar with. Canarsie being called 'Flossy' is home of rappers Pop Smoke and Tdott Woo. Let's talk about the history of Canarsie. It was once the original land of the Lenape Tribe with the Lenape word "Canarsee", basically the same name and pronunciation. "Canarsie" as an English word was adapted from the Lenape language for 'fenced land' or 'fort'. "By way of Canarsie" became a mid-twentieth century American English figure of speech meaning "to come to one's destination by a roundabout way or from a distant point and then later was dropped from modern English. Canarsie had the Lenape Tribe described as "Canarsie Indians". In the early 1600s, Dutch settlers colonized the land building their communities after the Lenape tribe were moving places far from them.

The tribe still managed the land of Canarsie until the English took over New Amsterdam before calling it 'New York'. Canarsie used to have seaside resorts at the Canarsie Pier and an amusement park at only one time. The neighborhood started to have fishing hubs with Fishermen living here as residents. Canarsie was a bustling amusement district. In the early 1900s, there were 50 buildings along the Canarsie bay shore, eighteen were hotels. Three ferry systems operated routes to Bergen Island, Barren Island, Rockaway Beach, and Jamaica Bay.

There was the Golden City Amusement Park opened in May 1907 at what is now Seaview Avenue and Canarsie Pier. There was a decline of fishing and amusement in the area that the fishing industry was experiencing. Pollution was starting to contaminate the oysters around the water that occupied the bay, so it was becoming unhealthy to hang around there. The Canarsie Railroad was converted to the Canarsie subway line in 1928, providing direct access to Manhattan. Then, officials began to call for a new ferry service between Canarsie and Rockaway Beach.

In the 1920s, the demographics of Canarsie were Southern Italian immigrants, Central European Jews, Poles, and some Irish people. The local theme park Golden City was severely damaged by two fires between the late 20s and early 30s. In 1938, the city moved to acquire Golden City's land, as well as improve sewage facilities within Canarsie. The hope was that the new Belt Parkway would attract drivers to Golden City from all over New York City and Long Island. Golden City was demolished in 1939 to make way for the modern day highway Belt Parkway. Canarsie had flatlands with small truck farms cultivated by both Italians and Italian Americans.

Canarsie was starting to grow more as a neighborhood, because the city was becoming more populated with residents moving in and more immigration from Europe, especially with large residential development increasing after World War II. Much of the neighborhood's residential buildings were built from this post-war era up until the 1970s. In the 1950s, some waterfront communities were growing and becoming rapidly developed in Southeast Brooklyn and the Rockaways in Queens. There were new homes built for White residents leaving East New York and Brownsville with Black residents moving in. Many young families moved to Canarsie in the 1950s and 60s. Canarsie High School first opened in 1964. In the late 60s and mostly 70s, parents of White students protested against the New York Department of Education's efforts to desegregate District 18, having schools to bus around ethnic minority children who were African Americans and Puerto Ricans. South Shore High School opened in 1970. White students and parents didn't want Black students in their schools or living in their neighborhood. This was the white flight era we're talking about. In the later years, Canarsie was having changing demographics from Italians, Poles, and Jews living here to a growing number of Caribbean immigrants, Black Americans, and Puerto Ricans. The white flight era slowly ended in the 1990s with a mass number of West Indian/Caribbean immigrants moving in. The crime rate was getting so bad in the 1980s for Canarsie and up to today in 2025, the crime rate got worse. It used to be homicides and murders as big concerns. Now, there are concerns of robberies.

Canarsie has a large Caribbean population from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Barbados, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, Grenada, Antigua and Barbuda, Cuba etc. There are Guyanese residents living here, such as Afro-Guyanese (African-descent) and Indo-Guyanese people (Indian descent). There is a growing Latino population from Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, people from Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Colombia etc. Other Hispanics are Mexicans and Guatemalans that live here. There is a small growing Muslim population of Pakistanis, Arabs, and East Indians. There are still some white people living in Canarsie today, such as Italian Americans and Polish immigrants left here. There are some Jewish residents. This neighborhood also has some Chinese and Filipinos here. The local church St. Jude Roman Catholic Church attracts Catholics of every culture, and they have Filipinos that attend mass there. Canarsie is a diverse demographics neighborhood in Brooklyn today, despite that it is a hood with a ghetto attitude of people depending on hip hop culture.

The schools here in Canarsie are not in good shape, because they're bad schools with kids fighting, bad teachers, and sometimes a crime gets reported near local schools. I used to go to school here for a few years and Canarsie wasn't as bad as it is now. I used to live as a kid until my family and I moved out in 2019 to another neighborhood. Canarsie started to be a crooked place, because of how ghetto it is now with people being ratchet. It's a nice place and mostly safe during the day, but sometimes it becomes a crazy place with crime and ratchet behavior.

Canarsie has a local park on Seaview Avenue called 'Canarsie Park', which can also be called 'Seaview Park'. The name for the park is just Canarsie Park. It's a good public park for playgrounds, walking trails, taking dogs out for a walk, a skate park, a cricket field, soccer/football events, baseball games, and it's considered as a historic site.

Notable people from Canarsie, Brooklyn are Pop Smoke, Tdott Woo, Guardian Angels founder and NYC mayor candidate Curtis Sliwa, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, Frank Carone, Dusty Locane, Dan Morogiello, Necro (rapper), Diane Noomin, John Salley, Rah Swish (rapper), Lou Vairo (former ice hockey coach), and Leon Williams.