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Brownsville is a residential neighborhood located in eastern Brooklyn, New York City.
The total land area is 2.19 square miles, and the ZIP code for the neighborhood is 11212. Brownsville is bordered by East New York Avenue to the north (on the Bedford-Stuyvesantborder), East 98th Street to the west (East Flatbush) and the freight rail Bay Ridge Branchof the Long Island Rail Road to the south (adjacent to the neighborhood of Canarsie) and to the east (East New York).
The area is patrolled by the 73rd Precinct located at 1470 East New York Avenue. New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) property in the area is patrolled by P.S.A. 2. It is part of Brooklyn Community Board 16. Brownsville is notable for having some of the highest rates of violent crime in New York City.
In 2010, Brownsville's population was 116,579 and the demographics were 70.8% Non-Hispanic Black or African American, 19.1%Hispanic/Latino, 2.9% Non-Hispanic White, 1.8% Asian/Pacific Islander and 5.4% described themselves as other 29.9% of the population were High School graduates and 8.4% had a Bachelor's degree or higher. As of 2008, the median household income was $15,978. There were a total of 28,298 housing units in Brownsville. Brownsville is dominated by public housing developments of various types. There is also a significant concentration of semi-detached multi-unit row houses similar to those found in East New York and Soundview surrounding the public housing developments. Many, however, have been torn down and replaced by vacant lots or newly constructed subsidized attached multi-unit rowhouses. There is also a small number of tenements in the area. The neighborhood contains the highest concentration of NYCHA developments in New York City. There are 18 NYCHA developments located in Brownsville.
1. 104–14 Tapscott Street; one 4-story building.
2. Brownsville Houses; 27 buildings, 6 and 7-stories tall
3. Glenmore Plaza; four buildings, 10, 18 and 24-stories tall.
4. Howard Avenue; five buildings, 3-stories tall.
5. Howard Avenue-Park Place; eight buildings, 3-stories tall.
6. Howard Houses; ten buildings, 7 and 13-stories tall.
7. Hughes Apartments; three, 22-story buildings.
8. Marcus Garvey (Group A); three buildings, 6 and 14-stories tall.
9. Prospect Plaza Houses; three vacant 12-story buildings in the process of being rehabilitated. (really in the Ocean Hill section of Brooklyn Community Board 16)
10. Ralph Avenue Rehab; five, 4-story buildings.
11. Reverend Randolph Brown; two, 6-story buildings.
12. Seth Low Houses; four buildings, 17 and 18-stories tall.
13. Sutter Avenue-Union Street; three rehabilitated tenement buildings, 4 and 6-stories tall.
14. Tapscott Street Rehab; eight, 4-story rehabilitated tenement buildings.
15. Tilden Houses; eight, 16-story buildings.
16. Van Dyke I; 22 buildings, 3 and 14-stories tall.
17. Van Dyke II; one 14-story building.
18. Woodson Houses; two buildings, 10 and 25-stories tall.
Brownsville was Jewish and politically radical from the 1880s to the 1950s; throughout the 1920s and 1930s, it elected Socialist and American Labor Party candidates to the state assembly.
As early as the 1910s, the area had acquired a reputation as a vicious slum and breeding ground for crime. It has been known throughout the years for its criminal gangs and in the 30s and 40s achieved notoriety as the birthplace of Murder, Inc. It was a predominantlyJewish neighborhood until the 1960s, when its population had become largely black and Brownsville's unemployment rate was 17 percent. Half of all families in the district lived on less than $5,000 a year.
Journalist Jimmy Breslin wrote in 1968 that Brownsville reminded him of Berlin after World War II; block after block of burned-out shells of houses, streets littered with decaying automobile hulks. The stores on the avenues are empty and the streets are lined with deserted apartment houses or buildings that have empty apartments on every floor.
In September 1967, a riot occurred following the death of an 11-year-old black male Richard Ross who was killed by a black NYPD detective named John Rattley at the corner of St. Johns Place and Ralph Avenue due to his suspicion of mugging a 73-year-old white Jewish man. The riot was additionally fueled by Brooklyn militant Sonny Carson who spread false rumors that a white policeman killed the youth for no reason and was only quelled after Brooklyn North Borough Commander Lloyd Sealy deployed a squad of 150 black police officers to the riot to prevent further looting. The officer responsible was later cleared after a grand jury refused to indict him.
In 1968 Brownsville was the setting of a protracted and highly contentious teachers' strike. The Board of Education had experimented with giving the people of the neighborhood control over the school. The new administration laid off several teachers in violation of union contract rules. The teachers were all white and mostly Jewish, and the resulting strike served to badly divide the whole city. The resulting strike dragged on for half a year, becoming known as one of John Lindsay's "Ten Plagues".
Many social problems associated with poverty from crime to drug addiction have plagued the area for decades. Despite the decline of crime compared to their peaks during the crack and heroin epidemics, violent crime continues to be a serious problem in the community. Brownsville's 73rd police district reported the highest murder rate in the city in 2011, according to crime reports compiled by DNAinfo.com. Brownsville has significantly higher dropout rates and incidents of violence in its schools. Students must pass through metal detectors and swipe ID cards to enter the buildings. However, most public NYC high schools have adopted this approach regardless of their location. Other problems in local schools include low test scores and high truancy rates. Notable natives
* Thirstin Howl III, The Marcus Garvey Village Underground Hip Hop Legend, and Co-Founder of the Original Lo-Lives.
* Masta Ace, legendary Juice Crew member, comes from the Howard Houses.
* Maffew Ragazino, rapper
* Agallah, rapper, producer
* Astro (rapper), contestant from season one of The X Factor (U.S.)
* Ralph Bakshi, film director
* Daniel Benzali, Golden-Globe nominated actor and once-fiancé to Kim Cattrall
* Riddick Bowe, boxer
* Shannon Briggs, boxer
* Buckshot, rapper, founder of Duck Down Records.
* Andrew Dice Clay, comedian
* Boot Camp Clik - several members come from the Seth Low & Brownsville Houses such as rapper Sean Price
* Aaron Copland, composer
* Bummy Davis, boxer
* Max Fleischer, animator
* World B. Free, former NBA player
* Nelson George, author
* Sid Gordon, 2-time All Star baseball player
* Arnold Greenberg, co-founder of Snapple[21]
* GZA, rapper, founding member of the hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan
* Red Holzman, Hall of Fame NBA 2-time All-Star & coach
* Moe, Curly and Shemp Howard who were brothers and three members of The Three Stooges
* Daniel Jacobs (boxer)
* Charles Jenkins, NBA player
* Zab Judah, boxer
* Danny Kaye, entertainer
* Alfred Kazin, writer and literary critic]
* Larry King, television and radio host
* M.O.P., hip hop group from Prospect Plaza.
* Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, former boxer
* Originoo Gunn Clappaz, hip hop group, part of the Boot Camp Clik
* Bruce Pasternack, Business Author, Former CEO of the Special Olympics, current board member of numerous organizations.
* Norman Podhoretz, writer and neoconservative political theorist[23]
* Killah Priest, rapper
* Willie Randolph, former baseball player, manager, and coach
* RZA, rapper, Grammy Award winning producer, founding member of the hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan
* Saigon, rapper
* Phil Sellers, former Rutgers University basketball standout and former NBA player
* Al Sharpton
* Heltah Skeltah, hip hop duo, part of the Boot Camp Clik
* Phil Silvers
* Smoothe da Hustler, rapper
* BernNadette Stanis, actress
* Steele, one half of hip hop duo Smif-n-Wessun, member of the Boot Camp Clik
* Mike Tyson  grew up on Amboy Street.
* Dwayne "Pearl" Washington, former professional basketball player.
* James "Fly" Williams, former NBA player
* Nicole Willis singer/songwriter, artist, born at the now closed Brooklyn Women's Hospital, 1395 Eastern Parkway.
* Otis Wilson, former NFL linebacker
* Terry Winters, artist
* Howard Zinn, historian
* KA, rapper
* Duane Martin, Actor, grew up on Chester street husband to Tisha Campbell-Martin (Gina from Martin) not from Harlem, NY
* Jack Knight , Songwriter, Music Producer, Motivational Speaker

Y'all do know that gang culture preceded Hip Hop right?
The picture was a reflection of the times. That peace, love, unity, and having fun motto was in the 80's. In the 1970's the Bronx and NYC was

a very dangerous place and there was a lot of violence happening in the streets and at the early

One of the biggest misconceptions was that there was no violence during the inception of Hip Hop and that's totally revisionist history. There were stick up kids at the parties, and people were getting robbed and shot, sometimes murdered! It was a reflection of 1970's NYC when the murder and crime rates was in the thousands! Just some brief history.......Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five was backed by the Casanova Crew who were ex Black Spades from the 14th & 17th divisions and they were one of the most infamous street crews in the South Bronx. They carried firepower and they were robbing ppl at Flash's parties. Zulu Nation and the Gestapo's were ex Black Spades from the 10th division (Bronx River Houses) and they were feared and respected. A lot of Zulu Nation jams ended in fights and gunplay, especially when they played in other areas. The Nine Crew from Webster Projects were also known....
Cliff Williams

50 Years Ago Today, the Genesis of Hip-Hop.
On December 2, 1971, disturbing news reached the Ghetto Brothers' headquarters: three other gangs, the Mongols, the Sevens Immortals and the Black Spades, had entered their territory. Cornell Benjamin, known as "Black Benjie", is sent as an emissary. Although he approaches with open hands as a sign of non-aggression, he is beaten to death.
The next day, the Daily News headlines: "Peacemaker Murdered: Youth War in the Bronx".
The Ghetto Brothers are one of the biggest gangs. They might fight back, but to honor the memory of their member, they call for peace.
On December 8, representatives of the major gangs will meet in a hall on Hoe Avenue, in the presence of police and city officials. The meeting will result in a Peace Treaty, which grants each gang member the right to proudly wear his or her colors, but also makes each organization part of a larger movement, driven by the same values: The Family.
Although they were identified, the Black Benjie killers were never reported to the police.
Soon the energy of the gangs is transformed into creative energy...