The main thoroughfare through this neighborhood is Eastern Parkway, a tree-lined boulevard designed by Frederick Law Olmsted in the late-1800s, extending two miles (3.2 km) east–west.

[4] The northern half of Crown Heights is part of Brooklyn Community District 8 and is patrolled by the 77th Precinct of the New York City Police Department (NYPD).

Although no known physical evidence remains in the Crown Heights vicinity, large portions of what is now called Long Island including present-day Brooklyn were occupied by the Lenape Native Americans.

The Lenape lived in communities of bark- or grass-covered wigwams, and in their larger settlements—typically located on high ground adjacent to fresh water, and occupied in the fall, winter, and spring—they fished, harvested shellfish, trapped animals, gathered wild fruits and vegetables, and cultivated corn, tobacco, beans, and other crops.

The first recorded contact between the indigenous people of the New York City region and Europeans was with the Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524 in the service of France when he anchored at the approximate location where the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge touches down in Brooklyn today.

Finally, the areas around present-day Crown Heights saw its first European settlements starting in about 1661/1662 when several men each received, from Governor Peter Stuyvesant and the directors of the Dutch West India Company what was described as "a parcel of free (unoccupied) woodland there" on the condition that they situate their houses "within one of the other concentration, which would suit them best, but not to make a hamlet.

[10] Crown Heights had begun as a fashionable residential neighborhood, a place for secondary homes in which Manhattan's growing bourgeois class could reside.

Conversion to a commuter town also included tearing down the 19th century Kings County Penitentiary at Carroll Street and Nostrand Avenue.

Before World War II Crown Heights was among New York City's premier neighborhoods, with tree-lined streets, an array of cultural institutions and parks, and numerous fraternal, social and community organizations.

[citation needed] From the early 1920s through the 1960s, Crown Heights was an overwhelmingly white neighborhood and predominantly Ashkenazi Jewish reflecting the demographics of the city, at the time.

[12] There were thirty-four large synagogues in the neighborhood, including the Bobov, Chovevei Torah, and 770 Eastern Parkway, home of the worldwide Lubavitch movement.

[14][15] In 1964 the Labor Day Carnival celebrating Caribbean culture was moved to the neighborhood when its license to run in Harlem was revoked.

In 1991, there was a three-day outbreak known as the Crown Heights Riot, which started between the neighborhood's West Indian/African American and Jewish communities.

The riots began on August 19, 1991, after Gavin Cato, the son of two Guyanese immigrants, was struck and killed by a car in the motorcade of prominent Hasidic rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson.

Rumors, which later proved to be unfounded, circulated that the ambulance refused to treat Gavin Cato's injuries while removing members of Schneerson's motorcade instead.

[16][17] Through the 1990s, crime, racial conflict, and violence decreased in the city and urban renewal and gentrification began to take effect including in Crown Heights.

[20][21][22] Not only did rents for each apartment increase drastically but building management firms such as BCB Realty, affiliated with companies that buy up buildings in the neighborhood, aimed to remove long-term residents by buying them out or pressuring them to move by "failing to adequately maintain apartments", according to a housing activist, with the aim of forcing out the rent-stabilized.

Other tactics include relocating residents from their apartments claiming renovation and locking them out, as employed by another realtor in the neighborhood, ZT Realty.

[23] In 2017, real estate developer Isaac Hager faced opposition from activists when he proposed building a 565-unit apartment complex in Crown Heights;[24] in April 2019, a judge issued a restraining order against the project.

[27][28][29][30][31][32] In response to the violence, the Jewish community hosted an event for African-American teens, designed to promote greater understanding of Jews and their beliefs.

[33] On January 8, 2024, clashes broke out at the World Headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement at 770 Eastern Parkway, after a group tried to stop workers who were trying to infill an illegal tunnel excavated by students; the incident resulted in nine arrests.

Based on data from the 2010 United States Census, the population of Crown Heights North was 103,169, a change of -293 (-0.3%) from the 103,462 counted in 2000.

[43] In 2018, an estimated 21% of Crown Heights North residents lived in poverty, compared to 21% in all of Brooklyn and 20% in all of New York City.

[44][45] Based on data from the 2010 United States Census, the population of Crown Heights South was 39,670, a change of -2,700 (-6.8%) from the 42,370 counted in 2000.

[47] In 2018, an estimated 22% of Crown Heights South residents lived in poverty, compared to 21% in all of Brooklyn and 20% in all of New York City.

[51][52] Crown Heights is located in New York's 35th and 36th City Council districts, represented respectively by Democrats Crystal Hudson and Chi Ossé.

[53][54] As compared to most other parts of New York City, however, Crown Heights is more politically moderate; several of its precincts voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 United States presidential election.

[40]: 14 [46]: 14 The concentration of fine particulate matter, the deadliest type of air pollutant, is 0.008 milligrams per cubic metre (8.0×10−9 oz/cu ft) in Crown Heights North and 0.0078 milligrams per cubic metre (7.8×10−9 oz/cu ft) in Crown Heights South, slightly higher than the citywide and boroughwide averages.

[71] Crown Heights' rates of elementary school student absenteeism are higher than the rest of New York City.

The subway's BMT Franklin Avenue Line, served by the S train contains stations at Botanic Garden and Park Place.