These areas were originally settled by the Jameco Native Americans, and later used by the Canarsee and Rockaway tribes as fishing grounds.

[6]: Vol 1, p. 7.4 [7][8][9] In the 1650s Dutch colonists began settling in what are now the eastern sections of Brooklyn, forming the towns of Flatbush, Bushwick, and New Lots (the predecessor of East New York).

The Brooklyn and Rockaway Beach Railroad (1865) was built to connect the LIRR's Atlantic Branch with Canarsie at a point later known as Broadway Junction.

By the 1930s, the residents were chiefly Italians, Jews, Germans, and Russians who moved in from Brownsville, Bushwick, and other near-by crowded localities.

During this same period, large numbers of Puerto Ricans from the Caribbean island and African-Americans from the South emigrated to New York City looking for employment.

East New York, no longer replete with the jobs the new residents had come for, was thereby faced with a host of new socioeconomic problems, including widespread unemployment and crime.

Walter Thabit, a city planner for East New York, chronicled in his 2003 book, How East New York Became a Ghetto, the change in population from mostly working class Italians and Jewish residents to residents of Puerto Rican and African American descent.

[15] Thabit argues that landlords and real estate agents played a significant role in the downturn of the area.

Poverty became very highly concentrated with the neighborhood's population largely being on welfare benefits by the 1960s as well as the neighborhood also began to suffer with a lot of arson and fires to property buildings and as well as buildings and houses increasingly becoming abandoned by previously occupied Italian and Jewish residents as a result of increasing crime rates and racial tensions between White and non-White residents and there have been some reported cases during the 1960s of Italian youths and Black/Puerto Rican Youths getting into racially physical fights.

[16] Thabit also describes how the construction of public housing projects in East New York further contributed to its decline, noting that many of the developments were built by corrupt managers and contractors.

Writing in the New York Press, Michael Manville accused Thabit of poor research, sweeping generalizations, and a failure to distinguish the actions of allegedly racist individuals from the effects of what he describes as "a racist capitalist system", and contends that much of the urban renewal and public housing efforts of the period were in fact well-intentioned, if ill-considered and hubristic.

[17] Since the late 1950s, East New York has had some of the highest crime rates in Brooklyn, and is considered by some to be the borough's murder capital, alongside Brownsville.

This coalition advocated that vacant New York City owned land be provided at no cost for the development of new affordable owner occupied housing with subsidies for low-interest mortgages.

"[21][22][23] New developments are rising in the area, including the Gateway Center shopping mall located on what was once part of a landfill near Jamaica Bay.

With the neighborhood rezoned in 2016 under Bill de Blasio's administration, luxury housing developments have been introduced into the area.

Real estate agencies have sometimes persuaded homeowners to sell the properties to them, and often they would resell them to other companies for a higher price.

Based on this calculation, as of 2018[update], East New York is considered to be low-income relative to the rest of the city and not gentrifying.

However, now East New York is more diversified, with large African American, Puerto Rican, Dominican, West Indian, and South Asian populations.

North of East New York is Highland Park, the Cemetery Belt, and the neighborhoods of Ridgewood and Glendale in Queens.

Jamaica Bay and the Shirley Chisholm State Park are located on the southern shore, while Woodhaven, Ozone Park, and Howard Beach in Queens are located to the east.East New York consists of mixed properties but primarily semi-detached homes, two-to-four family houses, and multi-unit apartment buildings, including condominiums and co-ops.

[38][39][40] Starting in 2016, New York City Housing Authority began to convert some of their developments into the RAD PACT Section 8 Management with public–private partnership leases with private real estate developers and companies to help manage the properties as well as to get the capital needs and funding to make the necessary repairs and to maintain them properly.

Several of the public housing developments in East New York have been switched to this program as of December 28, 2021 along with providing social service providers on their sites to cater to the needs of their local residents, which is nearly half of the East New York NYCHA developments being converted to this program.

[42] African Burial Ground Square was designated in 2013 after remains were found some years earlier between New Lots and Livonia Avenues from Barbey to Schenck Streets.

[45] Many Italians, Germans and Irish originally lived in the area, which today is home to immigrants from Bangladesh, the Dominican Republic, Guyana, and Puerto Rico.

Area schools include: Starrett City (also known as Spring Creek Towers) is the largest subsidized rental apartment complex in the United States.

[65] A number of parcels of undeveloped land totaling 13 acres (5.3 ha) were separated out from the residential site as part of the refinancing.

[64] These sections are Ardsley, Bethel, Croton, Delmar, Elmira, Freeport, Geneva, and Hornell; each named after municipalities in New York State.

[31]: 11  East New York has a relatively low population of residents who are uninsured, or who receive healthcare through Medicaid.

[31]: 14 The concentration of fine particulate matter, the deadliest type of air pollutant, in East New York is 0.0077 milligrams per cubic metre (7.7×10−9 oz/cu ft), lower than the citywide and boroughwide averages.

Avenues and other major highways and roadways designed for automobiles include: In October 2022, CBS series debuted a TV drama serial show simply called East New York with storylines about the fictional 74th Police Precinct showing the lives of their NYPD officers patrolling the East New York neighborhood and responding to crime scenes and investigations that take place in the neighborhood.