Prior to 2013, the district consisted primarily of middle-class white neighborhoods, including large Jewish, Italian, Irish, and Russian populations, in southern Brooklyn and south central Queens.

Before redistricting, the Queens Tribune found that the district increasingly swung Republican following the September 11 attacks in 2001, when many police and firefighters were lost from the Rockaways.

[5] Its representation in Congress was reliably Democratic for decades, electing prominent liberals such as Chuck Schumer and Anthony Weiner, and, prior to that, Emanuel Celler and Elizabeth Holtzman (when the district was differently numbered).

Briefly bucking the trend, Republican Bob Turner succeeded Weiner, who resigned on June 21, 2011, after winning the special election on September 13, 2011.

This iteration of the district gained national attention in 1984, when its Representative Geraldine Ferraro became the vice presidential candidate of the Democratic Party.