The land which encompasses the neighborhood of Canarsie is named for the area's first inhabitants: the Canarsie people The Canarsie were Munsee-speaking people of the Leni Lenape. Through various sales of land in the mid to late-17th century, the Canarsie's fisheries and farmlands that once existed in this area bound by Paedergat Basin and Jamaica Bay were overtaken by Dutch settlers, who founded a town called Achtervelt. Despite European settlement, the area remained mostly rural.

One of the Dutch settlers was the Vanderveer family, who gradually accumulated large swaths of land throughout Brooklyn. The home pictured here belonged to Charles Vanderveer, a sixth-generation member of the family.

Through the 19th century, the neighborhood was synonymous with fishing culture. Prior to train and trolley lines enabling easy access to Jamaica Bay, Canarsie was a remote fisherman's village. In 1865, the New York Times published a description of Canarsie as a place "of the most primitive simplicity. Fifty years...has left Canarsie untouched. The fishermen's boats line the beach, and their nets hang on the fence, and the wagons loaded with bluefish, eels, crabs, etc. come and go, as they did when our fathers were boys...This is another quiet place, land-locked between Plum and Pelican Beaches, just far enough removed from the direct line of travel, to give it that air of quiet seclusion, which the fisherman likes."

The early 1900s saw Carnasie increasingly connected to the rest of the city. The expansion of the Brooklyn and Rockaway Beach Railroad and a ferry service eased transit to the neighborhood. The ferry line ran between the coastal communities of Bergen Beach, the Rockaways, and Howard Beach.

New ease of access meant many hotels, like the Arcadia Inn, could flourish on the beachfront of Canarsie. The area had 50 buildings on its shoreline, and 18 of those were seaside resorts. The Canarsie Pier station, which was adjacent to Arcadia Inn, provided rail service from other parts of Brooklyn. In the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the Inn was characterized as "A FAMOUS LANDMARK — Reminiscent of an old country store — combining a bar, restaurant, and grocery store — Arcadia Inn, 2136 Rockaway Ave., still boasts a convenient shopping-social spot for Canarsie residents near the Belt Parkway. The old frame structure, vintage of the \[18]90s, is as sturdy as ever, despite the passing years.”

Even with new tourists abound, many fishermen and boat-builders still resided in the neighborhood. Their catch consisted of primarily shellfish and oysters, much like the Canarsie people who lived in the area originally.

In 1906, the railroad was replaced by an efficient elevated train and trolley line, which could transport Manhattanites and those coming from other parts of Brooklyn to Canarsie faster than they could get to Coney Island.

Attempting to compete with Coney Island's popular amusement parks, William T. Warner built the Golden City Park. The park was initially successful, featuring thrills that rivaled Coney's attractions. Unfortunately, its growth was marred by not one, but two disastrous fires that destroyed up to half of Golden City. Still, the park continued to see visitors. After over three decades, the park was condemned by Robert Moses in 1939.

Though the park drew in patrons in the thousands, much of Canarsie remained grown-over with weeds, encouraging illegal dumping and pollution. Contamination of the water from dumping and industry eventually forced the closure of Jamaica Bay's oyster beds. Similarly, the city barred the catching of shellfish after multiple typhoid fever outbreaks were traced back to its waters. With nothing to catch and sell, Canarsie's fishermen were forced to move on.

The Canarsie Pier, constructed in 1926, was part of an effort to industrialize this area of Jamaica Bay. However, these plans were never realized and the Pier became (and still is) a premier location for amateur and professional fishermen alike, though catch here is only for sport.

After remaining a mostly rural area for around 200 years, Canarsie experienced an explosion of growth at the end of World War II. Facing a housing shortage that lasted over 15 years, Planning Commissioner Robert Moses convinced the city to purchase 500 surplus Quonset huts in 1946. These corrugated steel shacks provided temporary housing for many veterans families, though the shoddy shelter they offered prompted many families to leave the city altogether.

After the failure of the Quonset hut village, permanent housing developments like the Breukelen Houses (1952) and the Bay View Houses (1956) replaced the temporary shelters. These public housing projects were constructed by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) and aimed to deter white middle-income families from leaving for the suburbs.

In the late 1960s and 1970s, racial tensions rose across the country, and Canarsie was no exception. These tensions reached a fever pitch between the populations of Canarsie, then a predominantly middle-class Jewish and Italian neighborhood, and those of Brownsville and East Flatbush, which were mostly working-class Black and Puerto Rican. Racist zoning policies effectively segregated public schools in the area. Protests erupted, some of them centered on Samuel J. Tilden High School, located on the border of the three neighborhoods. The school refused to allow residents of the Tilden Houses in Brownsville to register for the school, though they were zoned for attendance. Hope for a solution came in 1972, when a rezoning plan aimed to preserve the ethnic diversity of the neighborhoods. Plans were cautious of tipping the scale too much in any direction, which could lead to "white families \[fleeing] the neighborhood," leading to "another segregated school, another segregated neighborhood," as was reported in the New York Daily News. To entice families from leaving, Tilden followed suit of many over New York City Public Schools and began offering a specialized honors program that students from all over the city could apply to for admittance. Quote is from "PTAs Offer Rezone Alternative," John Belmonte, NY Daily News, March 9, 1972

Demographics began changing with the "white flight" of the '80s and '90s, the next decades brought new immigrants to Canarsie, mostly from the Caribbean. Today, the Canarsie Pier, just beyond the Veteran's Circle pictured here, remains a vibrant recreational fishing and picnicking area, perhaps an homage to the area's roots. The pier is bordered by two parks and the Fresh Creek Nature Preserve, "One of Brooklyn’s hidden bastions of wildlife, Fresh Creek Park contains 42 acres of salt marsh," which harkens back to Canarsie's past as a waterfront wilderness.