Best Firewood East New York

At the northern edge of what is now East New York, a chain of hills, geologically a terminal moraine, separates northwestern Long Island from Jamaica and the Hempstead Plains, the main part of Long Island’s fertile outwash plain. The southern portions of the neighborhood, meanwhile, consisted of salt marshes and several creeks, which drained into Jamaica Bay. These areas were originally settled by the Jameco Native Americans, and later used by the Canarsee and Rockaway tribes as fishing grounds.

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 area along with the rest of Brooklyn and modern New York City was ceded to the British Empire in 1664. A few 18th-century roads, including the ferry road or Palmer Turnpike from Brooklyn to Jamaica, passed through the chain of hills; hence the area was called “Jamaica Pass”. During the American Revolutionary War, invading British and Hessian (German) soldiers ended an all-night forced march at this pass in August 1776 to surprise and flank General George Washington and the Continental Army, to win the Battle of Long Island (also known as the Battle of Brooklyn or the Battle of Brooklyn Heights).

In 1835, Connecticut merchant John Pitkin (the namesake of Pitkin Avenue) purchased the land of the Town of New Lots north of New Lots Avenue, opening a shoe factory at what is now Williams Street and Pitkin Avenue. Pitkin named the area “East New York” to signify it as the eastern end of New York City. In 1836 the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad (soon to become part of the Long Island Rail Road) opened through the area; it did not originally stop in East New York, but a stop there was added by 1844. The LIRR moved its terminus to Queens in 1860, and the line through Brooklyn was shortened to end at East New York.