Brownsville

At Brooklyn’s eastern edge, “the city goes back to the marsh, and even the subway ends,” Alfred Kazin wrote of his native borough corner in A Walker in the City, his 1951 ode to Brownsville. The neighborhood has seen a rich ebb and flow of cultures, from Kazin’s youth, when the area was largely a hub of Jewish immigrants, to the current incarnation as a largely black and Puerto Rican nabe in transition. Brownsville is home to the highest density of low-income public housing in the United States.