Flatbush Is Home To Little Haiti After Pol's Fight To Rebrand

FLATBUSH, BROOKLYN — Brooklynites gathered on a windy Flatbush street corner Friday to celebrate the creation of “Little Haiti” and rename a neighborhood block after one of the nation's icons.

“Brooklyn is the Port-Au-Prince of America,” joked Borough President Eric Adams, who joined Assemblywoman Rodneyse Bichotte to unveil the new Toussaint Louverture Boulevard sign on Nostrand and Newkirk avenues. “I don’t know why it took so long for people to realize it.”

Bichotte and the local activist group Little Haiti BK have been fighting for months to name a swath of Brooklyn — bordered by Avenue H, Brooklyn Avenue, Parkside Avenue and East 16th Street — the Little Haiti Business and Cultural District.

The Flatbush representative — who is also the first Haitian-American woman to be elected to office in New York City — has argued a Little Haiti designation will bump the local economy by drawing tourists to Brooklyn as Little Italy does in downtown Manhattan.

“Little Haiti will showcase an authentic Haitian experience with food, art, music, language, and traditions of residents and local stakeholders,” said Bichotte. “We are here to reclaim our neighborhood, to rebuild."

Bichotte promised her constituents, who gathered on the steps of the Church of Saint Jerome Friday morning, that she would continue to push for infrastructural improvements in Little Haiti.

“We want to beautify the streets, we want to build cultural centers and art galleries, we want to bring in decorative lamps,” she said. “This is what it’s all about.”

But for Jumaane Williams, the city councilman who represents Flatbush, the creation of a Little Haiti in Brooklyn was about honoring a country that was recently slandered by President Donald Trump.

“Communities were singled out and called sh**holes by the President of the United States of America — one of those nations was Haiti,” Williams said.

“When the beautiful people from Haiti say we want to have a Little Haiti because of the perception of Haitians, I must stand with them.”

Friday’s press conference was followed by the unveiling of a new street sign, named for Toussaint L’Ouverture, the man who led Haitian armies against the French during the Haitian Revolution.

“It was in plantations on Haiti that a resistance movement started that the western world should be grateful for,” said City Councilman Mark Treyger. “Those movements for freedom, independence, fairness, and justice were triggered by folks that said, 'No more.'”

“When folks try to demonize or dehumanize the contributions of this precious place called Haiti, shame on them,” said Treyger, singling out, as he put it, the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. “My advice to you is find a book and read it.”

Photos by Kathleen Culliton