East Flatbush, Brooklyn: Little Caribbean and Holy Cross

Holy Cross Cemetery was established in 1849, when Bishop John Hughes purchased land from the Van Brunt farm to relieve overcrowding at other Catholic burial grounds; the first interment was on July 13, 1849. Bishop John Loughlin later commissioned the Chapel of the Resurrection, completed in 1855, whose catacombs hold pioneer priests and members of prominent Catholic families. The cemetery grew to 96 acres and transferred to the Saint John's Cemetery Corporation in 2007. Among those buried here are the baseball figure Gil Hodges, the businessman Diamond Jim Brady, Mayor William R. Grace, Mayor and Representative Ardolph L. Kline, Representative John Michael Clancy, four Medal of Honor recipients and Samuel O'Reilly, who patented the electric tattoo machine.

On September 28, 2017, Little Caribbean was designated as a cultural district, described as the first and only officially recognised Little Caribbean in the world. It is sponsored by I AM caribBEING, founded in 2010 by the Trinidadian-descended Flatbush native Shelley Worrell, and its commercial corridors run along Flatbush, Church, Nostrand and Utica avenues, overlapping Brooklyn Community Districts 9, 14 and 17. In 2006 the stretch of Church Avenue between Remsen Avenue and East 98th Street, in the eastern part of the neighborhood, was co-named Bob Marley Boulevard. In 2021 the Newkirk Avenue station was formally renamed Newkirk Avenue-Little Haiti.

The neighborhood's three informal sub-sections carry their own names and their own histories. Farragut, in the centre, was named for the Civil War Admiral David Farragut, and holds Flatbush Gardens, a 59-building complex built in 1949 on the former site of the Flatbush Water Works. Rugby, in the east, was named by developers in the 1890s; the name survives on Rugby Road and on the Rugby branch of the Brooklyn Public Library at 1000 Utica Avenue. Remsen Village, the name that took over from Rugby, only emerged in the mid-1990s. Each has its own page here.

The IRT Nostrand Avenue Line runs along the neighborhood's Nostrand Avenue corridor. Church Avenue, at Church and Nostrand Avenues, straddles East Flatbush and Flatbush and is served by the 2 at all times and the 5 on weekdays. Beverly Road, at Beverley Road and Nostrand Avenue, straddles the same two neighborhoods with the same service. Newkirk Avenue-Little Haiti, at Newkirk and Nostrand Avenues, also straddles East Flatbush and Flatbush and is served by the 2 and the 5.

On the IRT New Lots Line, Sutter Avenue-Rutland Road sits at Sutter Avenue, Rutland Road and East 98th Street, on the border of East Flatbush and Brownsville. It is served by the 3 at all times except late nights, when the 4 takes over, with limited rush-hour 2 and 5 service.