East New York, Brooklyn: John Pitkin's Rival Metropolis

The oldest event recorded here predates the name. In 1776, during the Battle of Long Island, British and Hessian troops used Jamaica Pass, in the vicinity of present-day East New York and Cypress Hills, to outflank George Washington's forces.

The Dutch Reformed congregation at what is now 630 New Lots Avenue raised its wood-frame church on a burial ground whose oldest graves date to the seventeenth century and hold Revolutionary War soldiers and enslaved people. The building was designated a New York City Landmark on July 19, 1966 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

The railroad left its own mark on American law. A 1924 accident involving a locker of fireworks at the Long Island Rail Road's East New York station produced Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co., the foundational American tort case on proximate cause.

After the disinvestment and arson of the 1970s, the faith-based coalition East Brooklyn Congregations organized the Nehemiah Program, which built thousands of affordable single-family rowhouses on the neighborhood's vacant lots through the 1980s. In the Spring Creek section, Starrett City had already opened on October 13, 1974 with 5,881 apartments across 46 buildings, described as the largest federally assisted rental housing complex in the United States; its on-site cogeneration plant kept it lit through the 1977 blackout.

East New York is served by the subway on four lines and by the Long Island Rail Road.

On the IRT New Lots Line, New Lots Avenue is the terminal: the 3 stops at all times except late nights, the 4 late nights, and the 2, 4 and 5 at limited rush hours. Pennsylvania Avenue and Van Siclen Avenue on the same line are served by the 2, 3, 4 and 5.

The IND Fulton Street Line runs beneath the neighborhood. The A and C both call at Shepherd Avenue and at Euclid Avenue, and at Liberty Avenue and Van Siclen Avenue, where the C runs at all times except late nights and the A covers late nights.

The L calls at Atlantic Avenue, and at New Lots Avenue, Livonia Avenue and Sutter Avenue on the border with Brownsville. Broadway Junction, on the border of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Bushwick and East New York, carries the A, C, J and Z.

The Long Island Rail Road's East New York station stands at Atlantic Avenue and Havens Place, on the Atlantic Branch, described by its source as serving the East New York and Ocean Hill neighborhoods. It is served by City Terminal Zone and West Hempstead Branch trains, and the MTA has scheduled it for a station-wide ADA accessibility renewal under the 2025-2029 Capital Program.