Jamaica, Queens, “the other Jamaica”, is in the south-east part of New York City, just north of the JFK airport. It is not named after the island: it was once called Jameco. This unsung corner of the city has given us Assata Shakur, Sean Bell, 50 Cent, Q-Tip, the singer Olivia, governor Mario Cuomo and others.
It is one of the three main black parts of New York City, the other two being Harlem and the part of Brooklyn centred on Bedford-Stuyvesant. Jamaica is more middle-class and less famous than the other two.
In the 1950s Jamaica was almost all white. In the 1960s blacks started moving in from the American South – and whites started to move out. In the 1980s West Indians and Latin Americans started coming. Since the late 1990s it has been Asians, especially Bangladeshis.
It is about 45 minutes east of Manhattan by train. There are some high-rise apartment buildings but it is mainly street after street of houses and shops, few with more than two floors.
Jamaica Avenue is the main street.
Hillside Avenue, a few blocks north, is the colour line: to the south Jamaica is mainly black, to the north it is mainly not.
North of Hillside and to the east is Jamaica Estates. It is white and well-to-do. To the west of it are foreign-born whites and Asians, a place where taxi drivers and hot dog sellers live. Part of the plot to destroy the World Trade Center in 1993 took place there.
Middle-class white Americans are seen mainly far to the north near St John’s University.
South Jamaica, to the south of Hillside, stands at the head of a black middle-class region that extends east into Hollis, Queens and beyond into Long Island. The blacks in Queens are richer than the whites.
Black Jamaica is more middle-class than Harlem, but it is also more violent. This was especially true in the 1980s and early 1990s when crack was at its height.
In the 1980s the great and good of the city pushed the drug trade from other parts of the city into south Jamaica. They let the drug lords shoot it out among themselves on its streets. The sound of gunfire and ambulances were a fact of life. Even walking to school could be dangerous.
Young men died in their hundreds every year. The city and the country did not care. Not, that is, till one day when a white policeman was shot dead. Then suddenly the violence was unacceptable. But after the speeches were made and the news men went away, the violence carried on. This was where 50 Cent was shot in 2000 and where Sean Bell was shot 50 times by the police in 2006.
In the 1990s it become much safer: the murder rate dropped by half, as it did in much of the city.
I lived there from 1986 to 1993. They had a wonderful library on Merrick Boulevard. I loved it. Its librarians deserve as much credit as my teachers for making me who I am.
See also:
- YouTube: Method Man, D’Angelo – Break Ups 2 Make Ups – this video seems to have been shot in Jamaica, Queens.
- New York
- Those who have lived there:
- Sean Bell
- Vanessa Simmons
- Abagond (me)
- Assata Shakur
- The Delaware – the people who lived there first and gave it its name: Jameco (it means “beaver”).
- black ghetto
- The black middle class in America
- The police
- Jamaica – the island
Amazing post, a right sight of this place.
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I will be NYC in two weeks and one of my rituals to walk down Hillside avenue. I hear the polygot of voices and and know I am home.
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Greetings, Eshowoman! It has been a while. Ah yes, I remember Hillside Ave. I miss it. Both pictures in the post are from Hillside.
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Love this post, makes me homesick for the East Coast!
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