Crispus Attucks Playground

Classon Ave. bet. Fulton St. and Lefferts Pl.

Brooklyn

Directions via Google Maps

This text is part of Parks’ Historical Signs Project and can be found posted within the park.

This playground is named for Crispus Attucks (c. 1723-1770), an African American killed in the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770. Although little is known about Attucks’s early life, he is remembered as a runaway slave from Framingham, Massachusetts, who spent more than 20 years working on ships sailing from Boston.

Historical accounts suggest that Attucks was of mixed African and Native American parentage. According to a notice in the Boston Gazette of November 20, 1750, Attucks escaped bondage from his owner, William Browne of Framingham, Massachusetts, in early November of that year. How he made it to Boston and what he did in the intervening years before his death are not known, although he is believed to have worked - a free man - on whaling ships. Slavery was not abolished in Massachusetts until 1783.

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Facilities

Feature

Christopher "Biggie" Wallace Courts

On August 2, 2017, the newly renovated basketball courts at Crispus Attucks Playground were officially named in honor of the late Brooklyn rapper Christoper "Biggie" Wallace, who grew up a few blocks away from this playground.