Sunset Park, Brooklyn

For other uses, see Sunset Park (disambiguation).

Sunset Park, Brooklyn
—  Neighborhoods of New York City  —
5th Avenue and dome of St Michael's as seen from Sunset Park
Country	United States of America
State	New York
County	Kings County
City	New York City
Borough	Brooklyn
Government
• Council Member	Sara M. Gonzalez
Population (2000)[1]
• Total	120,441
ZIP code	11220, 11232, 11215
Area code(s)	347, 646, 718, 917

The landmark Sunset Play Center

Sunset Park is a neighborhood in the western section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn, USA. It is bounded by Greenwood Heights to the north, Borough Park to the east, Bay Ridge to the south, and Upper New York Bay to the west. Sunset Park is served by the NYPD's 72nd Precinct.

There is a namesake city park within the neighborhood, located between 41st and 44th Streets and 5th and 7th Avenues, which is the second highest point in Brooklyn (the highest being on the northeastern edge of Green-Wood Cemetery). The "main drag" of the neighborhood is 5th Avenue. The area is also home to the Jackie Gleason Bus Depot.

History and overview

Early years

In the heyday of the New York Harbor's dominance of North American shipping during the 19th Century, Sunset Park grew rapidly, largely as a result of Irish, Polish, Finnish and Norwegian immigrant families moving to the area. The neighborhood grew up around the Bush Terminal of Irving T. Bush, a model industrial park completed in 1895 between 39th and 53d Streets, and continued to grow through World War II, when the Brooklyn Army Terminal between 53d and 66th Streets employed more than 10,000 civilians to ship 80% of all American supplies and troops.

Bush Terminal as viewed from the park

Sunset Park's fortunes began to decline after the war and factors included the rise of truck-based freight shipping and ports in New Jersey, growth of suburban sprawl and white flight, closing of the Army Terminal, and decreasing importance of heavy industry in the American northeast. Families who had lived in the community for decades began moving out, and their homes — largely modest but attractive rowhouses — lost value. The construction of the elevated Gowanus Expressway, replacing the BMT Third Avenue Elevated in 1941 effectively cut the neighborhood off from the harbor, which further wounded the area in a fashion often associated with the expressway's builder, power-broker Robert Moses. Until the early 1980s, Sunset Park's main population was made up of Norwegian Americans, who began leaving the neighborhood during the white flight years of the 1970s and 1980s.

5th Avenue, Sunset Park

Celebrating Chinese New Year on 8th Avenue.

Rebirth "Brooklyn's Little Latin America"

Sunset Park's second age began with a wave of immigration from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Mexico as well as other Latin American countries. By 1990, Hispanics comprised 50% of Sunset Park's population, rehabilitating property values and developing a thriving community. There is an abundance of Hispanic restaurants and businesses along 5th Avenue.

People from Gujarat, India, have also been settling in and around Sunset Park since 1974. They are mostly Christian and go to three of the area's churches, at 45th Street and 7th Avenue, 56th Street and 4th Avenue, and 52nd Street and 8th Avenue. These churches have a mainly Indian congregation and festive parties in the church halls.

Brooklyn Chinatown/Emerging Fuzhou Town

Since the 1980s, Brooklyn Chinatown, located along 8th Avenue from 42nd to 68th Street, has attracted many Chinese immigrants. Eighth Avenue is lined with Chinese businesses, including grocery stores, restaurants, Buddhist temples, video stores, bakeries, and community organizations, and even Hong Kong Supermarket.

Like the traditional Chinatown in Manhattan, Brooklyn's Chinatown was originally settled by Cantonese immigrants. In recent years, however, to the discontent of many of the Cantonese, an influx of Fuzhou immigrants has been supplanting the Cantonese at a significantly faster rate than in Manhattan's Chinatown. The Cantonese presence is definitively giving way to an emerging Fuzhou community, though many Cantonese still come from other parts of Brooklyn and elsewhere.

Elementary School 24

By 2009 many Mandarin-speaking people had moved to Sunset Park.

Demographics

The 2000 Census [2] for Sunset Park, Brooklyn approximates that there were 120,441 people living in the neighborhood; 50.5% were male and 49.5% female. The median age was 30.8; 17.8% of residents were children, 73.2% were adults (18 years and over), and 9% were senior citizens (65 or over).

There were 29,723 total housing units, of which 95.8% were occupied, and 75.1% were rented and 24.9% were owned; The median property value was $235,400. The median household income in 1999 US dollars was $30,152, and the median family income was $31,247; The per capita income was $13,141; 27.9% of individuals, and 26% of families were living below the poverty line. 93.9% of residents were of one race, while 6.1% were multiracial; Roughly 42.6% of residents were Hispanic or Latino, 36.2% were white (Caucasian or Arab), 29% were Asian (mostly Chinese), 3.2% were black/African American, and 24.7% were "some other race".

Residential block in Sunset Park

St Michael's Church

Recent history

Sunset Park was hit by the 2007 Brooklyn tornado on August 8. Significant damage was reported to homes on 58th Street between 7th and 5th Avenues and 67th to 66th Streets between 5th and 6th Avenues.

Transportation

Sunset Park is extensively served by road, rail, and ferry service. The neighborhood has access to three limited-access highways; the Gowanus/Interstate 278 and Prospect/NY-27 expressways as well as the Belt Parkway.

Five NYCTA bus lines serve Sunset Park: B9, B11, B35, B63, and B70.

Three subway lines run through Sunset Park. The BMT Fourth Avenue Line (D N R) has stations at Prospect Avenue, 25th Street, 36th Street, 45th Street, 53rd Street and 59th Street. The BMT West End Line (D) has a station at Ninth Avenue. The BMT Sea Beach Line (N) has a station at Eighth Avenue.

Tracks in Second Avenue

Freight trains run along the embedded tracks along 5th and 2nd Avenues and on the old Long Island Rail Road Bay Ridge Branch rails that are adjacent to the BMT Sea Beach Line.

NY Waterway service is available at the Brooklyn Army Terminal to Pier 11/Wall Street, the East 34th Street Ferry Landing, the Sandy Hook Bay Marina, or Riis Landing on summer Fridays. Ferry service was created in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks when the Gowanus Expressway and New York City Subway were at capacity. It was free from October 2001 until April 2003, when the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced that it could not subsidize the service anymore. Today, it is operated by the Red Hook, Brooklyn-based New York Water Taxi company on its Rockaway/Sandy Hook route. The Water Taxi service from the Brooklyn Army Terminal was part of the crucial contingency plan during the 2005 New York City transit strike.

Much of the traffic between Brooklyn Chinatown and Manhattan Chinatown is handled by privately held minibus known in Chinese as "VAN 仔" and in English as "Chinese vans." They travel down 8th Avenue from 43rd Street to the 61st Street ramp to the Gowanus Expressway/I-278 bound for Manhattan and Queens.

See also

• Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help
• List of Brooklyn neighborhoods
• Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow (OBT)
• Little Fuzhou(小福州) on East Broadway
• Chinatown, Manhattan
• Chinatowns in Canada and the United States
• Chinatown, Flushing

External links

• Sunset Park Business Improvement District
• - Pictures of Sunset Park, Brooklyn
• Sunset Park A New Perspective from CUNY Baruch College
• Metropolitan Transportation Authority
• New York Water Taxi website
• The Movie Sunset Park at IMDB
• Pictures of the neighborhood
• Center for Family Life
• Best View in Brooklyn
• View from Sunset Park