Bensonhurst is a neighborhood located in the south-western part of the New York City borough of Brooklyn.
Bensonhurst derives its name from Arthur W. Benson, the former president of Brooklyn Gas, who in 1835 began buying farmland that formerly belonged to the Polhemus family. Between 1835 and 1850 Benson divided the farmland into generous lots that were sold in the following decades as part of the newly created suburb of Bensonhurst by the Sea (current day Bath Beach section), which was annexed into the 30th Ward of Brooklyn in the 1890s.
DEMOGRAPHICS
In the early 1900s, many Jews and Italians moved into the neighborhood, and prior to World War II the neighborhood was about equally Jewish and Italian. In the 1950s, there was an influx of immigrants from southern Italy and most of the Jewish population left the neighborhood, leaving the area predominantly Italian. In the 1990s, an influx of Chinese and Former Soviet Union immigrants began to arrive. Chinese-American residents and Chinese immigrants have opened many restaurants and shops along 18th Avenue, Bay Parkway and 86th Street. The Former Soviet Union (Jews-refugee) population has dissipated in recent years. Despite increasing diversity, Bensonhurst is heavily Italian-American, as its Italian-speaking community remains over 20,000 strong, according to the census of 2000. However, the Italian-speaking community is becoming “increasingly elderly and isolated, with the small, tight-knit enclaves they built around the city slowly disappearing as they give way to demographic changes.” Its main thoroughfare, 18th Avenue (also known as Cristoforo Colombo Boulevard) between roughly 60th Street and Shore Parkway, is lined with predominantly small, Italian family-owned businesses—many of which have remained in the same family for several generations. Eighty-sixth Street is another popular local thoroughfare, lined by the arches of the elevated BMT West End Subway Line. The 18th Avenue Station was popularized in opening credits of Welcome Back, Kotter.
Bensonhurst is also home to immigrants from the Former Soviet Union, Latin Americans and Chinese-Americans.
