Gravesend, Brooklyn

File:Map-Novi Belgii Novæque Angliæ (Amsterdam, 1685).jpg map 1656]]

The name "Gravesend" was given to the area by New Amsterdam's Dutch authorities. Local sources think that the name probably comes from Dutch words, which when combined can mean "groves end" or "Count's beach".{{Cite brookneighb|page=141}}

Historic sources, written in Dutch, suggest that it was named by the Dutch governor general Willem Kieft for the Dutch settlement of 's'Gravesande (now 's-Gravenzande) in the Netherlands, which means "Count's Beach" or "Count's Sand".[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CEEDB1430F933A15751C1A964958260 Letter to the Editor: Gravesend], The New York Times, December 20, 1992. Accessed October 28, 2007. "As a historical archeologist specializing in the early history of New York, I can tell you that what is now the Gravesend section of Brooklyn was not named for the hometown that Lady Deborah Moody and her followers left in England, as you stated in your article about the community on Oct. 18, but by the Dutch governor-general, William Kieft. Kieft chose to name the settlement " 's'Gravesande" after the town in Holland that had been the seat of the Counts of Holland before they moved to the Hague. It means the count's sand or beach." A 1656 map of Nova Belgica confirms this, by mentioning the names of Dutch towns like Vlissingen (Flushing), Breukelen (Brooklyn), Amersfoort (Flatlands), Heemstee (Hempstead, Heemstede which means homestead) and Gravesant ('s-Gravenzande).

Because of the association with Lady Moody, some speculate that it was named after the English seaport of Gravesend, Kent.{{Cite web|url=https://www.bklynlibrary.org/locations/gravesend|title=Gravesend Library|date=August 19, 2011|website=www.bklynlibrary.org}}

The modern neighborhood of Gravesend lies between East 12th Street or Coney Island Avenue to the east, Stillwell Avenue to the west, Avenue P to the north, and Coney Island Creek and Shore Parkway to the south. To the east of Gravesend is Homecrest and Sheepshead Bay, to the northeast Midwood, to the northwest Bensonhurst, and to the west Bath Beach. To the south, across Coney Island Creek, lies the neighborhood of Coney Island, and across Shore Parkway lies Brighton Beach.

Calvert Vaux Park, formerly Dreier Offerman Park, is located southwest of the neighborhood.{{cite web |url=http://www.forgotten-ny.com/STREET%20SCENES/whitesands/whitsand.html |title=Shifting White Sands |work=Forgotten NY |author=Walsh, Kevin |access-date=2008-06-24}}

File:White Sands Bay53 St jeh.jpg

South of Shore Parkway and north of Coney Island Creek, is sometimes called White Sands. Originally, White Sands consisted of several short, dead-end streets with no through-routes within the neighborhood. Currently, it consists of two blocks of residences and a Home Depot location.

{{New Netherland}}

White Sands' name is derived from the white sand which formerly covered the shore and the mouth of Coney Island Creek. The first houses to be built in the neighborhood were bungalows that were raised on stilts above the sand, but as development slowly progressed, much of the sand was removed and replaced with landfill. In 1993, Home Depot became interested in White Sands as the location for a new store due to its location near the highly-used Cropsey Avenue and Shore Parkway. By 2000, Home Depot had acquired about two-thirds of the properties in White Sands, and by 2002, the acquired properties had been razed and replaced by a new Home Depot location.{{cite news |title=Swept Away |first=Peter |last=Duffy |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9904EEDE1131F933A25753C1A96F958260 |newspaper=The New York Times |date=October 10, 1999 |access-date=2008-06-24}}

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The island and its environs were first inhabited by bands of Lenape, an Algonquian-speaking tribe that occupied territory along both sides of Long Island Sound, and through coastal areas through present-day New Jersey and down to Delaware.[http://forgotten-ny.com/2000/05/gravesend-brooklyn/ Gravesend], Forgotten NY The first known European believed to set foot in the area that would become Gravesend was Henry Hudson, whose ship, the Half Moon, landed at Coney Island in the fall of 1609. The Dutch claimed this land as part of their New Netherland Colony.{{Cite web|url=https://bklyner.com/happy-350th-birthday-bensonhurst-bensonhurst/|title=Happy 350th Birthday, Bensonhurst! - BKLYNER|website=bklyner.com|date=December 22, 2011 |access-date=2019-08-03}}

Gravesend is notable as one of the few colonial towns to be founded by a woman, Lady Deborah Moody{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/18/realestate/if-you-re-thinking-of-living-in-gravesend.html|title=If You're Thinking of Living in: Gravesend|last=Fioravante|first=Janice|date=1992-10-18|work=The New York Times|access-date=2019-11-20|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}} (Jeanne Mance being another notable female founder). In 1643, governor general Willem Kieft granted her and a group of English settlers a land patent on December 19, 1645. Moody, along with John Tilton and wife Mary Pearsall Tilton, came to Gravesend after choosing excommunication, following religious persecution in Lynn, Massachusetts. Moody and Mary Tilton had been tried because of their Anabaptist beliefs, accused of spreading religious dissent in the Puritan colony.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y4c-AAAAYAAJ&q=%22john+tilton%22+gravesend&pg=PA67|title=A History Of Long Island: From Its Earliest Settlement To The Present Time, Volume 2|last=Pelletreau|first=William Smith|publisher=The Lewis Publishing Company|year=1905|isbn=978-1295616862|location=New York|pages=67}} Kieft was recruiting settlers to secure this land that his forces had taken from the Lenape. Some clashes continued, and the town organization was not completed until 1645. The signed town charter and grant was one of the first to ever be awarded to a woman in the New World.[http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/lady-moody-triangle/history Lady Moody Triangle], New York City Parks John Tilton became the first town clerk of Gravesend and owned part of what later would become Coney Island. Moody, the Tiltons, and other early English settlers were known to have paid the Lenape for their land.[https://findingaids.library.nyu.edu/cbh/arms_1977_594_gravesend_deed/ American Indians and English settlers Gravesend deed], 1665, 1977.594; Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History. Another prominent early settler was Anthony Janszoon van Salee.

The Town of Gravesend encompassed {{convert|7000|acre}} in southern Kings County, including the entire island of Coney Island. This was originally used as the town's common lands on the Atlantic Ocean. It was divided, as was the town itself, into 41 parcels for the original patentees. When the town was first laid out, almost half of the area was made up of salt marsh wetlands and sandhill dunes along the shore of Gravesend Bay. It was one of the earliest planned communities in America. It consisted of a {{Convert|16|acre|ha|abbr=|adj=on}} square surrounded by a 20-foot-high wooden palisade. The town was bisected by two main roads, Gravesend Road (now McDonald Avenue) running from north to south, and Gravesend Neck Road, running from east to west. These roads divided the town into four quadrants, which were subdivided into ten plots of land each. This grid of the original town can still be seen on maps and aerial photographs of the area. At the center of town, where the two main roads met, a town hall was constructed where town meetings were held once a month.[http://forgotten-ny.com/2008/04/forgottentour-33-gravesend-brooklyn/ ForgottenTour 33, Gravesend, Brooklyn], Forgotten NY. April 2008. Retrieved October 11, 2014.

File:Old Gravesend Cem fence jeh.jpg

The neighborhood center is still the four blocks bounded by Village Road South, Village Road East, Village Road North, and Van Sicklen Street, where the Moody House and Van Sicklen family cemetery are located. Next to, and parallel with the van Sicklen Family Cemetery is the Old Gravesend Cemetery, where Lady Moody is said to be interred. Egyptian émigré Mohammad Ben Misoud, who was part of a late 19th-century attraction at the Coney Island amusement park, was given a proper Muslim funeral upon his death in August 1896 and also buried in Old Gravesend Cemetery.{{cite web|url=http://www.oprhp.state.ny.us/hpimaging/hp_view.asp?GroupView=3204|title=National Register of Historic Places Registration:Old Gravesend Cemetery|date=December 1979|access-date=February 20, 2011|author1=Bradley T. Frandsen|author2=Joan R. Olshansky|author3=Elizabeth Spencer-Ralph|publisher=New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121019064212/http://www.oprhp.state.ny.us/hpimaging/hp_view.asp?GroupView=3204|archive-date=October 19, 2012}}

The religious freedom of early Gravesend made it a destination for ostracized or controversial groups, Nonconformists or Dissenters such as the Quakers, who briefly made their home in the town before being chased out by the succeeding New Netherland director general Peter Stuyvesant, who arrived in 1647. He was wary of Gravesend's open acceptance of "heretical" sects.

In 1654 the people of Gravesend purchased Coney Island from the local Lenape band for about $15 worth of seashells, guns, and gunpowder.

In August 1776 during the American Revolutionary War, Gravesend Bay was the landing site of thousands of British soldiers and German mercenaries from their staging area on Staten Island, leading to the Battle of Long Island (also Battle of Brooklyn). The troops met little resistance from the Continental Army advance troops under General George Washington then headquartered in New York City (at the time limited to the tip of Manhattan Island). The battle, in addition to being the first, would prove to be the largest fought in the entire war.

{{stack|File:86th Telco bldg-Meucci Triangle.JPG Verizon building at Meucci Triangle, at 86th Street and Avenue U.]]}}

Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, Gravesend remained a sleepy suburb. With the opening of three prominent racetracks (Sheepshead Bay Race Track, Gravesend Race Track, and Brighton Beach Race Course) in the late 19th century, and the blossoming of Coney Island into a popular vacation spot, the town was developed as a successful resort community. John Y. McKane was credited with this. A Sheepshead Bay carpenter and contractor, he gained a variety of elected and appointed positions: as Gravesend town supervisor, chief of police, chief of detectives, fire commissioner, schools commissioner, public lands commissioner, superintendent of the Sheepshead Bay Methodist Church, head tenor of the church choir, and Santa Claus at the annual Sabbath school Christmas celebration. From the 1870s to the 1890s, McKane cultivated Coney Island, which was then part of the township of Gravesend, as a pleasure ground. He participated in both political and physical development.

As town constable, McKane expanded the Gravesend police force considerably and personally patrolled the beach. McKane became corrupt, using the pretense of town permits to extort tribute from every business, large or small, on Coney Island. Presenting himself as a champion of law and order, he skimmed much money from the many brothels and gambling parlors that thrived in his bailiwick. During McKane's reign Coney Island came to be known by many as "Sodom by the Sea".{{citation needed|date=November 2018}}

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File:OIL-SOAKED MUD LINES INDUSTRIAL CANAL IN GRAVESEND BAY AREA OF BROOKLYN - NARA - 547897.jpg.]]

McKane became a Democratic Party ward boss and had loose standards on who was allowed to vote: immigrants, dead people, seasonal migrant workers, and criminals. Voting records show many specious entries. On the eve of the 1893 election, William Gaynor, a lawyer running for Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice, decided to test McKane's methods by dispatching more than 20 Republican observers to examine the Gravesend voter registries and oversee the voting in all six districts of the town, as he was entitled to do by law. However, when the observers reached Gravesend town hall at dawn on election day, McKane, along with a large group of policemen and cronies, confronted them. When the observers balked and produced injunctions from the Brooklyn Supreme Court, McKane supposedly declared "injunctions don't go here" and ordered the men away. A scuffle ensued and five of the observers were beaten and arrested. This event raised great outrage.(May 4, 1894). "[http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/Default/Scripting/ArchiveView.asp?BaseHref=BEG%2F1894%2F05%2F04&skin=BE&AppName=2&Page=4 A New Chapter in History] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070915214249/http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/Default/Scripting/ArchiveView.asp?BaseHref=BEG%2F1894%2F05%2F04&skin=BE&AppName=2&Page=4 |date=September 15, 2007 }}" [http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org The Brooklyn Daily Eagle] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080907062509/http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/ |date=September 7, 2008 }} Page 4; "[http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/Default/Scripting/ArchiveView.asp?BaseHref=BEG%2F1894%2F05%2F04&skin=BE&AppName=2&Page=12 Becoming Wards One By One] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070916002041/http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/Default/Scripting/ArchiveView.asp?BaseHref=BEG%2F1894%2F05%2F04&skin=BE&AppName=2&Page=12 |date=September 16, 2007 }}" [http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org The Brooklyn Daily Eagle] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080907062509/http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/ |date=September 7, 2008 }}, p. 12 Early in the following year, McKane was tried, convicted, and sentenced to six years in Sing Sing for such corruption. He was released near the end of the century and died of a stroke in his Sheepshead Bay home in 1899.(September 6, 1899) "[http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Search&Key=BEG/1899/09/06/3/Ar00303.xml&CollName=BEG_COL2&DOCID=3749426&Keyword=%28%3Cmany%3E%3Cstem%3EMckane%29&skin=BE&AppName=2&ViewMode=GIF John Y. McKane Dies] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120930090538/http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Search&Key=BEG%2F1899%2F09%2F06%2F3%2FAr00303.xml&CollName=BEG_COL2&DOCID=3749426&Keyword=%28%3Cmany%3E%3Cstem%3EMckane%29&skin=BE&AppName=2&ViewMode=GIF |date=September 30, 2012 }}" [http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org The Brooklyn Daily Eagle] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080907062509/http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/ |date=September 7, 2008 }}

After McKane's fall from power, Gravesend and Coney Island were annexed in 1894 by the city of Brooklyn, which in turn became part of New York City in 1898.{{cite brooklyn}}, p.79 George C. Tilyou created one of Coney Island’s first amusement parks, Steeplechase Park, the opening of which ushered in Coney Island’s golden age.

Around the same time, Gravesend was the site of testing for the Boynton Bicycle Railroad, the earliest forerunner of the monorail.{{cite web |url=http://www.scientificamericanpast.com/Scientific%20American%201890%20to%201899/5/lg/sci2171894.htm |title=Scientific American 1890 to 1899 |access-date=January 21, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120217052811/http://www.scientificamericanpast.com/Scientific%20American%201890%20to%201899/5/lg/sci2171894.htm |archive-date=February 17, 2012 }} The BBR consisted of a single-wheeled engine that hauled two double-decker passenger cars along a single track; a second rail above the train, supported by wooden arches, kept it from tipping over. The engine and cars were four feet wide and were capable of speeds far greater than the much bulkier standard trains. In 1889, the BBR began running a short route between the Gravesend stop of the Sea Beach Railroad (near the intersection of 86th and West Seventh Streets) and Brighton Beach in Coney Island, a distance of just over a mile. Despite the smooth and speedy ride, the BBR ultimately failed and the test route fell into disuse, as did the Boynton train and its shed.(September 10, 1899) "[http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Search&Key=BEG/1899/09/10/12/Ar01201.xml&CollName=BEG_COL2&DOCID=3752174&Keyword=%28%3Cmany%3E%3Cstem%3Eboynton%29&skin=BE&AppName=2&ViewMode=GIF Boynton Bicycle Railroad] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120930090611/http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Search&Key=BEG%2F1899%2F09%2F10%2F12%2FAr01201.xml&CollName=BEG_COL2&DOCID=3752174&Keyword=%28%3Cmany%3E%3Cstem%3Eboynton%29&skin=BE&AppName=2&ViewMode=GIF |date=September 30, 2012 }}" [http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org The Brooklyn Daily Eagle] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080907062509/http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/ |date=September 7, 2008 }}

File:Caesars Bay Parkway stones Sandy jeh.jpg's aftermath]]

Although Coney Island continued to be a major tourist attraction throughout the 20th century, the closing of Gravesend's great racetracks in the century's first decade resulted in the rest of the old town fading into obscurity. Most of it was developed as a working and middle-class residential Brooklyn neighborhood. During the 1920s, many one-family homes were built in Gravesend, which were then converted to two-family housing during the Great Depression.

In the 1950s, the city constructed the 28-building Marlboro Houses, public housing units run by the New York City Housing Authority, located between Avenues V and X from Stillwell Avenue to the Gravesend subway yards. Gradually this housing became occupied predominantly by African Americans.{{Cite web|url=http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycha/html/developments/bklynmarlboro.shtml|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20091103102902/http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycha/html/developments/bklynmarlboro.shtml|url-status=dead|title=Marlboro Houses at NYCHA|archivedate=November 3, 2009}} On the other hand, the area in the northeast part of Gravesend, bound by McDonald Avenue, Kings Highway, Ocean Parkway, and Avenue U, saw an influx of affluent Sephardi Jews (mostly Syrian Jews) during the 1970s.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1986/08/10/realestate/if-you-re-thinking-of-living-in-gravesend.html|title=If You're Thinking of Living in; Gravesend|last=Parker|first=Emil|date=1986-08-10|work=The New York Times|access-date=2019-11-20|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}} These residents built large Spanish Colonial-style houses, and had their own police force.

In 1982, an African-American transit worker named Willie Turks was beaten to death in Gravesend by a group of white teenagers.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/06/opinion/the-unreconstructed-north.html|title=Opinion {{!}} The Unreconstructed North|last=Sokol|first=Jason|date=December 5, 2014|work=The New York Times|access-date=February 16, 2018|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}} The relationship between the predominantly African-American and more poor population of the Marlboro Houses and the predominantly white surrounding neighborhoods continued to be tense through much of the 1980s.{{Cite journal|last=Lowenstein|first=Roger|date=July 25, 1988|title=The Mood Gets Nasty in City Neighborhood as Racial Tension Rises|journal=The Wall Street Journal}} By 1986, crime was generally low in Gravesend, except for Marlboro Houses, where illegal drugs contributed to higher crime rates than in the rest of the neighborhood. On December 25, 1987, white youths beat two black men in the neighborhood in an apparent "unprovoked attack."{{Cite journal|last=Manly|first=Howard|date=December 29, 1987|title='An Unprovoked Attack': Black brothers tell of beating by whites|journal=Newsday}} In January 1988, to protest the specific attack and the general climate of racial violence, Reverend Al Sharpton led 450 marchers between Marlboro Houses and a police station, and were met with chants of "go back to Africa" and various racial epithets from a predominantly white crowd.{{Cite news|last=Hevesi|first=Dennis|date=January 3, 1988|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/03/nyregion/blacks-to-jeers-of-whites-protest-racism-in-brooklyn.html|title=Blacks, to Jeers of Whites, Protest Racism in Brooklyn|work=The New York Times}}

Beginning in the 1990s, the northeast section of the neighborhood was redeveloped with larger, upscale single-family homes, whose prices reached $1 million. This dramatically changed the composition of part of the neighborhood.{{Cite news |last=Mooney |first=Jake |title=A Neighborhood Both Insular and Diverse |newspaper=The New York Times |page=RE9 |date=August 10, 2008 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/realestate/10livi.html}} In addition, some two-family homes were being converted back to single-family houses. Despite high rates of car thefts, Gravesend's crime rate remained relatively low.

File:John Dewey HS 13 acre campus.jpg's campus viewed from Bay 50th Street]]

• Big Apple Academy
• John Dewey High School
• Lafayette High School (now Lafayette Educational Complex)
• Touro College
• PS 95 The Gravesend
• PS 216 Arturo Toscanini
• PS 212 Lady Deborah Moody
• PS 721K Brooklyn Occupational Center
• IS 281 Joseph B. Cavallaro
• IS 228 David A. Boody
• Shostakovich School of Music
• PS 215 Morris H. Weiss
• PS 238 Anne Sullivan (Pre-K - 8)
• Our Lady of Grace Catholic Academy
• St Simon and St Jude Catholic School ( k-8) Jim McGinty
• PS 97 The Highlawn

The Brooklyn Public Library's Gravesend branch is located at 303 Avenue X near West 2nd Street. It opened in 1962 and was renovated in 2001.{{cite web | title=Gravesend Library | website=Brooklyn Public Library | date=August 19, 2011 | url=https://www.bklynlibrary.org/locations/gravesend | access-date=February 21, 2019}}

File:Dahill Av and Kings Hwy Brooklyn.jpg

Based on data from the 2010 United States Census, the population of Gravesend was 29,436, an increase of 179 (0.6%) from the 29,257 counted in 2000. Covering an area of {{convert|731.83|acres}}, the neighborhood had a population density of {{convert|40.2|PD/acre|PD/sqmi PD/sqkm}}.[http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/planning/download/pdf/data-maps/nyc-population/census2010/t_pl_p5_nta.pdf Table PL-P5 NTA: Total Population and Persons Per Acre - New York City Neighborhood Tabulation Areas*, 2010], Population Division - New York City Department of City Planning, February 2012. Accessed June 16, 2016.

The racial makeup of the neighborhood was 52.8% (15,535) White, 21.2% (6,250) Asian, 8.4% (2,469) African American, 0.1% (41) Native American, 0.0% (1) Pacific Islander, 0.1% (41) from other races, and 1.3% (383) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino residents of any race were 16.0% (4,716) of the population.[http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/planning/download/pdf/data-maps/nyc-population/census2010/t_pl_p3a_nta.pdf Table PL-P3A NTA: Total Population by Mutually Exclusive Race and Hispanic Origin - New York City Neighborhood Tabulation Areas*, 2010], Population Division - New York City Department of City Planning, March 29, 2011. Accessed June 14, 2016.

In the 2020 census data from NYC Dept. Of City Planning, West Gravesend showed there were between 20,000 and 29,999 white residents and 26,700 Asian residents showing both their populations to be almost equivalent and there were between 5,000 and 9,999 Hispanic residents. South Gravesend has between 10,000 and 19,999 white residents and has between 5,000 and 9,999 Asian residents, but showed each the Hispanic and Black populations to be under 5000 residents. East Gravesend overlapping to Homecrest showed a higher proportion of white residents of between 30,000 and 39,999 with Hispanic residents of between 5,000 and 9,999 and as well as Asian residents of between 5,000 and 9,999.{{Cite web|url=https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/planning/download/pdf/planning-level/nyc-population/census2020/dcp_2020-census-briefing-booklet-1.pdf|title=Key Population & Housing Characteristics; 2020 Census Results for New York City|publisher=New York City Department of City Planning|date=August 2021|access-date=November 7, 2021|pages=21, 25, 29, 33}} The affordable housing NYCHA development Marlboro Houses located right on the borderline of Gravesend and Coney Island holds a significant concentrated community of Black residents even though some Asian and Hispanic residents also live within the housing development as well.{{cite web | title=Map: Race and ethnicity across the US | website=CNN | date=August 14, 2021 | url=https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2021/us/census-race-ethnicity-map/ | access-date=November 7, 2021}}{{cite web | url=https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nycha/about/developments/brooklyn.page | title=Brooklyn - NYCHA }}{{cite web | url=https://nycha.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=41c6ff5e73ec459092e982060b7cf1a1 | title=ArcGIS Web Application }}

Gravesend's earliest European settlers were predominantly English and Dutch. Slavery was legal in the colony, and many settlers had enslaved African Americans as workers until after the American Revolution, when New York gradually abolished the institution. African Americans continued to work and live in Gravesend after the abolition of slavery, clustering near the BMT Brighton Line at East 16th Street.{{citation needed|date=December 2018}}

The now-defunct Gravesend Race Track opened on August 26, 1886 and hired mainly black workers, who tended to live nearby. Later, there was a surge in Irish, Italian, and Jewish residents, immigrants and their descendants who moved out from Manhattan. Chinese, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Russian, Ukrainian and West Indies immigrants are the most recent residents to share this neighborhood.{{citation needed|date=December 2018}} The largest group is thought to be Italian American and named for Gravesend's Italian community is a professional soccer team, the Brooklyn Italians who play in Gravesend's John Dewey High School football stadium.{{Cite web|url=https://www.brooklynitalians.org/|title=Brooklyn Italians Soccer Club | Youth Soccer Academy|website=The Brooklyn Italians Soccer Club}} Of the Italian-American community, Sicilians (especially from Castellammare del Golfo), make up the largest specific region of people.

In 2008, The New York Times reported that the neighborhood had become particularly popular among Sephardic Jews. It was among several Syrian Jewish communities of the United States. The New York Times also reported that in the 2012 presidential election, a precinct in Gravesend was one of the few parts of New York City carried by Mitt Romney, with 133 votes to just 3 for Barack Obama.{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/24/nyregion/in-manhattan-largely-blue-one-bright-spot-and-a-tie-for-romney.html |title=In Manhattan, Largely Blue, One Bright Spot and a Tie for Romney |first=Michael M. |last=Grynbaum |work=The New York Times |date=November 24, 2012}}

Gravesend is served by three New York City Subway corridors. The services and lines, respectively, are:

• {{NYCS trains|West End}} on the BMT West End Line at 25th Avenue and Bay 50th Street;
• {{NYCS trains|Culver IND south}} on the IND Culver Line at Kings Highway, Avenue U, and Avenue X; and
• {{NYCS trains|Sea Beach}} on the BMT Sea Beach Line at Kings Highway, Avenue U, and 86th Street.

The Coney Island Subway Yard is in the neighborhood.

The {{NYC bus link|B1|B3|B4|B64|B68|B82|B82 SBS|prose=y}} lines operate through Gravesend.{{Cite NYC bus map|B}}

• William DeMeo (born 1971), actor
• John Franco (born 1960), former New York Mets baseball playerSexton, Joe. [https://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/04/sports/baseball-hometown-hero-with-an-arm-of-clay.html "Baseball; Hometown Hero With an Arm of Clay"], The New York Times, February 4, 1991. Accessed April 15, 2024."A year ago, Franco, a star at Lafayette High School and then St. John's before going on to become one of the most perplexing and thus feared relievers in the game as a member of the Cincinnati Reds, had to request a police guard at his door in Gravesend to ward off random revelers in the announcement that he had been traded to the Mets."

Gravesend is patrolled by the New York City Police Department's 60th, 61st, and 62nd Precincts.{{cite web | title=Find Your Precinct and Sector - NYPD | website=www.nyc.gov | url=https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/bureaus/patrol/find-your-precinct.page | access-date=March 3, 2019}}

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Notes

{{Reflist}}

Bibliography

• French, J. H. [https://web.archive.org/web/20091026192131/http://geocities.com/Heartland/Ranch/3930/kingscounty.html Gazetteer Of the State of New York] (1860)
• Ierardi, Eric J. Gravesend: Home of Coney Island
• (August 10, 1896) [https://web.archive.org/web/20120930090529/http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Search&Key=BEG%2F1896%2F08%2F10%2F2%2FAr00207.xml&CollName=BEG_COL2&DOCID=2969793&Keyword=%28%3Cmany%3E%3Cstem%3Egravesend%3Cand%3E%3Cmany%3E%3Cstem%3Ecemetery%29&skin=BE&AppName=2&ViewMode=GIF Tombstone For "The Nubian"] [https://web.archive.org/web/20080907062509/http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/ The Brooklyn Daily Eagle]
• (August 1896) [https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1896/08/11/103382199.pdf "Turk is Buried with Odd Ceremonies"] The New York Times

• {{Commons category-inline|Gravesend, Brooklyn}}

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{{Former towns of New York City}}

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Category:1645 establishments in North America

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Category:Establishments in New Netherland

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Category:Italian-American culture in New York City

Category:Neighborhoods in Brooklyn

Category:Populated coastal places in New York (state)

Category:Sicilian-American culture

Category:Syrian-American culture in New York City

Category:Syrian-Jewish culture in New York (state)