Thirteenth Avenue (Brooklyn)

The avenue extends roughly {{convert|1|mi}} in length through Borough Park, and contains a huge variety of stores, businesses and food establishments catering to the local and international Haredi Jewish community. While the sidewalks and streets are heavily congested during the week, all stores and businesses are shuttered on the Jewish Sabbath and Jewish holidays. In December 2012, the stretch of 13th Avenue from 36th to 60th Streets was co-named Raoul Wallenberg Way in honor of the Swedish diplomat who saved 100,000 Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust. Many of these survivors settled in Borough Park after the war and raised their families here.

Jewish immigrants began populating Borough Park at the turn of the 20th century. Through the 1930s, 13th Avenue was lined with pushcart vendors{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tukvjz6V3m4C&pg=PA26|title= Once Upon My Time...: The Life of Alan Drattell: A Memoir|first=Alan |last=Drattell |year=2010 |publisher= Xlibris Corporation|isbn= 978-1450084635|page=26}} and pickle sellers.{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/01/07/nyregion/orthodox-neighborhood-reshapes-itself.html|title= Orthodox Neighborhood Reshapes Itself|first=Deborah |last=Sontag |date=7 January 1998 |access-date=24 December 2012|work=The New York Times}} In the late 1930s the city opened a public market on 42nd Street to force an end to the pushcart trade. Thirteenth Avenue gentrified into an avenue of specialty shops interspersed with regular merchandise stores, and the avenue itself turned into a place "to see and be seen".{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Zo0PQsvpvt8C&q=13th+avenue+boro+park|title= Brooklyn Roots: A Tale of Pickles and Egg Creams|first=Estelle B. |last=Breines |year=2011 |publisher=iUniverse |isbn=978-1450264051|pages=4–5}}

File:BoroughPark-13thAvenue.jpg bus on 13th Avenue at 47th Street in Borough Park]]

In the 1980s the religious Jewish demographic of Borough Park shifted from Modern Orthodox to Hasidic families. In response, new shops and restaurants opened on 13th Avenue to serve the expanding Haredi community. In 1987 two of the most popular stores debuted: Eichler's Judaica bookstore and Kosher Castle Dairy Cafeteria. New stores also opened selling imported goods and computer technology.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uEP5KNUAFh0C&pg=PA108 |title= Hasidic People: A Place in the New World|first=Jerome R.|last=Mintz |year=1992 |publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=0674381157|pages=108–109}} At the end of the 1990s, businesses began selling electronics and Jewish books, music and videos to overseas customers via the Internet.

Observers credit the younger generation of Borough Park, who prefer to do business with other Jews, for fueling 13th Avenue's commercial growth. Most businesses are independently owned. One sign of the strong 13th Avenue economy is the heavy concentration of banks lining the avenue, including two JP Morgan banks standing one block apart, at 48th and 49th streets.{{cite web |url=http://forgotten-ny.com/2011/10/borough-park/|title=Borough Park|date=23 October 2011 |access-date=24 December 2012 |publisher=Forgotten New York}} In 2009 a ten-block strip of 13th Avenue, from 45th to 55th Streets, had 14 banks, with two more opening by 2010.{{cite web |url=http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20090607/SUB/306079971|title= Borough Park takes it to the bank|first=Amanda |last=Fung |date=7 June 2009 |access-date=24 December 2012|publisher=Crain's New York}} (Additional branches announced, can be confirmed [http://www.mybanktracker.com/branch/Valley-National-Bank/NY/Brooklyn/11219/4616-13th-Avenue-97263 here] and [http://www.mybanktracker.com/branch/Bank-of-America/NY/Brooklyn/11219/4701-13th-Avenue-100386 here.]) Flushing Bank{{cite web |url=http://www.homereporternews.com/news/general/new-flushing-bank-branch-opens-in-borough-park/article_04bd8264-42be-11e1-b075-001871e3ce6c.html|title=New Flushing Bank branch opens in Borough Park

|date=22 January 2012 |access-date=29 December 2012|work=Home Reporter News}} and Northfield Bank{{cite web |url=http://www.homereporternews.com/news/business/boro-park-branch-celebrates-grand-opening/article_a49d5c76-b57f-11e1-8fc2-0019bb2963f4.html|title=Boro Park branch celebrates grand opening

|first=Melisa |last=Stumpf |work=Home Reporter News |date=13 June 2012 |access-date=29 December 2012}} joined the mix in 2012.

The avenue has achieved global recognition, especially among Israeli expatriates and tourists. In 1987, The Park House Hotel opened its doors between 12th and 13th avenues on 48th Street as the first kosher Hotel in Borough Park. In 1999 a 52-room luxury kosher hotel, the Avenue Plaza Hotel, opened on 13th Avenue, becoming the first hotel to appear in the neighborhood in more than a decade. These hotels along with many area merchants specifically accommodate the needs of visiting Hasidic tourists.{{cite web |url= http://traveltips.usatoday.com/borough-park-new-york-area-hotels-32359.html|title= Borough Park, New York Area Hotels |first=Josh |last=Baum |access-date=24 December 2012|work=USA Today}}

{{Quote box

|width=300px

|align=right

|quoted=true

|bgcolor=#FFFFF0

|salign=right

|quote=On most early Friday afternoons Amnon's Kosher Pizza on Thirteenth Avenue in Boro Park is so crowded that most people finish their meals standing up.

|source=Michael Taub, "My Mother's Borough Park"Taub, Michael (2002). [https://books.google.com/books?id=ydmtk2HGrcAC&pg=PA138 "My Mother's Borough Park"], in Jews of Brooklyn, Ilana Abramovitch and Seán Galvin, eds. University Press of New England, pp. 137–138. {{ISBN|978-1-58465-003-4}}

}}

File:Amnon's Kosher Pizza (and Falafel).jpg

In Borough Park, 13th Avenue is primarily zoned as either a commercial district, or a residential district with commercial shops on the first floor. A New York Times reporter compared the stretch of 13th Avenue in Borough Park to the Lower East Side at the beginning of the 20th century, where Orthodox Jews could buy anything they needed. The huge selection on 13th Avenue includes religious items, silver Judaica, Jewish books, electronics, modest clothing for men and women, children's clothes, wig stores,{{cite web |url=http://forward.com/articles/140150/orthodox-children-face-unchanging-milestones/|title= Orthodox Children Face Unchanging Milestones: What's it like to be a boy in Boro Park? |first1=Josh |last1=Nathan-Kazis |first2=Naomi |last2=Zeveloff |work=The Forward |date=22 July 2011 |access-date=24 December 2012}} kosher meat markets, kosher bakeries,{{cite web |url=http://brooklynramblings.blogspot.co.il/2007/02/photo-tour-of-borough-park.html|title=Photo Tour of Borough Park |date=12 February 2007 |access-date=24 December 2012|publisher=Brooklyn Ramblings}} and kosher candy stores.{{cite web |url=http://timelinetouring.com/brooklyn/borough_park|title=Borough Park |year=2003 |publisher=Timeline Touring|access-date=24 December 2012}} All kinds of ethnic and modern Jewish dining establishments abound, including restaurants, cafes, delis and pizza stores, all with strict rabbinic supervision.{{cite web|url=http://gastrotraveling.com/2012/05/02/boro-park-an-orthodox-smorgasbord/|title=Boro Park: An Orthodox Smorgasbord |date=2 May 2012 |access-date=24 December 2012|publisher=Gastro Traveling}} Specialty clothing satisfying the different minhagim (customs) of the various Hasidic sects in the neighborhood is readily available.{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/08/22/nyregion/for-jews-around-world-borough-park-is-the-place-to-shop.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm|title=For Jews Around World, Borough Park Is the Place to Shop |first=Kit R. |last=Roane |date=22 August 1999 |access-date=24 December 2012|work=The New York Times}} Thirteenth Avenue is known as the "Avenue of Values". In the days preceding major Jewish holidays, 13th Avenue is also filled with sidewalk vendors selling holiday needs.{{cite web |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-79273588.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140610214626/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-79273588.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=10 June 2014|title=The Wonders of America: Sukkot; A Festival of Interior Design?|first=Jenna Weissman |last=Joselit |work=The Forward |date=5 October 2001 |access-date=29 December 2012 |quote=This time of year, 13th Avenue in Boro Park, Brooklyn, becomes the destination of Jewish holiday shoppers who come in droves from the tristate area in search of decorations for their sukkah. Strings of colored electric lights, heaps of plastic lemons and oranges and piles of paper drawings of the Holy Land beckon gaily as do different models of portable, one-step, easy-to-assemble outdoor booths.}}(subscription)

The sidewalks and street are often congested, and parking is at a premium. Locals and tourists flood the avenue on Sundays and the eves of Jewish holidays. In 1989 the two-way avenue was converted to one-way in an effort to reduce congestion, but the traffic remains heavy.{{cite journal|title=Still Shopping on 13th Avenue|first=Esty|last=Heller|journal=Mishpacha|pages=354–361|date=2 October 2017}} Children and strollers are seen everywhere, as the Haredi Jewish residents with typically large families shop for their needs. Borough Park is considered a low-crime neighborhood, and parents often leave their babies unattended in strollers outside stores and restaurants.{{cite web |url=http://matzav.com/hikind-decries-leaving-children-unattended-outside-stores-while-shopping|title= Hikind Decries Leaving Children Unattended Outside Stores While Shopping |date=14 February 2012 |access-date=24 December 2012|publisher=matzav.com}}

Notwithstanding the weekday hustle and bustle, shops close and cars disappear on the Jewish Sabbath and Jewish holidays. The handful of chain stores, such as Rite Aid, Duane Reade and The Children's Place, also close on the Jewish Sabbath and Jewish holidays.{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/10/realestate/10living.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 |title=Borough Park, Brooklyn |first=Gregory |last=Beyer |work=The New York Times |date=8 October 2010 |access-date=24 December 2012}} On these days, Hasidim garbed in their holiday finery traverse the avenue to attend morning synagogue services, and couples stroll with their baby carriages in the afternoon.

Since 1999, 13th Avenue has been the site for a nightly Simchat Beit HaShoeivah musical performance during the intermediate days of Sukkot, organized by Chabad Rabbi Aaron Ginsburg.{{cite web |url=http://www.collive.com/show_news.rtx?id=22042&alias=rubashkins-call-for-celebration|title=Rubashkins Call For Celebration |date=4 October 2012 |access-date=24 December 2012|publisher=collive.com}}

On December 9, 2012, the first day of Hanukkah, the stretch of 13th Avenue between 36th and 60th streets was co-named Raoul Wallenberg Way in honor of the Swedish diplomat who saved 100,000 Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust. Legislation for the renaming was submitted by New York City Councilmen David G. Greenfield and Brad Lander in conjunction with the Raoul Wallenberg Centennial Celebration Commission. Hundreds of people attended the naming ceremony. According to speakers at the event, many of the individuals rescued by Wallenberg immigrated to Borough Park to establish their families. The neighborhood is home to the largest concentration of Holocaust survivors and their descendants in the United States.{{cite web |url=http://www.thefriedlandergroup.com/war-hero-raoul-wallenberg-honored-with-street-co-naming-in-ny.13-271-0.html|title= War Hero Raoul Wallenberg Honored With Street Co-Naming In NY|date=10 December 2012 |access-date=24 December 2012 |work=The Lakewood Scoop}}{{cite web |url=http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/new-york-news/borough-park-street-honor-wallenberg|title=Borough Park Street To Honor Wallenberg |date=3 December 2012 |access-date=24 December 2012|work=The Jewish Week|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121210151619/http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/new-york-news/borough-park-street-honor-wallenberg|archive-date=10 December 2012}}

In Dyker Heights, 13th Avenue is zoned mostly for low-density residential townhouses, with shops on the first floors of some buildings.{{cite web | title=NYC's Zoning & Land Use Map | publisher=nyc.gov | url=https://zola.planning.nyc.gov/ | access-date=November 17, 2018}} It is a two-way street with one lane in each direction, and ends at Dyker Beach Park and Golf Course at 86th Street.

File:55th St BMT Boro Park stair jeh.JPG station]]

13th Avenue is served by the following:

• The B16 route of New York City Bus runs the avenue in the southbound direction from 37th Street to 57th Street. (Northbound buses run on 14th Avenue from 56th to 36th Streets.)
• The B64 bus runs on 13th Avenue in both directions south of Bay Ridge Avenue.
• The Sunset Park-bound {{NYC bus link|B35}} runs from 36th to 39th Streets.{{cite NYC bus map|B}}
• The New York City Subway's 55th Street station ({{NYCS trains|West End}}) lies above 13th Avenue.

The 13th Avenue station of the BMT Culver Line used to be over the avenue at 37th Street until it was demolished in 1975.

Private intercity bus lines serving the Hasidic community leave from 49th Street; these include buses to Williamsburg, Monroe, and Monsey.

{{clear}}

{{reflist}}

• [http://www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com/bigmap/brooklyn/boroughpark/13thave/55th-45th/index.htm A Walk Down 13th Avenue: 55th Street to 45th Street] (photos)
• [http://www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com/bigmap/brooklyn/boroughpark/13thave/45th-36th/index.htm A Walk Down 13th Avenue: 45th Street to 36th Street] (photos)

{{attached KML|display=inline,title}}

{{Brooklyn Streets}}

{{Ethnicity in New York City}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:13th Avenue (Brooklyn)}}

*13

Category:Borough Park, Brooklyn