Bergen Beach is a residential neighborhood in the borough of Brooklyn, New York City. It is located on a peninsula abutting Jamaica Bay in the southeastern portion of the borough, and is bordered by Mill Basin and the neighborhood of the same name to the south and west; the neighborhood of Flatlands to the northwest; Paerdegat Basin and the neighborhood of Canarsie to the northeast; and Jamaica Bay and the Belt Parkway to the east. Bergen Beach contains a sub-neighborhood named Georgetown. The vast majority of residents are white, and the neighborhood generally has a suburban quality.
Bergen Beach was originally an island. The Canarsie Indians who occupied the area referred to it as Winnipague. The island was renamed Bergen Island for early settler Hans Hansen Bergen. From 1896 to 1919, Percy G. Williams and Thomas Adams operated an amusement park in the area. Bergen Beach was connected to the rest of Brooklyn via landfill by 1918, although development did not come for many years. In the 1960s, a housing development called "Georgetowne" was proposed for Bergen Beach, but it was never built due to opposition from local residents. As a result, much of Bergen Beach was not fully developed until the 1990s.
Bergen Beach is part of Brooklyn Community District 18, and its primary ZIP Code is 11234. It is patrolled by the 63rd Precinct of the New York City Police Department.
Geography Originally, Bergen Beach was an island in Jamaica Bay off the coast of Canarsie, called "Bergen Island"Waite, Thomas L. "Postings; On Bedrock in Bergen Beach: Bucking That Sinking Feeling" , The New York Times, October 23, 1988. Retrieved May 9, 2017. "At the same time, Bergen Beach is sinking back into the Jamaica Bay marshland from which it rose as landfill. Everything that is not on piles driven down to bedrock – everything except the houses – is breaking, buckling and leaving cliffs." or "Bergen's Island". Most of the island was sea-level meadows, but of the island were uplands, or hilly areas located above sea level. The sea-level meadows were replete with shell middens, or mounds, harvested from univalves and bivalves caught in Jamaica Bay. A bulkhead was built along the shore in the late 1890s, and was later connected to the uplands of nearby Mill Basin. This created a continuous embankment between Mill Basin and Paerdegat Basin, which was later used for the construction of Belt Parkway.
Bergen Island was connected to the mainland by 1918, when the marshland was filled in, though some sources state that the island was connected to the mainland by 1911. More fill was added in the 1980s. This fill was unstable, and as a result, parts of Bergen Beach have been sinking. Many homes in the area were built so that if the ground in front of the house sank, extra steps could be added. The sinking land is particularly pronounced in some parts of Bergen Beach, where minor rainfall or snow melt can cause ponding and flooding in the streets.
The modern neighborhood of Bergen Beach is adjacent to Canarsie and Paerdegat Basin to the northeast, Flatlands to the west, Mill Basin to the southwest, and Jamaica Bay to the southeast. The website Forgotten NY delineates the boundaries of Bergen Beach as Paerdegat Basin to the northeast, Ralph and Mill Avenues to the west, Avenue U and the Little Mill Basin waterway to the southwest, and Jamaica Bay to the southeast. Google Maps defines the boundaries similarly, except that Veterans Avenue, instead of Avenue U, forms part of the southwestern boundary. Georgetown is considered a subsection of Bergen Beach. It is bounded by Ralph Avenue to the west, Avenue N to the south, Avenue U to the southeast, and Paerdegat Basin to the northeast. Both Bergen Beach and Georgetown are zoned as predominantly residential neighborhoods with one- or two-family residences. Small commercial overlays and recreational waterfront uses also exist, and a strip along Bergen Basin is zoned for light industrial uses.
History
Early settlement The coastal lands around Jamaica Bay, including present-day Bergen Beach, were originally settled by the Canarsie Indians. At the time, the Native Americans referred to Bergen Island as "Winnipague" or "Winnippague". The Canarsie Indians also called the island "Wimbaco", a name meaning "fine water place". The Native Americans likely used Bergen Island to create wampum. This location may have been chosen because it was easy to defend: the Indians could see intruders from the uplands and form a line of defense across the narrow flat that led to the island. Through the 20th century, the shell middens that resulted from the wampum-making process were used to create roads, as well as for fertilizer. Remnants of Native American activity on the island, including stone markings, conch shell beds, and broken arrow tips, could be seen through the mid-20th century. Bergen Island may also have contained fields that the Indians used for planting. There were collectively three planting fields on Bergen Island and in Canarsie.
In 1624, the Dutch Republic incorporated much of the current New York City area into the colony of New Netherland. In 1636, as the Dutch were expanding outward from present-day Manhattan, Dutch settlers founded the town of Achtervelt (later Amersfoort) and purchased around Jamaica Bay. Amersfoort was centered around the present-day intersection of Flatbush Avenue and Flatlands Avenue. The Dutch also founded a trading post on Bergen Island, which they renamed "Mentelaer's Island". Ownership of Bergen Island was granted to John Underhill in 1646, and Underhill soon sold the property to others. New Netherland became British New York in 1664, and Amersfoort was renamed Flatlands. Bergen Island, as well as nearby Mill Island and Barren Island, were part of the Town of Flatlands. A settler named Elbert Elbertse bought Bergen Island in 1665, and by the 1670s, all three islands were leased by Elbertse. When he died in 1686, he bequeathed of the island to his son.
The island was known as "Winnipague" through the 18th century. By the turn of the century, it had been renamed for Hans Hansen Bergen, an early NorwegianGuide to the Teunis G. Bergen and Bergen family collection ARC.006 , Brooklyn Historical Society. Retrieved May 9, 2017. "The Bergen family that settled and proliferated throughout New York and New Jersey beginning in the 17th century is descended from the common ancestor, Hans Hansen Bergen, a native of Bergen, Norway." or Dutch settler of New Netherland.Shelby, Joyce. "The Family Tides Of Bergen Beach; A peaceful place for generations" , New York Daily News, April 20, 2003. Retrieved May 9, 2017. "The Canarsee Indians were the first recorded settlers of the area; the Dutch were the second. They made Bergen Beach part of the town of Flatlands. The present-day community stands on property once owned by the family of a Dutch settler, Hans Hansen." He lived in the Bergen House, which was built sometime before 1800. One story has it that Bergen's house was hit by British bombs during the American Revolutionary War, but this is not supported by documentation. Another rumor, that the American spy Nathan Hale was executed near or on Bergen Island, is also refuted by other evidence.
By the 1850s, Cornelius Bergen owned a farm on the island along the Jamaica Bay coast. However, Bergen Island remained largely undeveloped until the end of the century. According to an 1870 map, John C. Bergen owned most of the island, which only had two structures and a dirt road.
Amusement park
In the late 1880s, vaudeville theater manager Percy G. Williams partnered with Thomas Adams, the chewing gum magnate, to buy of marshland on Bergen Island. The island was sold to the Germania Real Estate and Improvement Company in 1892. It quickly laid out streets between Avenues T and Z, east of present-day East 70th Street.
Williams and Adams had meant to construct housing, but instead decided to emulate the successful Coney Island resort further west. They converted Bergen Island into a resort, which was connected to the rest of the city by the Flatbush Avenue streetcar route (now the B41 bus). The resort opened in 1893 with a dance hall, concessions, rides and a pier. The Flatbush Avenue streetcar to Bergen Beach started operating in May 1896. The coast of Bergen Island, and the park itself, came to be known as "Bergen Beach". In August 1896, the New York Herald characterized the "brightly caparisoned and gilded resort" at Bergen Beach:
The report went on to describe the Irish Village, Mystic Moorish Maze, Egyptian encampment, scenic railway and other attractions. There were also bathing facilities, exhibits, sideshows, eating places and a beer garden. The park had a "casino", which at the time meant a place where entertainments were staged. The casino put on vaudeville, musical comedies and stock company productions. The Trocadero Theatre was also located on the Bergen Beach boardwalk.
In March 1902, the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company offered to buy the Bergen Beach resort, but could not meet Williams's price. Separately, the frequency of trolley service was reduced since the Flatbush Avenue tracks had been damaged by a storm that winter. In April of that month, Williams announced that the resort would not open unless the BRT repaired the trolley tracks to Bergen Beach. Later the trolley service improved, since Bergen Beach was a good source of fares. In the summer of 1903 the casino staged The Girl in Black, a popular musical-and-comedy show that ran for the whole season. The resort suffered $25,000 in damages () due to a fire in 1904, but The New York Times reported that "the tide in Jamaica Bay and two Brooklyn Rapid Transit trolley cars" brought the water that ultimately saved the park from burning down. The Percy Williams Amusement Park opened the next year at the Bergen Beach resort. This became one of several amusement districts in the New York City area, competing with similar resorts in Canarsie; Coney Island; Rockaway Beach, Queens; and Staten Island.
A roller skating rink at the park opened in 1907, with a band playing in the afternoons. That year, surveyors were sent to map the settlements around Jamaica Bay as part of a project to dredge the bay for potential use. They reported that at the time, the only occupied settlements along Jamaica Bay were located at Canarsie and Bergen Beach. Piers for ferry service were constructed along Bergen Beach at Avenues V and X. Two ferry routes to Canarsie ran between 1905 and 1921, and for a short time, there was also a ferry to Rockaway Beach. However, ferry routes to Bergen Beach were not profitable, and it was hard to navigate the shallow channels near Bergen Island.
A more serious fire in 1910 crippled the Percy Williams Amusement Park's operations, destroying $400,000 worth of property (). By 1912, two more amusement parks had been built, as well as a scenic railroad. The resorts in Coney Island and Rockaway Beach proved to be more popular than Bergen Beach because the other resorts had easy transit access, whereas Bergen Beach did not. Pollution from Barren Island, a notorious waste processing site, also decreased the appeal of Bergen Beach. As a result, the Bergen Beach resort closed by 1919.
In 1917, as part of a dredging project in nearby Rockaway Inlet, the city agreed to add bulkheads along of the Bergen Beach coast. Williams and Adams later sued, ostensibly to delay the project.
Redevelopment