Bensonhurst is a residential neighborhood in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bordered on the northwest by 14th Avenue, on the northeast by 60th Street, on the southeast by Avenue P and 22nd Avenue (Bay Parkway) and on the southwest by 86th Street. It is adjacent to the neighborhoods of Dyker Heights to the northwest, Borough Park and Mapleton to the northeast, Bath Beach to the southwest, and Gravesend to the southeast.
Bensonhurst contains several major ethnic enclaves. It was traditionally known as a Little Italy of Brooklyn.Holter, Lauren. "City Living: Bensonhurst, Brooklyn's Little Italy, is now teeming with diversity" , AM New York, February 11, 2015. Accessed August 21, 2016. "The neighborhood's Italian roots are still visible in the many eateries and specialty shops nestled along the tree-lined streets of Brooklyn's Little Italy, including Lenny's Pizza, made famous by its cameo in the opening scene of Saturday Night Fever. However, an influx of Chinese, Russian, Mexican and Middle Eastern immigrants has diversified the area for a few decades." Bensonhurst today is home to Brooklyn's second Chinatown and has the largest population of residents born in China and Hong Kong of any neighborhood in New York City.Robbins, Liz. "With an Influx of Newcomers, Little Chinatowns Dot a Changing Brooklyn" , The New York Times, April 15, 2015. Accessed August 26, 2016. "As the sidewalks on Eighth Avenue overflow with new arrivals in Sunset Park, Brooklyn's first Chinatown, and grocery stores proliferate along 86th Street in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn's second Chinatown, immigrants have been pushing southeast toward the ocean. ... Bensonhurst has the largest number of Chinese-born residents of any neighborhood in the city, with 31,658, narrowly edging the populations in Flushing, Queens, and Sunset Park, according to a 2013 city report that offered the most recent data on immigrant New Yorkers." The neighborhood accounts for 9.5% of the 330,000 Chinese-born residents of the city, based on data from 2007 to 2011."The Newest New Yorkers; Characteristics of the City's Foreign-born Population", p. 69. New York City Department of City Planning, December 2013. Accessed August 26, 2016.
Bensonhurst is part of Brooklyn Community District 11, and its primary ZIP Codes are 11204 and 11214. It is patrolled by the 62nd Precinct of the New York City Police Department. Politically it is represented by the New York City Council's 38th, 43rd, and 47th Districts.Current City Council Districts for Kings County , New York City. Accessed May 5, 2017.
Etymology and history
Bensonhurst derives its name from Egbert Benson (1789–1866), whose children and grandchildren sold his lands to James D. Lynch, a New York real estate developer. Lynch bought the old farmlands from the Benson family in the mid-1880s, and by 1888, began selling private lots in an area dubbed as Bensonhurst-by-the-Sea, now Bath Beach. The first sale of lands in "The New Seaside Resort" area was advertised in the July 24, 1888, issue of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
Through the mid-20th century, Bensonhurst developed as an Italian and Jewish enclave. Despite a wave of commercial development in the 1980s, some land had remained undeveloped by then. By the early 2000s, condominiums were being built in Bensonhurst, and it had turned into a diverse community of Italian, Chinese, Mexican, Middle Eastern, and Russian residents. The neighborhood, along with adjoining neighborhoods have been called "Brooklyn's Chinatown".
Demographics Based on data from the 2020 United States census, the population of Bensonhurst was 104,934, Covering an area of , the neighborhood had a population density of .Table PL-P5 NTA: Total Population and Persons Per Acre – New York City Neighborhood Tabulation Areas*, 2020 , Population Division – New York City Department of City Planning, November 2021. Accessed January 04, 2024.
The racial makeup of the neighborhood was 43.9% (43,064) Asian, 34.8% (36,545) White, 1.0% (1,078) African American, 0.6% (600) from other races, and 2.5% (2,613) from two or more races. Hispanics or Latinos of any race were 17.2% (18,064) of the population.Table PL-P3A NTA: Total Population by Mutually Exclusive Race and Hispanic Origin – New York City Neighborhood Tabulation Areas*, 2020 Population Division – New York City Department of City Planning, November, 2021. Accessed January 04, 2024.
The entirety of Community Board 11 had 204,829 inhabitants as of NYC Health's 2018 Community Health Profile, with an average life expectancy of 83.8 years. This is higher than the median life expectancy of 81.2 for all New York City neighborhoods. Most inhabitants are middle-aged adults and youth: 20% are between the ages of 0–17, 31% between 25 and 44, and 26% between 45 and 64. The ratio of college-aged and elderly residents was lower, at 8% and 15% respectively.
As of 2016, the median household income in Community District 11 was $53,493. In 2018, an estimated 23% of Bensonhurst residents lived in poverty, compared to 21% in all of Brooklyn and 20% in all of New York City. Less than one in ten residents (8%) were unemployed, compared to 9% in the rest of both Brooklyn and New York City. Rent burden, or the percentage of residents who have difficulty paying their rent, is 52% in Bensonhurst, about the same as the citywide and boroughwide rates of 52% and 51% respectively. Based on this calculation, , Bensonhurst is considered to be low-income and not gentrifying relative to the rest of the city.
As of the 2020 census data from NYC Dept. Of City Planning, there were 46,000 Asian residents surpassing the remaining White residents of 30,000 to 39,999 for the first time in history. The Hispanic population has also grown significantly to between 10,000 and 19,999 residents.
Ethnic enclaves
In the early 20th century, many Italians and Jewish migrants moved into the neighborhood, and prior to World War II, the neighborhood was about equally Jewish and Italian. In the 1940s an influx of immigrants from southern Italy moved in, leaving the area predominantly Italian.
Around 1989, an influx of immigrants from China and the former USSR began to arrive, mainly from Southern China, Russia, and Ukraine. In the 1990s, Bensonhurst rapidly grew in cultural diversity. Bensonhurst is home to many ethnic Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, Albanian, Georgian, Uzbek, Tajik, Arab, Egyptian, Pakistani, Mexican, and Guatemalan Americans. In 1994, The New York Times cited the growing influx of Russian-speaking, Asian, and Hispanic populations in the area.Pierre-Pierre, Gary. "Neighborhood Report: Bensonhurst; When Signs Are Only In Russian",The New York Times, April 17, 1994. Accessed January 15, 2023. "For decades the tree-shaded streets of Bensonhurst were Italian-American enclaves, and mom-and-pop stores anchored the business hub along 86th Street. But waves of Asian, Hispanic and Russian immigrants have changed the mix, both residential and commercial, inevitably creating some friction.... About 20,000 Russians have moved into the area in the last few years."
In 2000, the New York City Department of City Planning determined that just over half of the residents were born in another country. By 2013, then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that the city's foreign-born population had reached a record high, and that Bensonhurst had the city's second-highest number of foreign-born people with 77,700 foreign-born immigrants in the neighborhood, just after Washington Heights.
Little Italy
With a large Italian-American population, Bensonhurst is usually considered the main "Little Italy" of Brooklyn. The Italian-speaking community was over 20,000 strong in the census of 2000. The Italian-speaking community, though, is becoming "increasingly elderly and isolated, with the small, tight-knit enclave in the city slowly disappearing as they give way to demographic changes." Despite changing demographics over the recent years, Bensonhurst is home to the largest Italian speaking community outside of Italy and is home to the largest Sicilian and Neapolitan speaking communities outside of Sicily and Naples, respectively.
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. 86th Street is another popular local thoroughfare, located under the elevated BMT West End Line.
After Italy's World Cup victory in 2006, over 50,000 flocked to 18th Avenue for an all-day party.
The annual Festa di Santa Rosalia (commonly known as "the Feast" to locals), is held on 18th Avenue from Bay Ridge Parkway (75th Street) to 66th Street in late August or early September. "The Feast" is presented by Bensonhurst resident and marketer Franco Corrado, as well as by the Santa Rosalia Society, on 18th Avenue. Born in Rome in 1955, Corrado has been an active social member of the Italian-American community for the past 20 years. St. Rosalia is the patron saint of the city of Palermo and is sometimes venerated as the patron for the entire island of Sicily. The annual end-of-summer celebration attracts thousands. Bensonhurst also hosts a Columbus Day parade.
Like Lower Manhattan's Little Italy, Bensonhurst's Little Italy and its Italian-American population is declining, with the rapid expansion of its Chinatown and Chinese population.
In the 2020 United States Census, Italian-Americans constituted 9.2% of the population of Bensonhurst.
Little Hong Kong/Little Guangdong
Below the West End Line, served by the along 86th Street between 18th Avenue and the intersection with Stillwell Avenue, is a rapidly growing Brooklyn Chinatown. In the 2000s it was intermixed with Italian, Jewish, and Russian residents, but in the 2010s, most of the new businesses between 18th Avenue and 25th Avenue, have been Chinese. 86th Street is home to a growing number of Chinese restaurants, including the 86 Wong Chinese Restaurant (one of the earliest Chinese businesses established in Bensonhurst), as well as Chinese grocery stores, salons, bakeries, and other types of businesses. The subway directly connects to Manhattan's Chinatown, and indirectly to the Chinatown in Sunset Park, which is served by the at the 8th Avenue station.
With the large migration of the Cantonese and some Fuzhouese people in Brooklyn now to Bensonhurst, as well as new Chinese immigration, other clusters of Chinese businesses and residences have also started to emerge in other parts of Bensonhurst such as 18th Avenue and Bay Parkway, creating other newer small emerging Chinatowns in Bensonhurst in addition to the one on 86th Street under the D train. These are connected to the Sunset Park Chinatown by the .BEYOND CHINATOWN: DUAL IMMIGRATION AND THE CHINESE POPULATION OF METROPOLITAN NEW YORK CITY, 2000 , SUNY-New Paltz study, 2002.
The newly emerging Chinese enclaves in sections of Bensonhurst, and another one in Homecrest/Sheepshead Bay, are primarily Cantonese populated and are more of extensions of the Western Cantonese section of Manhattan's Chinatown or Little Hong Kong / Little Guangdong or Cantonese Town. However, there are also small numbers are Fuzhou- and Mandarin-speakers.
The Flushing-based New World Mall, which owns and operates a Chinese supermarket called Jmart Supermarket inside their shopping center, opened a second branch of Jmart Supermarket in Bensonhurst in 2018. It is the neighborhood's largest Chinese Asian style supermarket. The Jmart is located in a former Waldbaum's.