32 JULY 14 - JULY 20, 2017 BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP
An Italian hub and short-lived seaside
resort: How Bensonhurst got its name
BY HANNAH FRISHBERG
Nestled among a conglomeration
of southwestern
Brooklyn neighborhoods
— Dyker Heights, Flatbush, Midwood,
Gravesend, Borough Park and Bath
Beach — Bensonhurst houses both a
dwindling number of Italian-American
residents and a growing Chinese
population.
Known for a time as Brooklyn’s
Little Italy, the area today is more accurately
known as the borough’s second
Chinatown. A large portion of Asian
businesses have opened along the
nabe’s 86th Street commercial corridor
in recent years, and there are large
Cantonese and Fuzhou populations.
The neighborhood’s name comes
from the Benson family, who controlled
this area and parts of Bath
Beach from the 1830s until well into
the 1880s. Before the Bensons, the land
was owned by the Polhemus family,
REPRINTED FROM
another landowning clan.
When developer James Lynch proposed
buying the family’s land, with a
plan to turn it into an exclusive resort
The north side of 71st Street between 10th
and 11th avenues in 1958.
with steam rail and trolley access, the
Bensons conceded — but only so long as
the area was known by their surname.
Following Lynch’s purchase of the
neighborhood in 1889, the area was
briefl y known as Bensonhurst-by-the-
Sea, before being shortened to what it’s
known as today.
Photos Brooklyn Historical Society
The New Utrecht Reformed Church at 16th
Avenue and 84th Street in 1925.