It is known for its high population of
Russian-speaking immigrants, and as a summer destination for New York City residents due to its beaches along the Atlantic Ocean and its proximity to the amusement parks in Coney Island.
Brighton Beach is included in an area from Sheepshead Bay to Sea Gate that was purchased from the Native Americans in 1645 for a gun, a blanket and a kettle.[6]
Brighton Beach was located on sandy terrain, and before development in the 1860s, had mostly farms. The area was part of the "Middle Division" of the town of
Gravesend, which was the sole English settlement out of the original six towns in
Kings County. By the mid-18th century, thirty-nine lots in the division had been distributed to the descendants of English colonists.[7]
In 1868,
William A. Engeman built a resort in the area.[8] The resort was given the name "Brighton Beach" in 1878 by
Henry C. Murphy and a group of businessmen, who chose the name as an allusion to the English resort city of
Brighton.[9][10] With the help of Gravesend's surveyor
William Stillwell, Engeman acquired all 39 lots for the relatively low cost of $20,000.[11][12]: 38 This 460-by-210-foot (140 by 64 m) hotel, with rooms for up to 5,000 people nightly and meals for up to 20,000 people daily, was close to the then-rundown western Coney Island, so it was mostly the upper middle class that went to this hotel.[7] The 400-foot (120 m), double-decker Brighton Beach Bathing Pavilion was also built nearby and opened in 1878, with the capacity for 1,200 bathers.[10][12]: 38 [13] "Hotel Brighton", also known as the "Brighton Beach Hotel", was situated on the beach at what is now the foot of
Coney Island Avenue.[8] The
Brooklyn, Flatbush, and Coney Island Railway, the predecessor to the
New York City Subway's present-day
Brighton Line, opened on July 2, 1878, and provided access to the hotel.[12]: 38 [14][15]
Adjacent to the hotel, Engeman built the
Brighton Beach Race Course for
thoroughbredhorse racing.[8] In December 1887, an extremely high tide washed over the area, creating a new, temporary connection between Sheepshead Bay and the ocean. Wrote the Brooklyn Daily Eagle: "Unless [Engeman] is very lucky the next races on the Brighton Beach track will be conducted by the white crested horses of
Neptune."[16]
After that extremely high tide, and a decade of
beach erosion, the Brighton Beach Hotel, by then owned by the Railway, faced the possibility of being "undermined and carried away."[17][18] A plan termed "highly ingenious and novel" was initiated by the superintendent of the Railway, J.L. Morrow, and its secretary, E.L. Langford, to elevate and move the building as a whole, 495 feet further inland. This was accomplished by lifting the estimated 5000 ton, 460 by 150 feet (140 m × 46 m) building, using 13 hydraulic jacks, after which 24 lines of railroad track – a mile and a half length in total – were laid under it, and 112 railroad "platform cars" (flat cars) pulled by six steam
locomotives were used to pull the hotel away from the sea.[17] This careful engineering (by B.C. Miller) made the move successful; it began on April 2, 1888, and continued for the next nine days, and was the largest building move of the 19th century.[19]
Anton Seidl and the
Metropolitan Opera brought their popular interpretations of
Wagner to the Brighton Beach Music Hall, where
John Philip Sousa was in residence, and the New Brighton Theater was a hotspot for vaudeville. Visitors for tea at
Reisenweber's Brighton Beach Casino would be served by Japanese waitresses in full costume. At an enormous private club, the Brighton Beach Baths, members could swim, access a private beach, and play
handball,
mah-jongg, and cards.[7]
The village, along with the rest of Gravesend, was annexed into the 31st Ward of the
City of Brooklyn in 1894.[20]
Early 20th century
In 1905, Brighton Beach Park opened its own area of amusements, calling it Brighton Pike. Brighton Pike offered a boardwalk, games, live entertainment (including the
Miller Brothers' wild-west show: 101 Ranch), and a huge steel roller coaster. The park was shut down in 1919 after it burned down.[7] The actual beach remained popular, though.[10]
Brighton Beach was re-developed as a fairly dense residential community with the final rebuilding of the Brighton Beach railway to
rapid transit standards, becoming the
Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT)'s Brighton Line, which opened
c. 1920 (the line is now served by the
New York City Subway's B and Q services). The subway line within the neighborhood is above ground on an elevated structure. The opening of the BMT Brighton Line had conflicting consequences: although it made Brighton Beach viable as a year-round community, it was now much more feasible for visitors to return home in the evening rather than spend the night. This led to the closure of the Brighton Beach Hotel in 1924.[7]
The years just before and following the
Great Depression brought with them a neighborhood consisting mostly of first- and second-generation Jewish-Americans and, later,
Holocaustconcentration camp survivors.[21][22] Of the estimated 55,000 Holocaust survivors living in New York City as of 2011, most live in Brighton Beach.[23] To meet the bursting cultural demands, the New Brighton Theater converted itself to the States' first Yiddish theater in 1919.[7][21]
Today, Brighton Beach has many synagogues and Jewish institutions, including a
Chabad center,[24] a
Mikvah and a Jewish day school called Mazel.[25]
Late 20th century and Soviet immigration
After
World War II, the quality of life in Brighton Beach decreased significantly as the poverty rate and the ratio of older residents to younger residents increased.[10] Due to the
1970s fiscal crisis, government workers and the middle class had moved to suburban areas, while people subdivided houses into
single room occupancy residences for the poor, the elderly, and the mentally ill. Brighton Beach suffered from arson as much as it did from constant drug trades.[10] During the summer, however, people from all around the city flocked to Brighton Beach's beach next to the Atlantic Ocean.[10]
In the mid-1970s, Brighton Beach became a popular place to settle for
Soviet immigrants, mostly
Ashkenazi Jews from
Russia and
Ukraine.[10] So many Soviet Jews immigrated to Brighton Beach that the area became known as "Little
Odessa" (after the Ukrainian city on the
Black Sea with significant Jewish population in the first half of 20th century).[10]
The 1991
collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent significant changes in the social and economic circumstances of post-Soviet states led thousands of former Soviet citizens to immigrate to the United States.[10] Many more immigrants from the former Soviet Union, who primarily spoke
Russian, chose Brighton Beach as a place to settle. This included an influx of immigrants from the
Caucasus, mostly from countries such as
Georgia and
Azerbaijan.[3][26][27]
A large number of Russian immigrant firms, shops, restaurants, clubs, offices, banks, schools, and children's play centers opened in the area.[28] The value of real estate in Brighton Beach started to rise again, even though drugs remained a social issue in the area through the early 1990s.[10]
In the early 2000s, a high-income ocean-front condominium complex, the "Oceana", was constructed.[29] This address has become the destination of wealthy businessmen, entertainers, and senior officials from the former Soviet Union, and with their purchase of units at the Oceana, area housing prices have risen.[28]
Since the early 2010s, a significant number of
Central Asian immigrants have also chosen Brighton Beach as a place to settle.[28]
Culture
Brighton Beach Avenue runs parallel to the
Coney Island beach and boardwalk.[30] The proximity of Brighton Beach to the city's beaches and the fact that the neighborhood is directly served by
a subway station make it a popular summer weekend destination for New York City residents.[10]
Brighton Beach's culture
Russian stores in Brighton Beach
Backgammon players at Second Street Park in 2012
A Russian-language bookstore under the New York City Subway tracks on
Coney Island Avenue in Brighton Beach
Crowded Brighton Beach on a summer afternoon
Water sports on Brighton Beach
Brighton Beach housing
The Oceana luxury condominiums on Brighton Beach, built in the early 2000s
Juxtaposition of apartments and private homes
Brighton 15th Street
Russian-speaking culture
As apartment buildings started to be built in large numbers in the 1930s, many of those who moved into the neighborhood were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, often by way of the Lower East Side. They came from many countries, but also set the stage for a later wave of
Jewish immigration from the Soviet Union that started in the 1970s, when Brighton Beach became known as "Little Odessa,"[31][32] and "Little Russia".[33] An annual festival, the Brighton Jubilee, celebrates the area's
Russian-speaking heritage, being populated heavily by
Russian and
Ukrainian Americans.[7] The area has also been called "the land of
pelmeni,
matryoshkas,
tracksuits, and...
vodka" due to its large population of Soviet immigrants.[34]
Based on data from the
2010 United States Census, the population of Brighton Beach was 35,547, an increase of 303 (0.9%) from the 35,244 counted in
2000. Covering an area of 393.32 acres (159.17 ha), the neighborhood had a population density of 90.4 inhabitants per acre (57,900/sq mi; 22,300/km2).[2] The racial makeup of the neighborhood was 69.7% (24,774)
White, 1.0% (352)
African American, 0.2% (61)
Native American, 12.9% (4,580)
Asian, 0.0% (10)
Pacific Islander, 0.4% (139) from
other races, and 1.2% (442) from two or more races.
Hispanic or
Latino of any race were 14.6% (5,189) of the population.[36]
As of 1983[update], Brighton Beach had a middle-class, mostly Jewish, older population. 27% of Brighton Beach was of age 62 or older, while the national average of persons aged 62 or older was 13.9%.[37] Since the 1990s, however, the neighborhood's ethnic demographics have been changing, with a large influx of mainly Muslim immigrants from Central Asia, such as
Uzbeks.[28] In subsequent years, the proportion of whites leveled out, the proportion of the black population decreased significantly, and the proportion of the Asian population increased to 14% as of 2014.[38] As of 2010[update], increasing numbers of Muslim
Central Asians were moving into Brighton Beach, and based on the historic Soviet influence over these areas, these immigrants also speak Russian.[28][39]
According to the United States Census report of 2010, Brighton Beach and Coney Island, combined, had 111,063 residents as of 2009.[40] In that year, the median age of residents of Brooklyn was 34.2 and in
New York City as a whole, it was 36.0 years, while in the combined Brighton Beach and Coney Island area it was 47.9 years.[40] hence, the area is distinguished by a higher median age of its population. As DiNapoli and Bleiwas note in a city report, "the number of residents aged 65 years and older in [this area] rose by 4.1 percent, so that senior citizens accounted for more than one-quarter of the area's population" at that date.[40] According to the census, the population density in Brighton Beach, per se (52,109 people per square mile), was almost twice the average population density of New York City (27,012 people per square mile), though the average household size was 2.1 people, lower than the city average of 2.6 people. The average income of households in the area was $36,574, while the average income in the whole city was $55,217, according to the 2010 census. In Brighton Beach, 21% of the population lives below the
poverty line,[38] compared to only 15.4% citywide.[41]
Most of the population of Brighton Beach are immigrants. Less than a quarter (23.3%) of Brighton Beach residents were born in the United States, and nearly three-quarters were born abroad (72.9%). Because of this, English language proficiency in Brighton Beach is lower than the city average. More than a third (36.1%) of the population of Brighton Beach does not speak or understand English, while citywide, only one in fourteen people (7.2%) cannot speak or understand English.[40]
New York City Department of City Planning showed that in the 2020 census data that there were between 20,000 and 29,000 White residents and between 5,000 and 9,999 Asian residents, meanwhile each the Hispanic and Black populations were each less than 5000 residents.[42][43]
Theater
The
Brighton Ballet Theater, established in 1987, is one of the most famous Russian ballet schools in the United States.[44] More than 3,000 children have trained in ballet, modern and character dances, and folk dances here.[44]
A Russian-speaking theater near the waterfront,
Master Theater [
ru], formerly the Millennium Theater and the Oceana Theatre,[45] features performances by actors from the U.S., Russia, and other countries.[46]
Police and crime
Brighton Beach is patrolled by the
NYPD's 60th Precinct, located at 2950 West Eighth Street.[4] The 60th Precinct ranked 34th safest out of 69 patrol areas for per-capita crime in 2010. Between 1993 and 2010, major crimes decreased by 72%, including a 76% decrease in robberies, 71% decrease in felony assaults, and 67% decrease in shootings.[47] The 60th Precinct has a substantially lower crime rate than in the 1990s, with crimes across all categories having decreased by 77.5% between 1990 and 2022. The precinct reported five murders, 16 rapes, 179 robberies, 373 felony assaults, 159 burglaries, 527 grand larcenies, and 121 grand larcenies auto in 2022.[48]
Brighton Beach is considered a hot spot for the
Russian Bratva,[49] though public perception has been that organized crime "has largely gone away."[50] In the 1970s, the most notorious leg of the mafia was the
Potato Bag Gang,[51] which served as a robbery gang for larger Russian crime syndicates in New York City.
Marat Balagula was a crime boss from Brighton Beach who denies having any connection to the
American Mafia or the Russian-speaking Mafia.[citation needed] The major Russian criminal element in Brighton Beach was the international Russian mafia group, known as
vor v zakone or "vory," and the first vory crime boss in Brighton Beach was
Evsei Agron, who controlled the area's crime during the 1970s and 1980s until his death in 1985.[52] After the
fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, many ethnic Russian criminals illegally entered the
United States, coming especially to Brighton Beach.[citation needed] The infamous vor
Vyacheslav Ivankov, who dominated the Brighton Beach underworld until his arrest in 1995, arrived during this wave.[53]
Brighton Beach Playground, located on the Boardwalk at Brighton 2nd Street and Brightwater Court, was built in 1950 and renovated in the late 1990s.[58]
Asser Levy Park located near the Boardwalk between Surf Avenue and Sea Breeze Avenue.[59]
Century Playground, located on the site of former summer bungalows near PS 370, was built in the late 1960s and renovated in 2012.[60]
Grady Playground, located on an irregular area between Shore Parkway, Brighton 3rd Street, and Brighton 4th Street. It contains baseball fields, basketball courts, handball courts, playgrounds, and water spray showers.[61]
A traffic island at Brighton 14th Street, Corbin Place, and Ocean View Avenue was dedicated as Babi Yar Triangle in 1981, in honor of the victims of the
Babi Yar massacre, and renovated in 1988.[62]
P.S. 253 Ezra Jack Keats International School/The Magnet School of Multicultural Humanities
P.S. 225 The Eileen E. Zaglin School
Schools
Brighton Beach is served by the
New York City Department of Education. Primary and middle schools within Brighton Beach include P.S. 225 The Eileen E. Zaglin School for grades K–8,[65][66] and P.S. 253 the Ezra Jack Keats International School.[67] In 1983, the Community School District 21 operated PS 225, PS 253, and Junior High School 302.[37] During that year, over 62% of its students read at or above their grade level, far above the national average.[37] PS 100, The Coney Island School for grades K–5[68][69][70][71] and 303 Herbert S. Eisenberg are both located nearby in Coney Island.[70][72][73]
The
Brooklyn Public Library's Brighton Beach branch is located at 16 Brighton First Road, near Brighton Beach Avenue. The branch contains a large collection of media in Russian. The branch opened in December 1949, but due to high patronage, moved to its current location in 1964. The branch was renovated in the early 1990s.[78]
Brighton Beach is featured in the Russian crime film Brother 2 (2000).[83]
In the film Two Lovers (2008), the action takes place in Brighton Beach.[84]
Brighton Beach is featured in the 2005 drama Lord of War starring
Nicolas Cage, where the protagonist and his family immigrated to from Ukraine in order to escape the Soviet Union.[85]
Literature:
In
Robin Cook's novel Vector (2000), disillusioned former Russian biochemical worker Yuri Davydov develops weapons-grade anthrax in the basement of his Brighton Beach home.[86]
A Lifetime reality TV show called Russian Dolls, documenting the lives of young Russian-Americans and a group of Brighton Beach housewives spending time in a popular Russian nightclub, Rasputin Restaurant, premiered August 11, 2011.[89]
Video games:
Brighton Beach is prominently featured as a fictionalised version in the video game
Grand Theft Auto IV (as "Hove Beach"), and is where the player's first safe-house is.
Notable residents
Notable current and former residents of Brighton Beach include:
Peter Steele (1962-2010), lead singer and bassist of the metal band
Type O Negative, who grew up in Brighton Beach, and has Brighton Beach as a returning symbol in several of his songs with Type O Negative.
Vladimir Reznikov, Russian-American hitman, murdered outside of the infamous Odesa Restaurant in 1986.[104]
Gene Russianoff, chief spokesman for the
Straphangers Campaign, a public transport advocacy group that focuses primarily on subway and bus services run by New York City Transit.[105]
In addition, Disco Freddy (also called Larry the Unbelievable at the beginning of his public career), was one of the notable characters on the Riegelmann Boardwalk during the late 1970s through the early 1980s. During his performing heyday, he was about 60 years old.[111]
^Weinstein, Stephen (2000). "Brighton Beach". In
Jackson, Kenneth T.; Keller, Lisa; Flood, Nancy (eds.).
The Encyclopedia of New York City (2nd ed.). New York, NY, and New Haven, CT, USA: The New York Historical Society and Yale University Press. pp. 139–140.
ISBN0-300-11465-6. Retrieved November 11, 2015.
^"High Tides". Brooklyn Daily Eagle. December 10, 1887. Retrieved July 29, 2012.
^
ab"Moving the Brighton Beach Hotel". Scientific American. New York: Scientificamerican.com. April 14, 1888. Retrieved November 12, 2015. Reprinted as "A Hotel on Wheels," in The Engineer (London, ENG), April 27, 1888(subscription required)
^"Brighton Beach". Arrts-arrchives.com. May 11, 2004. Retrieved November 12, 2015.
^"Map of Brighton Beach environs"(JPG). Graphics8.nytimes.com. Retrieved November 11, 2015. Coney Island, which has a residential population of about 53,000, is bounded by the Belt Parkway to the north, Ocean Parkway to the east and the Atlantic Ocean to the south.
^Fairbanks, Amanda M.
"Brighton Beach, N.J.", The New York Times, February 27, 2009. Accessed February 26, 2017. "IN scene after scene in Two Lovers, the new movie starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Joaquin Phoenix as a star-crossed couple, the Brooklyn neighborhood of Brighton Beach is on lush display."
^"Vector by Robin Cook",
Kirkus Reviews. Accessed February 26, 2017. "An anti-Semite, Yuri feels dismissed as a human being by American Zionists and has set up a bioweapons lab in his basement in Brighton Beach, undertaking what he calls Operation Revenge."
^Salita, Mikhail (July 27, 2015). B is for Brighton Beach. Best Seller Press Publishing House.
ISBN9780991372928.
OCLC921888563.
^Салита, Михаил (November 9, 2014). Принцесса Брайтона : правнучка Мишки Япончика. Best Seller Press Publishing House.
ISBN9780986251504.
OCLC1008581680.
^"In New York, the 'father of the Russian mafia' died: who was Marat Balagula", Forum Daily, December 28, 2019. Accessed November 9, 2021. "Balagula emigrated to the USA from Odesa in 1977 and settled in the Brighton Beach area of Brooklyn, where he became a co-owner of one of the first Russian restaurants 'Sadko', and then 'Odesa', where Willie Tokarev sang for many years."
^Hicks, Jonathan P.
"Two Comptroller Candidates Try to Make No. 3 Job Visible", The New York Times, March 14, 2001. Accessed September 3, 2019. "Over three recent days, Councilman Herbert E. Berman took his quest to a civic association dinner in Queens, a church organization dinner in Brooklyn, appearances before political clubs and an interview by the Working Families Party.... Mr. Berman, 67, grew up in Brighton Beach and Coney Island."
^Daniels, Karu F.
"Neil Diamond biographical musical headed to Broadway", New York Daily News, July 1, 2019. Accessed September 3, 2019. "Neil Diamond's life story is heading to Broadway, it was announced Monday.... The 78-year-old native of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, quit touring in 2018 when he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease."
^Berger, Joseph (2004).
"Vintage Pop Star With the Soul of a Bar Mitzvah Boy". The New York Times. Retrieved September 23, 2009. Several years before enrolling in Juilliard, he had been introduced to a neighbor with a touch of the poet, Howard Greenfield, and they became a songwriting team for the next 20 years.
^Zaklikowski, Dovid.
"Rabbi David B. Hollander, Defender of Jewish Faith and Practice, Passes Away",
Chabad, February 18, 2009. Accessed February 26, 2017. "Hollander remained at the Mount Eden Jewish Center until its closing in 1980 due to the migration of Jews to other areas of the city. His next pulpit, which he held until his passing, was at the Hebrew Alliance Congregation in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn."
^Tyre, Peg.
"A Russian mob grows in Brooklyn Law officials finger alleged 'godfather'", CNN, May 23, 1996. Accessed September 3, 2019. "Vyacheslav Ivankov allegedly runs the Russian mob from his Brooklyn stronghold and has strong ties to the Mafia as well. Ivankov lives in Brighton Beach, sometimes called Little Odesa."
^Rondeaux, Candace.
"The Murder of a Russian Boxer", The Village Voice, February 19, 2002. Accessed September 3, 2019. "There definitely was more to Sergei Kobozev than his violent end. He first earned his rep fighting for the Soviet national boxing team at the Seoul Olympics in 1988. When he moved to Brighton Beach in 1991 he was part of a wave of Soviet bloc boxers recruited by Gallagher to go pro in the States."
^Haberman, Clyde.
"For Voice of Straphangers, a Journey Without Stops", The New York Times, August 25, 2013. Accessed September 3, 2019. "Gene Russianoff, who has spent most of his adult life reflecting upon and fretting about New York City's subways, remembers the first time he rode a train alone.... 'We lived in Brighton Beach, exactly where the el is — now the B, then the D,' he said over breakfast at a diner near his office in Lower Manhattan."
^Dettelbach, Cynthia (2004).
"From angst-ridden teenager to world-class music star". Cleveland Jewish News. Archived from
the original on November 3, 2012. Retrieved September 23, 2009. That includes instant face and name recognition, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a place in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and even a street named after him in his native Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.
^Serrin, William.
"A Leader For The Little Guy", The New York Times, September 12, 1982. Accessed September 3, 2019. "Jerry Wurf was one of the most remarkable union men of this century. Born in New York City in 1919 to immigrant parents from Austria and Hungary, he was stricken with polio when he was 4 years old, spent much of his youth in a wheelchair and always walked with a limp. The family settled in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn where the bookish boy came into early contact with the politically militant left-wing groups of the Depression Era, including the Young People's Socialist League, in which he was active before the war."
^Abramovitch, Ilana; Galvin, Seán (2001).
The Jews of Brooklyn. Hanover, N.H.: Brandeis University Press, University Press of New England. p. 99.
ISBN9781584650034. Retrieved May 15, 2015.
Weinstein, Stephen (2000). "Brighton Beach". In
Jackson, Kenneth T.; Keller, Lisa; Flood, Nancy (eds.).
The Encyclopedia of New York City (2nd ed.). New York, NY, and New Haven, CT, USA: The New York Historical Society and Yale University Press. pp. 139–140.
ISBN0300114656. Retrieved November 11, 2015.