Manhattan Beach is part of
Brooklyn Community District 15, and its primary
ZIP Code is 11235.[1] It is patrolled by the 61st Precinct of the
New York City Police Department.[2] Politically it is represented by the
New York City Council's 48th District. The area is also represented by the Manhattan Beach Community Group, established in 1941, and the Manhattan Beach Neighborhood Association, established in 2008.
History
Manhattan Beach was the most upscale of the three major resort areas that developed at
Coney Island shortly after the
American Civil War; the other two areas were
Brighton Beach and West Brighton.[3]
It was developed in the last quarter of the 19th century as a resort by
Austin Corbin, later president of the
Long Island Rail Road, for whom the street Corbin Place, which marks the boundary between Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach, was named.[4] In 1877, Corbin built the famous Manhattan Beach Hotel, followed by the even grander Oriental Hotel in 1880.[3] The Coney Island Jockey Club horse racing track opened nearby at the same time as Corbin's Oriental Hotel; together, these three establishments drew thousands of visitors to Manhattan Beach.[3] The hotels held daily concerts led by famous conductors such as Conterno, Gilmore, and
John Philip Sousa, and hosted elaborate nightly fireworks displays, drawing tens of thousands of visitors on summer nights and making Manhattan Beach a renowned summer seaside resort.[3] Sousa composed the
"Manhattan Beach" march in 1893 to commemorate the beach resort. Corbin, an
anti-Semite who served as the secretary of the American Society for the Suppression of Jews, barred Jews from the resort.[5][6] In 1895, Corbin built a 12,000 capacity third-mile concrete
cycling track behind the hotel at a cost of $30,000.[7][8][9]
After the deterioration of the hotel industry in the area, the site of the former Manhattan Beach hotel was developed into a residential area and into Manhattan Beach Park by the
New York City Parks Department. Manhattan Beach Park opened to the public in 1955, to alleviate crowding at the neighboring beaches of Coney Island and Brighton Beach, and continues to serve the public today.[11] From 1954 to 1959, the neighborhood was home to
Manhattan Beach Air Force Station.[12] From the 1980s, Manhattan Beach has become an enclave for higher end middle class
Russian Jews.[13] The
Manhattan Beach Jewish Center was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places in 2015.[14]
Manhattan Beach is patrolled by the 61st Precinct of the
NYPD, located at 2575 Coney Island Avenue.[2]
The 61st Precinct ranked 5th safest out of 69 patrol areas for per-capita crime in 2010.[22]
The 61st Precinct has a lower crime rate than in the 1990s, with crimes across all categories having decreased by 88.2% between 1990 and 2018. The precinct reported 1 murder, 17 rapes, 150 robberies, 170 felony assaults, 169 burglaries, 584 grand larcenies, and 72 grand larcenies auto in 2018.[23]
The
New York City Department of Education operates public schools in the area. Manhattan Beach is zoned to PS 195 Manhattan Beach School[26] for grades K–5 and PS 225, the Eileen E. Zaglin School[27] for grades 6–8. In 1992, special education school PS 771K was opened at this building.[citation needed]
Private schools in the area include the Yeshiva of Manhattan Beach, a
Jewish day school for grades K–8, and the Yeshiva Gedolah Bais Shimon of Manhattan Beach, which is a post-high school rabbinical program.
The community's street names, derived from England, are in alphabetical order from A to P. From west to east, they are named Amherst, Beaumont, Coleridge, Dover, Exeter, Falmouth, Girard, Hastings, Irwin, Jaffray, Kensington, Langham, Mackenzie, Norfolk, Oxford, and Pembroke; the names Quentin and Reynolds exist on old maps. The A-P streets are bounded by Shore Boulevard and Oriental Boulevard and are partially intersected by Hampton Avenue.[30]
Corbin Place was originally named for
Austin Corbin, the original developer of Manhattan Beach; in 2007, it was renamed M. Corbin Place for American Revolutionary War patriot
Margaret Corbin. Austin Corbin had restricted Jewish guests at his hotel and enacted restrictive covenants to prevent Jews from buying real estate in the area. After Austin Corbin's death the policy was canceled and the neighborhood attracted a large number of Jewish residents.[31]
Demographics
As of the 2020 census data from
New York City Department of City Planning, there were 40,000+ White residents, there were between 10,000 and 19,999 Asian residents, 5,000 and 9,999 Hispanic residents, and less than 5000 Black residents.[32][33]
Notable residents
Notable current and former residents of Manhattan Beach include:
^The New York and Manhattan Beach Railway[usurped], LIRR History. Accessed June 4, 2007. "Immediately the whole purpose of the new RR was changed from freight to passenger, in order to service Corbin’s proposed line to the site of his immense Manhattan Beach Hotel that was being constructed on the east end of Coney Island."
^Morgan, Spencer.
"Darren the Dude Revives Mickey The Mauler", New York Observer, October 7, 2008. Accessed February 20. 2018. "Darren Aronofsky was a serious young man, a nature boy. He grew up in Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn, where the beaches were beautiful but cluttered with trash."
^Hamilton, Sue L.
Jack Kirby, p. 16. ABDO Publishing Company, 2010.
ISBN9781617842641. Accessed February 20, 2018. "Financially, Jack Kirby was doing well. He and Roz moved into their own apartment in Manhattan Beach, New York."
^Lieberman, Gerald F.
"Brooklyn Survives Without Historian", The New York Times, July 23, 1972. Accessed February 20, 2018. "Justice Leibowitz, long a resident of Manhattan Beach, was born in the East New York section of Brooklyn, a place he describes as a suburb of Brownsville."
^Perlez, Jane.
"Solarz Plans For A Race To Keep Brooklyn Seat", The New York Times, January 23, 1982. Accessed February 20, 2018. "The spine of Mr. Solarz's district is Brooklyn's Ocean Parkway. It reaches out to Coney Island, Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach, where Mr. Solarz lives with his mother-in-law when he is in the district."