Growing up Sunset
Historic Background
Native Americans known as the Lenni-Lenape were living in the area of Brooklyn, that we today call Sunset Park, when the first explorers from Europe arrived. In 1524, Giovanni Verrazzano was the first European to sail into New York Bay. Although the bridge from Brooklyn to Staten Island is named after Verrazzano it is spelled differently. The Native Americans ate fish from the bay and very large oysters too. In the forests there were fruit and berries and many animals.
The Dutch (1646) sparsely settled what we call Sunset Park today. They were farmers. It was important that each property front on the bay so they could take their goods to sell in Manhattan (first called New Amsterdam and then New York City) by boat.
The first fighting in the American Revolution, after the Declaration of Independence, took place near 35th Street in 1776. As Brooklyn grew into a city (not a borough), we were south of it and thus known as South (of) Brooklyn. As the Irish came in the mid-1800's, we were known as Ward 8, and had become the southern border of Brooklyn (at 59th Street). In the last half of the 1800's, Germans & then Scandinavians (Norwegians, Finns, Swedes) came in huge numbers, followed by Italians, Poles and Greeks.
In the mid-1960’s, Puerto Ricans joined the already small number of their countrymen and began to become the dominant population. When President Johnson declared his War on Poverty our area needed a name to get federal funds and the name Sunset Park was applied to us from 17th to 65th Street and from the waterfront to 8th Avenue. We had been known as Sunset Park before then, but the name was very flexible. Some called us South Brooklyn, some Bay Ridge and some by the name of the church that they attended.
In addition to a large Puerto Rican population we also developed a large Dominican population. In the mid-1980's, many Asians joined us as did Mexicans, Central & South Americans. Today, we stand - 140,000 individuals, of numerous cultures, but all as one family.
How Our Land was Shaped:
The planet Earth has gone through periods called Ice Ages – when much of the planet was covered with sheets of ice. The last Ice Age took place about 14,000 years ago. Imagine – a huge block of ice – a thousand miles wide and a thousand feet high slowly moving across the continent from the west to us in the East. That sheet of ice is called a glacier. As the glacier moved across the land it pushed boulders, trees and soil ahead of it in a huge pile.
When the last Ice Age ended, due to the Earth beginning to warm, the front of the glacier was approaching today’s Sunset Park. The soil and boulders became a wide ridge that we today call 6th Avenue – the highest points in Brooklyn. And as the glacier melted, the rushing wall of water eroded the rest of Brooklyn making it flat. In a way, that glacier gave us names of today’s neighborhoods – like – Bay Ridge, Ridgewood, Flatbush and Flatlands.
The glacier had other impacts too. It “carved” the Hudson River valley along which the Hudson River now flows. And the melting waters created the New York Bay.
Transportation:
Transportation, or movement from one location or another, has an important impact on where people live, the kinds of jobs they have and their quality of life. We travel on land, we travel on water and we travel through the air (and now even into outer space).
Very briefly, land transportation evolved from walking, to sleds, to animal draw carts, to steam powered trains, to fuel powered cars and trucks. And water transportation evolved from swimming, to rafts, to row boats, to wind powered sail boats, to steam ships and now to fuel powered ships, ferries, and huge ocean going barges. And air transportation has evolved from balloons to fuel powered planes, jets and now even rockets.
Groups of people tended to gather and create towns and cities along transportation routes and especially where these routes crosses one another.
Employment in Sunset Park:
As mentioned, the original Native Americans fished and collected oysters from the bay. They also gathered berries and fruit from the forests and hunted in those same forests. They then traded with other nearby tribes providing foods and goods that they had excess of and getting foods and goods that they lacked.
The Dutch in Sunset Park were mainly farmers and they would take their crops across the bay to Manhattan Island to trade or sell.
Settlers wanted more than just food. They wanted furniture, weapons for hunting and defense, clothing, shoes and items to use in their farming – like horse shoes and shovels. This often required trading or purchase from distant lands.
As the number of people in Sunset Park grew special trades (jobs) located to nearby areas – since now there were enough people to buy their product and it made it profitable to be located near these customers. Blacksmiths – worked with iron making horse shoes and all sorts of metal tools and items. Tanners – worked on cleaning and curing animal skins to be used to clothing and a variety of leather items. In addition to these jobs, others found employment in transportation – ferrying people from Long Island (on which Brooklyn is) to Manhattan Island, New Jersey and Staten Island. Others used ships to move goods from location to location – large ships going to Europe, the Caribbean, and Africa. And smaller ships going from point to point around Long Island (Brooklyn – Kings County, Queens – Queens County, Nassau and Suffolk County) and also between the various islands and up the Hudson River.
In the 1800’s there was a transition from people being farmers or working alone to produce goods to small companies and factories where people went to work. This was called the Industrial Revolution. And with the invention of the steam engine large machines powered bigger and bigger factories with production lines and mass production.
The Industrial Revolution had two major impacts on Sunset Park – first on our waterfront several companies formed to aid in the transportation of goods. Bush Terminal was one of the largest from 50th Street to 39th Street and then expanding further to 32nd Street. Thousands of men and some women found employment here. And this led to the second major impact – families had more money and could live a better life.
Housing in Sunset Park:
Before the Industrial Revolution, people were either rich or poor (or working poor). But with the Industrial Revolution – a new economic group was formed – “the Middle Class”. This led to the development of better housing. Sunset Park had nearly 4,000 or so two and three family houses built for this new Middle Class between 1890 and 1920. These homes, were built of brick or brownstone not wood. Most of these homes, are still with us today providing great housing.
Immigration, Transportation and War:
Life in Sunset Park, during the last 165 years, was controlled largely by waves of immigration, changes in transportation and two world wars. Immigrant groups coming to Sunset Park did so looking for economic opportunity. They built beautiful churches, developed hospitals and built homes. The various immigrants brought their culture to Sunset Park and their trades and skills.
Changes in transportation – railroad to trucking, and break bulk cargo ships to containerization controlled the job – with changes jobs were lost and relocated away from Sunset. The building of parkways, expressways, tunnels and bridges did away with ferries, trolleys and trains as commuter began driving to work each day.
World War I caused the Federal government to build to major facilities in Sunset Park – the Brooklyn Army Terminal and the Naval Supply Buildings. And World War II brought new economic life to Sunset Park as employment rose to a full 100%.