Gravesend In Brooklyn, NY Walking Tour

Original Film Date: Wednesday July 16th, 2025

Gravesend in South Brooklyn is a residential neighborhood and working class community that once was Brooklyn's old English town settled by British settlers in the 1700s. Now, it's a working class community with a diverse amount of ethnic groups living here. I toured around most of Gravesend and Bensonhurst's next door enclave Bath Beach in this video.

Gravesend was first settled in 1643 by the English settlers. Then, the Gravesend Cemetery was established in the same year by Lady Deborah Moody. The Old Gravesend Cemetery is an old historic cemetery at Gravesend Neck Road and McDonald Avenue. The cemetery and contains the graves of original patentees and their families. It is the oldest cemetery and burial ground in New York City.

Lady Deborah Moody (legal name as Deborah Moody) has her historical house located on 27 Gravesend Neck Road in Brooklyn. Her house used to be a Dutch farmhouse that was owned by the Van Sicklen family. The historical home today is known as the Lady Moody-Van Sicklen House. Moody named her community as Gravesend. She allowed religious freedom in
Gravesend, when it would fall within the laws of colony. Moody gained influence and power in the government of New Netherland (Dutch colony, now being modern day New York).

In the early to mid 20th century (1900s), Gravesend had a growing Italian population that gave the community a heritage of the people living here. Later in the 1980s, a small population of Soviet Jews moved here and also worked in businesses not too far from Brighton Beach and Sheepshead Bay. Gravesend continue to remain as a Italian community along with Sheepshead Bay and Bensonhurst. Most of the Italians were of Sicilian origin, which is Southern Italian. Then, a Sephardic Jewish population also moved here in the early 2000s, along with a growing Chinese population also migrating here later between the 2000s and 2010s.

In the 2010s up to now in 2025, there are also Central Asians living in Gravesend, such as immigrants coming from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan etc. There are some Turkish residents, some Albanians, and Greek Americans. There are now a growing number of Hispanics living here and most likely working in the community, such as Mexicans, Latinos from Central America, and some Peruvians. Gravesend has the Marlboro Houses as the local projects community with working class residents.

There is the iconic Italian restaurant L&B Spumoni Gardens with good food, such as pizza, pasta, french fries, bread etc. There is a local bowling alley called Bowl 360 Brooklyn. McDonald Avenue is the working class street with warehouse jobs, blue collar jobs, and construction jobs are at. On Coney Island Avenue, there is the Russian Advertisement Commercial and Radio, claiming to be the largest Russian 'commercial portal' in the United States outside of Russia. Not too far in the same street, there is a local nightclub called Level Restaurant & Bar owned by both Russians and Americans. For the Sephardic Jewish community, they have local synagogues near houses and mansions there.

Calvert Vaux Park is a big-sized public park next to Belt Parkway. There is Ceasar's Bay Shopping Center with department stores, businesses, and restaurants (Kohl's, Five Guys, Pizza D'Amore, BJ's Wholesale Club, TD Bank, Best Buy, Target, Five Below etc.). A small amusement park called 'Adventurers Amusement Park' is nearby, and it's not too far from Coney Island's Luna Park.

In the neighborhood Bath Beach where the last part of this video is at, there are a community of Chinese immigrants, Middle Eastern Arabs, some Pakistanis, Mexicans, other Hispanics/Latinos, Italian Americans, some Greek Americans, some Russians, Poles, and Central Asians that live here.

Background song: Kenny G - This Moment