Community Board 11 Brooklyn

Community Board 11 Brooklyn

Neighborhoods within CB11

Bath Beach, Gravesend, and Bensonhurst
Bath Beach is a community whose present bears almost no relation to its past. In different eras, it has been a beach resort, a rapidly expanding immigrant neighborhood, and a stable residential area. Many Brooklynites often consider Bath Beach
part of Bensonhurst, but while the two adjacent neighborhoods appear similar today, they have very different histories.
This predominantly Italian-American neighborhood experienced its first boom in the 1870s, when wealthy New York families began building summer homes and berthing their yachts among the old Dutch farms and forests in the area. As it grew, Bath
Beach came to be differentiated from Bensonhurst in 1877 with the construction of the Bath Beach-Coney Island Railroad along the shore.
This fueled entrepreneurs' hopes to create a second Coney Island that would rival the legendary resort that was already growing on the other side of Gravesend Bay. Soon, Bath Beach was Bensonhurst By the Sea, a middle-class, fashionable
amusement park featuring luxury hotels and racetracks.
While the railroads and the 4th Avenue line, completed in 1915, caused Bensonhurst's population to swell with Jewish and Italian families fleeing the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the amusement parks were only moderately successful, and by the
1930s Bath Beach consisted of sparse clusters of homes, derelict mansions and empty hotels.
The post-World War II housing boom shaped today's Bath Beach with a frenzy of construction during the 1950s and '60s that created homes for returning GIs. Landfill expanded the area from Bath Avenue out to where the Belt Parkway sits today.
Eventually, the neighborhood took on the ethnic and demographic traits of neighboring Bensonhurst.
Bath Beach and Bensonhurst share their main shopping district on bustling 86th Street, which features more than 300 retail stores. The K-Mart Shopping Plaza draws many thousands each weekend from throughout the borough.
The neighborhood still retains some of its resort flavor in the converted bungalows that line much of Bath Avenue, and in the heavily used parks and jogging areas that line the Gravesend Bay shore.

About Community Boards

Community Boards are local representative bodies. There are 59 throughout the city. Each Board consists of up to 50 unsalaried members appointed by the Borough President, with half nominated by the City Council Members who represent the community district.
Board members are selected by the Borough Presidents from among active, involved people of each community, with an effort made to assure that every neighborhood is represented. Board members must reside, work or have some other significant interest in the community.

Meetings

Boards meet once each month. At these meetings, members address items of concern to the community.
Board meetings are open to the public, and a portion of each meeting is reserved for the Board to hear from members of the public. In addition, Boards regularly conduct public hearings-on the City's budget, on land use matters, and other major issues-to give the people of the community the opportunity to express their options.