Coney Island

There are still remnants of a once dense Italian enclave that existed in Coney Island, Brooklyn. Alongside the seaside amusement park was a residential neighborhood with commercial shops along avenues that intersected blocks of single-family and two-family homes. Very few of the original buildings which were built in the late 1800’s still exist. Most of the original housing stock in the neighborhood was demolished in the 1970’s to make way for public housing. Entire blocks of homes were destroyed and the Italians there relocated to bordering neighborhoods like Seagate, Bensonhurst, Bath Beach, Gravesend; and others went to Staten Island. Coney Island is a peninsular neighborhood and entertainment area in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach to its east, Lower New York Bay to the south and west, and Gravesend to the north and includes the subsection of Sea Gate on its west.