Comparison: Brighton Beach and Crown Heights
From Decoding New York
| Introduction |
| Brighton Beach |
| * Evolution |
| * What's Real |
| * Here v. There |
| * Economy |
| Crown Heights |
| * Evolution |
| * What's Real |
| * Here v. There |
| * Economy |
| Comparison |
| * Photo Gallery |
| * Sources
|
Brighton Beach was developed in 1868 by William A. Engeman to serve as a beach resort. In 1878 Henry Murphy won the contest to name the resort. His insipiration was a resort in Brighton, England. Brighton Beach was redeveloped to become a fairly dense residential community in 1920 with the final rebuilding of the Brighton Beach railway into a modern rapid transit line of the New York City Subway system. In the 1980's and 90's there was a large Jewish immigration from the Soviet Union that came to settle here. Crown Heights began as a posh residential neighborhood known as the "bedroom" for Manhattan's growing middle class. As the neighborhood aged, the middle class moved out and into suburbia. As this happened, there were more and more vacancies that needed to be filled. What had been a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, saw a large influx of Afro-American and Hispanic minority immigrants.
These seemingly different enclaves of immigrants actually have alot in common. Although the immigrant populations came from different countries they share a common dream, to find a better life here in America. The immigrants of the Soviet Union were often seeking to escape religious persecution, the Hispanic immigrants, from unfortunate financial odds. Regardless of their reasons, they established themselves here and donated their culture and customs to their local communities, forever altering the face of the neighborhood and New York City itself. Today we can witness the effect that these people had on the development of our city. With the great contribution of foods from various cultures one can enjoy some great kosher pizza, a great carribean meat dish and some cherry blintzes all in one day. As much as these populations become Americanized, the definition of the "American" is itself changing. Some say that society has lost a lot of the values that were important to the older generation but at the same time today's society has also learned to live more or less happily with the mosaic of people that make up the city today. It can be seen that the immigrants that poured into these neighborhoods made a great difference on the city and thus changed its past, present, and future.
