Sunset Park, Brooklyn

Sunset Park is a neighborhood in the western section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn, USA. It is bounded by 36th Street (along the southern end of the Green-Wood Cemetery) and Greenwood Heights (referred to as "Greenwood" by Brooklyn Community Board 7) on the north, 9th Avenue and Borough Park on the east, 65th Street and Bay Ridge on the south and Upper New York Bay on the west. . Sunset Park is patrolled by the NYPD's 72nd Precinct.

The neighborhood takes its name from a city park located within it between 41st and 44th Streets and 5th and 7th Avenues, which is the second highest point in Brooklyn (for the highest point in Brooklyn, see the Green-Wood Cemetery entry), part of the terminal moraine of the last ice age. The hilly terrain of the park affords visitors magnificent views of Downtown Brooklyn and the Brooklyn Bridge, Lower Manhattan, the Statue of Liberty, Staten Island and New Jersey. The "main drag" of the neighborhood is 5th Avenue. The area is also home to the Jackie Gleason Bus Depot.

Early years
In the heyday of the New York Harbor's dominance of North American shipping during the 19th century, Sunset Park grew rapidly, largely as a result of Irish, Polish and Norwegian immigrant families moving to the area. The neighborhood grew up around the Bush Terminal of Irving T. Bush, a model industrial park completed between 39th and 53d Streets in 1895, and it continued to grow through World War II, when the Brooklyn Army Terminal between 53d and 66th Streets employed more than 10,000 civilians to ship 80% of American supplies and troops.

Sunset Park's fortunes began to decline after the war. The rise of truck-based freight shipping and ports in New Jersey, the growth of suburban sprawl and White flight, the closing of the Army Terminal, and the decreasing importance of heavy industry in the American northeast all became factors. Families who had lived in the community for decades began moving out, and the homes in the neighborhood — largely modest but attractive rowhouses — lost value. The construction of the Gowanus Expressway in 1941 effectively cut the neighborhood off from the harbor, which further wounded the area, in a fashion often associated with the expressway's builder: power-broker Robert Moses. Until the early 1980s, Sunset Park's main population was Norwegian Americans, who began leaving the neighborhood during the White flight years of the 1970s and 1980s.



Rebirth "Brooklyn's Little Latin America"
Sunset Park's second age began with a wave of immigration from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Mexico as well as other Latin American countries. By 1990, Hispanics comprised 50% of Sunset Park's population, rehabilitating property values and developing a thriving community. Along 5th Avenue there is an abundance of Hispanic restaurants and businesses.

Brooklyn Chinatown(布鲁克華埠)/Emerging Fuzhou Town(福州埠)
Since the 1980s, Brooklyn Chinatown has attracted many Chinese immigrants, along 8th Avenue from 42nd to 66th Street. Chinese establishments line 8th Avenue, including grocery stores, restaurants, Buddhist temples, video stores, bakeries, and community organizations and Hong Kong Supermarket.

Like the traditional Chinatown in Manhattan, Brooklyn's Chinatown was originally settled by Cantonese immigrants. In recent years, however, an influx of Fuzhou immigrants have been supplanting the Cantonese at a significantly faster rate than in Manhattan's Chinatown. The Cantonese presence is definitively giving way to an emerging Fuzhou community, though many Cantonese still come from other parts of Brooklyn and elsewhere to shop on weekends.

By 2009 many Mandarin-speaking people had moved to Sunset Park.

Demographics
The 2000 Census for Sunset Park, Brooklyn approximates that there were 120,441 people living in the neighborhood; 50.5% male and 49.5% were female; The median age was 30.8; 17.8% of residents were children, 73.2% were adults (18 years and over), and 9% were senior citizens (65 or over).

There were 29,723 total housing units, of which 95.8% were occupied; 75.1% were rented and 24.9% were owned. The median property value was $235,400. The median household income in 1999 US dollars was $30,152, and the median family income was $31,247. The per capita income was $13,141; 27.9% of individuals and 26% of families lived below the poverty line. Residents of one race race totaled 93.9% of the population. Roughly 42.6% of residents were Hispanic or Latino, 36.2% were White (Caucasian or Arab), 29% were Asian (mostly Chinese), 3.2% were black/African American and 24.7% were "some other race."



Recent history
Sunset Park was hit by the 2007 Brooklyn tornado on August 8. Significant damage was reported to homes on 58th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues and 67th-66th street between 5th and 6th Avenues.

Transportation
Sunset Park is extensively served by road, rail, and ferry service. The neighborhood has access to three limited-access highways; the Gowanus/Interstate 278,the Prospect/NY-27, and the Belt Parkway.

Six NYCTA bus lines serve Sunset Park: B9, B11, B35, B63, B70.

Three subway lines run through Sunset Park. The BMT Fourth Avenue Line has stations at Prospect Avenue, 25th Street, 36th Street, 45th Street, 53rd Street and 59th Street. The BMT West End Line has a station at Ninth Avenue in addition to its stations on the BMT Fourth Avenue line. The BMT Sea Beach Line has a station at Eighth Avenue in addition to its stations on the BMT Fourth Avenue line.

Freight trains run along the embedded tracks along 1st and 2nd Avenues and on the old Long Island Rail Road Bay Ridge Branch rails that are adjacent to the BMT Sea Beach Line.

New York Water Taxi service is available at the Brooklyn Army Terminal to the Wall Street ferry pier, East 34th Street pier, Sandy Hook Bay Marina, or Riis Landing on summer Fridays. Ferry service was created in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks when the Gowanus Expressway and New York City Subway were at capacity. It was free from October 2001 until April 2003, when the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced that it could not subsidize the service any longer. Today it is operated by the Red Hook, Brooklyn-based New York Water Taxi company on its Rockaway/Sandy Hook route. The Water Taxi service from the Brooklyn Army Terminal was part of the crucial contingency plan during the 2005 New York City transit strike.

Much of the traffic between Brooklyn's Chinatown and Manhattan's Chinatown is handled by privately held vans known colloquially as "Chinese vans." They cruise down 8th Avenue from 43rd Street to the 61st Street onramp to Gowanus Expressway/I-278. These vans pick up and unload passengers on 8th Avenue during commuting hours. As early as 2004, additional vans took passengers to Flushing, Queens. During the 2005 New York City transit strike, these vans were the real contingency plan for people who lived in Brooklyn's Chinatown, despite the fare of $5.