Gerritsen Beach, Brooklyn, New York

Brooklyn, one of the five boroughs of New York, is known for its  unique neighborhoods, homes, and churches. Brooklyn was originally an independent city, and with more than 2.5 residents, still feels like its own city. In fact, if it was still independent, Brooklyn would be the fourth largest American city!

Gerritsen Beach, Brooklyn, NY

(All photos will enlarge when clicked on)

The Gerritsen Beach  neighborhood in the southern end of Brooklyn, New York,  is named for Wolphert Gerretse, whose 15,000-acre grant from the West India Company in 1629 included what is now Gerritsen Beach. A farmer descendant named Hugh Gerritsen  built a tidewater mill in 1665 on a marsh creek that is now known as Gerritsen Creek.  The mill was still working more than a century later and ground flour for George Washington's troops during the American Revolutionary War. Unfortunately, the mill was destroyed by fire in 1931.

Gerritsen Creek

Until the early twentieth century, the area remained undeveloped except for a few squatters’ bungalows clustered at the foot of Gerritsen Avenue. In 1920, Realty Associates, a speculative real-estate builder, began constructing a middle-class summer resort there. The southwestern section of Gerritsen’s meadow was soon covered by one-story bungalows with peaked roofs and no backyards; typically, these houses were built on tiny 40-by-45-foot lots. The popularity of this venture spurred further growth.

Photos of original homes in Gerritsen Beach circa 1920's -1950's  source

Some bungalow-owners made them suitable for year-round habitation; others built two-story houses with backyards; and, within a decade, there were fifteen hundred houses in Gerritsen Beach.

Today most of the Gerritsen Beach homes have been renovated and expanded either upwards or outward to take advantage of their property as possible. It still retains its quaint fishing village allure, however, due to its narrow streets and areas where homes sit directly at the water's edge.

Because of it's small town feel it has been used as the location for many movies such as City Across The River,  Moscow on the Hudson , She's The One, and Then She Found Me.

I hope you enjoyed looking at another unique neighborhood in my home borough. I'm linking this post to Mary at The Little Red House Mosaic Monday event.  Please visit Mary's blog to see her gorgeous pillow mosaic and to find  links to other blogs participating in Mosaic Monday.