Brighton Beach

Brighton Beach is a community on Coney Island in the borough of Brooklyn in New York City. As of 2000 it has a population of 75,692 with a total of 31,228 households.

Brighton Beach was developed by William A. Engeman as a beach resort in 1868, and was named by Henry C. Murphy and a group of businessmen in an 1878 contest; the winning name evoked the resort of Brighton, England.

The centerpiece of the resort was the large Hotel Brighton (or Brighton Beach Hotel), placed on the beach at what is now the foot of Coney Island Avenue and accessed by the Brooklyn, Flatbush, and Coney Island Railway, later known as the BMT Brighton Line, which opened on July 2, 1878. After a series of winter storms threatened to swamp the hotel, an audacious plan was developed to move the 5,000 ton hotel in one piece 520 feet further inland by placing railroad track and 112 railroad flat cars under the raised 460 ft. by 130 ft. building and using six steam locomotives to pull it away from the sea. Engineered by B.C. Miller the move was begun on April 2, 1888 and continued for the next nine days, being the largest building move of the 19th century.

Adjacent to the hotel, Engeman built the Brighton Beach Race Course for Thoroughbred horse racing. The village was annexed into the 31st Ward of the City of Brooklyn in 1894.

Brighton Beach was re-developed as a fairly dense residential community with the final rebuilding of the Brighton Beach railway into a modern rapid transit line of the New York City Subway system c. 1920.

The 1950s brought with it a neighborhood consisting mostly of second generation Jewish-Americans and a number of concentration camp survivors.Notable establishments included Diamond's (a small clothing store owned by the parents of Neil Diamond), Irving's Deli and the New Deal Chinese restaurant. The summer would bring crowds of subway riders enroute to the Coney Island beaches.

Today, the area has a large community of Jewish immigrants who left the Former Soviet Union between 1970 and the present day. Some non-Jewish immigrants, such as Armenians and Georgians, have also settled in Brighton Beach and the surrounding neighborhoods, taking advantage of the already established Russian-speaking community.

Among the charitable organizations serving the Russian-speaking community is the Russian Community Life Center, which provides a variety of classes and programs.

Brighton Beach was dubbed "Little Odessa" by the local populace long ago, due to many of its residents having come from Odessa, a city of Ukraine.

Brighton Beach is home to many ethnic groups. On Brighton 7th Street and Neptune Avenue, there is a mosque where Muslims (mostly from Pakistan and Bangladesh) pray, and another between Brighton 8th Street and Banner Avenue known as Al-Arqam. Nearby areas are sometimes called "Pakistani Brighton". There are numerous Polish, Russian, Armenian, Turkish and Georgian residents, but relatively few Italian-Americans or African-Americans remaining. There are also some Korean markets, but for the most part their owners do not reside in the neighborhood. Notable past residents include talk-show host Larry King and current General Bancorp President Adnan Mohammad.

Brighton Beach is replete with restaurants, food stores, cafes, boutiques, banks, etc., located primarily along Brighton Beach Avenue and its cross streets. The neighborhood has a distinctively ethnic feel, akin to Manhattan's Chinatown. The proximity of Brighton Beach to the city's beaches (Brighton Beach Avenue runs parallel to the Coney Island beach area and the Boardwalk) and the fact that the neighborhood is directly served by the Brighton Beach Avenue subway station, makes it a popular summer weekend destination for thousands of New York City residents.