Brooklyn’s Chinatown, located in the neighborhood of Sunset Park, lies primarily along 8th Avenue, centered at 59th Street and branching out from 40th to 70th Street. While this area is acknowledged by the Chinese community as “Ba Da Dao” (lit. Eighth Avenue), Chinese presence has been spreading outward to establish businesses on 7th and 9th avenues as well. We will establish this area as Chinatown, but the presence of such a large Chinese community affects the entire neighborhood. To the south, the Gowanus Expressway separates Sunset Park from Bay Ridge, and to the north, Greenwood Cemetery creates a large uninhabited area.
Sunset Park is also home to a large portion of the city’s deep water docks, and thus the waterfront is still very industrial. Although these ports are no longer used as much as they once were, there is a strong push to keep this area from changing; The waterfront is a source of jobs for many people of the neighborhood, and the city itself is very reluctant to lose more industrial space. This means that, even as the Asian community becomes more settled in the area, it will not be able to change in the same way as those in Manhattan and Flushings.
The Asian presence in Sunset Park can clearly be seen on this map from Social Explorer.
