The Past and Present of the Neighborhood

 Past:         Brighton Beach was named after a beach resort in Brighton, England, and its histories began as one. Brighton Beach was a neighborhood born out of Gravesend, having a location right on the ocean. The ocean served as a major attraction to New Yorkers, and to accommodate for this many hotels were built in the 1870s; “The Brighton Beach Hotel”, being the biggest.

With this arrival of people many racetracks were built for horse, dog and eventually auto racing. All tracks had closed by 1910 due to new laws against betting, resulting in the departure of the wealthier class from the area. In the early 1920s with the extension of the boardwalk land became valuable and apartment buildings began popping up in the neighborhood. The addition of apartment buildings led to Brighton being a year round neighborhood. Brighton soon experienced its first wave of immigration in the 1930s through 1940s. Europeans escaping fascist and Nazi rule sought refuge in Brighton where train lines went from servicing 500,000 to several million. Eventually by the 1950s and 1960s much of the middle and working class of the neighborhood had moved to the suburbs leaving the elderly and lower class. In the 1970s as immigration policies in the Soviet Union diminished, Brighton Beach saw its biggest wave of immigrants, mainly Russian and Ukrainian Jews.  With this new immigrant group in the area, new restaurants and stores opened up catering to the new population; this is how Brighton Beach gained its nickname of “Little Odessa”. These new business flourished with continuous immigrants coming into the area all the way up to the 2000s, allowing for more immigrant groups to come to Brighton Beach such as the Uzbek and Hispanic.

Present:          Today, Brighton Beach has a total population of 25,832 as according to the Census of 2010. Brighton Beach also has a total of 12,470 households with 7.5% of them being vacant. Most of its residents are Russian Jews, accounting for the majority of store signs and banners being written in Cyrillic due to the heavy Russian influence. There are a total of 6 Russian bookstores in Brighton Beach further showing their impact on the neighborhood. With an already established Russian community, doors were opened for other Russian-speaking immigrants, such as those from Uzbekistan, Armenia and Georgia. More recently with the growth of business, Brighton has also seen a growth in its Asian, Hispanic, and Middle-Eastern population. As diverse as the population is, so are the living conditions. Residents are dispersed among a variety of apartment buildings, private homes, luxurious condominiums, and buildings with single room occupancy living. Some households still contain an extra faucet where salt water used to be pumped to directly into the homes.
          Due to such an influx of immigrants to the Brighton Beach area, primarily Russian Ukrainian Jews, a new culture had been introduced to the area, full of eccentric and exotic food. Some very popular food spots have known risen atop others and are frequently visited by the Brighton Beach residents. Cafe Glechik, Gold Label Deli, and M & I International Food, have become just some of the many local favorites. Cafe Glechik serves a variety of Ukrainian foods ranging from the widely popular borscht to stuffed cabbage. Cafe Glechik is best known though for its pelmeni and vareniki, which can be described as a dumpling and ravioli with a Ukrainian twist, filled with assortments of meets, cheeses and the occasional potato.

They are served in factors of 25. Gold Label Deli has a street stand coming out of the store itself, where they sell Russian pirozhki filled with meat, potatoes or cabbage. They also sell Georgian khachapuri, which are almost the same as the pirozhki but much thinner and filled with cheese. They also sell a wide variety of strudels with many fillings such as apple, cherry, and cottage cheese.
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