Bensonhurst got its name from Arthur W. Benson, founder of the Brooklyn Gas Light Company, who, in 1835, began “to purchase land near the old family farm in the Kings County town of New Utrecht.” In the decade that followed, he sold parcels of the land to a developer named James Lynch on the promise that the land would bear his family’s name. By 1887, the Benson family owned four of the nine farms that made up a one-mile square area of New Utrecht; this eventually became known as Bensonhurst. Then, “two years later, the Benson holdings were divided, opening the way for further settlement.”
By 1902, there was a strong enough Italian presence that a priest was able to establish the St. Rosalia Church for Italian Catholics at 14th Avenue and 63rd Street. During that time, immigration was booming: the largest wave of Italian immigration to New York took place at the close of the 19th century leading into the 20th, with a recorded 2 million immigrants between the years 1900-1910. It was in 1915, however, when the subway system came to Bensonhurst, that the area began to be vivaciously Italian. Connecting Bensonhurst with the bustling metropolis, it made travel easier, allowing residents of Bensonhurst to commute to other parts of New York for work. Furthermore, the subway enabled more people to move to Bensonhurst from the crowded Little Italy on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Thus, slowly but surely, Italians began to take hold of Bensonhurst and imbue it with their culture.
Then came Brooklyn’s “golden era,” in which Bensonhurst thrived like never before…
