Bensonhurst

[alex ballard]

does bensonhurst, brooklyn still have a large italian population? people have told me conflicting stories on this issue.

[billyblancoNYC]

Last I heard it was down quite a bit... off to Staten Island, but there are still about 60K in Bensonhurst proper. One of the biggest in the city still, and all the shops, etc. are still kicking.

Alex, if I may, are you doing some type of project about NYC, or study?

[ASchwarz]

There are still plenty of Italians in Bensonhurst. Italians are still the largest group, but the Chinese population is rapidly increasing. 18th Avenue from about 60th-86th Street is still heavily Italian residents and businesses.

There are actually much higher concentrations of Italians just to the west of Bensonhurst, in a neighborhood called Dyker Heights. This is the most Italian neighborhood left in Brooklyn. 13th Avenue from 60th-86th Streets is the main drag. It's filled with pizzerias, bakeries, etc. I would strongly recommend visiting 13th Avenue.

Bath Beach, directly to the south of Bensonhurst, also has a larger population of Italians than Bensonhurst. Bath Avenue and Cropsey Avenue are the main streets in Bath Beach.

[alex ballard]

I LOVE italian culture as much as I love NYC. No, I'm not doing a project. I just want to see how the city is changing. By the way, my home borough is queens. Is there large italian neighborhoods in Queens like in SI and BK. I also heard there in still italian immigartion to the city, obviously not like the 1900's, but still there. Can this be confirmed and where would they settle.

[Moe14]

Dig through the Dept. of Planning's website's population division.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/census/popdiv.html

There is a lot of information on recent immigration, ethnicity, etc. broken down by either Census Tracts or Community Boards. It takes some digging and inference, but you should be able to find what you're looking for.

As far as Queens goes, Howard Beach is probably the most obvious example of a heavily Italian area. Ozone Park and South Ozone park were also until about 10 years ago, when Hispanics and South Asians started moving in. There's definitely still an Italian flavor though.

Then of course there's areas like Douglaston, which may have a lot of second, third and fourth generation Italian-Americans living there, but which don't really have Italian cultural flavor to them.

[alex ballard]

While I have no problem looking at the census numbers, anyone can figure out that they don't even come close to real nubers. My uncle lives in astoria and the census says that only 25-30 thousand greeks live there. I can tell you that number is bolonga. Just the density of the neighborhood and the faces on the street, The number is at least 50 grand or more. The same with other neighborhoods. all the NYers I've talked to says the city's population is 8.6-8.8 million, some have gone as high as nine. I can imagine bensonhurst's chinese and italians are no different.

[billyblancoNYC]

Dig through the Dept. of Planning's website's population division.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/census/popdiv.html

There is a lot of information on recent immigration, ethnicity, etc. broken down by either Census Tracts or Community Boards. It takes some digging and inference, but you should be able to find what you're looking for.

As far as Queens goes, Howard Beach is probably the most obvious example of a heavily Italian area. Ozone Park and South Ozone park were also until about 10 years ago, when Hispanics and South Asians started moving in. There's definitely still an Italian flavor though.

Then of course there's areas like Douglaston, which may have a lot of second, third and fourth generation Italian-Americans living there, but which don't really have Italian cultural flavor to them.

There are still a lot of Italians in Queens, as the population actually rose from 1990-2000. My area in Whitestone is very Italian and my church still has Italian mass on Sunday.

There are still Italians coming, but I wish I knew how many. They seem to go to trendier areas of Manhattan and Brooklyn, though.

As far as the pop numbers, who knows. I too have heard anything from 8.5-9 million in the city. In a place like NY, no one will really ever know (not soon at least).

I say bring 'em on. 10 million sounds good to me.