Sunset Park, Brooklyn (Origin)

 

(Sunset Park Neighborhoods)

    Today I will be introducing Sunset Park, Brooklyn and a little history about it. This particular neighborhood is also known as South Brooklyn and it was named in 1965 for the 25-acre park built in the 1890’s that overlooks the neighborhood. Sunset Park is located on the slope of Dead Man’s Hill in Brooklyn which gives this neighborhood its name. But specifically, I will be talking about Eighth Avenue in Brooklyn or what people call it “Chinatown” in Brooklyn. This is the neighborhood I was born and raised. Throughout my childhood from what I observed and remember about Sunset Park, it’s neighborhood is very diverse in the early 1980s and mainly consists of lower to middle working class people. Poverty rate was about 26.3% during 2000. But slowly the poverty rate decreased, from 26.3% to 22.1% in 2017.

            In Sunset Park, population imbedded in this neighborhood are white, Hispanic/Latino, Asian and a handful of Muslim and black descent. In 2000, white population making up 23% of the neighborhood, 47.9% Hispanic, 21.8% Asian, 3.4% black and 0.67% racial diversity index. Going forward from almost two decades. 2017 the demographics of each Race and Ethnicity has changed. Where white population with 22.7% and slowly decreasing, Hispanic from 47.9% decreased to 39.9%, Asian from 21.8% to 32.7% increase and black communities from 3.4% to 2.4%. Here we can conclude that Sunset Park is still dominated by white, Hispanic and Asian communities are located in The neighborhood with the access to your local supermarkets, Delis, laundry mat and nearby public school. From transportation to work or to school, everything in Sunset Park was pretty much accessible for residents locally.