Map of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn Bensonhurst is named after Arthur W. Benson, who began buying farmland in the area in 1835 and dividing the land into lots that were sold as part of the newly created suburb of Bensonhurst. In the early 20th centuray, Jewish and Italian immigrants moved into the neighborhood. In the 1950s, an influx of immigrants from southern Italy and exodus of the Jewish population left the area predominantly Italian. In the 1990s, many Chinese and Russian immigrants began to arrive in Bensonhurst. Bensonhurst is famous for, among other things, being the filming location for the movie "Saturday Night Fever". Despite the changes in demographics, Bensonhurst is still called "the REAL little-Italy of New York City" by some.
Our primary source for neighborhood names and locations is the
New York City Department of City Planning. Additional information is from Kenneth Jackson and John B.
Manbeck's book The Neighborhoods of Brooklyn and Brooklyn by Name by Leonard Benardo and Jennifer Weiss.
Some neighborhood descriptions are drawn from Wikipedia.org and are republished here under under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. Click here to send us Feedback about the map
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