On the train ride to the glitzy, sunbaked, and refreshingly briny heaven that is Coney Island, a simple blink of the eye or the nodding off when one realizes the the depot is near, one will miss the neighborhood of Gravesend. Whatever line is chosen as a conduit to transport the self to that often breezy paradise, from the subterranean N to the southern D to the northern F, don’t just dismiss this neighborhood as an extension of Bensonhurst or Bay Ridge.
I will admit Gravesend (pronounced Grave’s End) shares pretty much the same demographic makeup as its brethren in the west, a predominately middle-class neighborhood made primarily of Italian-Americans with a healthy dose of peoples from other ethnicities, particularly Chinese and Russian. It may even look the same as the rest of southern Brooklyn, with its low-rise buildings, just as pint-sized houses, and miles upon miles of concrete sidewalk where one can spend his morning walking from Avenue U to Bay Parkway without breaking a mile.
The best thing I can think of to separate Gravesend from its western brethren, to keep it from making it a typical Brooklyn neighborhood with its “how you doin'” accents would be that touch of the “necromantic.” From the F line, one has already passed by Greenwood and Washington, but as one inches closer and closer to Coney Island, another cemetery emerges into view if one pays careful attention. However, I refuse to let this macabre atmosphere define what this neighborhood really is, as its main avenue provides a vastly contrasting image to what I may have wrote. There is definitely something here that is worth writing, something with more vitality that prevents this place from being compared to a River Styx.
