We'll begin our exploration of Gravesend Bay with the woman who started it all. Pictured here is “the House of Lady Moody.” Despite the name, Lady Deborah Moody never lived in this building. Instead, the dedication is indicative of how Lady Moody shaped the Gravesend of today. Lady Moody was a widowed noblewoman who fled England to practice her Anabaptist beliefs in peace at the age of fifty-four. She eventually settled in a Salem, Massachusetts farm of more than 1,000 acres. Unfortunately, she met the same fate as Anne Hutchinson who had been successfully prosecuted and excommunicated from Salem just two years earlier for her “heretic” Anabaptist beliefs. At the time of Lady Moody’s excommunication, Director William Kieft of the Dutch West India Company aimed to recruit settlers in New Amsterdam, in order to bolster their numbers against Native American attacks. Lady Moody was a woman of means who had followers willing to help settle a new community. Kieft granted her 7,000 acres of the southwestern tip of Long Island to create a settlement, which Lady Moody called “Gravesend” and granted her settlers religious freedom. Gravesend was the first New World settlement founded by a woman. The land encompassed what is today Gravesend Bay, Bensonhurst, Coney Island, Brighton Beach, and Sheepshead Bay. Gravesend Bay retains the original street plan adopted by Lady Moody. Despite attacks from Native Americans, the small town of Gravesend grew - and with it Lady Moody’s political influence. For example, Director-General Peter Stuyvesant called on Lady Moody to mediate a tax dispute in 1654. Lady Moody passed away at the age of 73 in 1659, leaving behind a legacy of persevering in the face of religious persecution as well as paving the physical and social development of New Amsterdam. You can still walk on some of the streets Lady Moody laid out in 1643 – most famously Mill Road. Follow this link to learn more.

Gravesend Cemetery, 1923. Built in 1643. Gravesend Cemetery is a 17th century cemetery with headstones still standing. While local lore whispers that Lady Deborah Moody is buried here in an unmarked grave, the oldest headstone currently visible is dated 1724. Unfortunately, by the 1970s, the cemetery was overgrown and garbage strewn (including rusted abandoned cars). Thankfully, the cemetery has been better cared for in the decades since then.

Built around 1830-35 by Nelly Johnson Hubbard, the Hubbard House is a rare surviving early nineteenth-century Dutch-American farmhouse in Brooklyn. The older section of the house reflects traditional Dutch design in its incorporation of H-bent construction. Such design elements include its one-and-one-half-story form, use of a gabled roof with sloping spring eaves at the front and rear, and incorporation of clapboard siding. The house exemplifies a three-bay-wide side-hall plan type popular for Dutch houses in southern Brooklyn at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Originally, the house had also included an unusual shed-roofed kitchen wing, a feature associated with the buildings of Gravesend carpenter-builder Lawrence Ryder to whom this building is tentatively attributed. In 1904, garment worker Vincenzo Lucchelli purchased this house. The Lucchellis constructed the house’s southern two-story hipped-roofed wing in 1924, designed by the Brooklyn firm of Salvati & Le Quornik. This incorporated a multi-windowed bedroom billed as a “sleeping porch,” in response to the tuberculosis pandemic ravaging their community.

Public School No. 215, February 24, 1931. Designed by William H. Gompert, the successor to C.B.J Snyder, P.S. 215 was constructed in the mid-1920s. Gompert, whose style was a more subdued version of Snyder’s elaborate school facilities, was only Superintendent of School Buildings for five years. During that period, a massive school construction program was enacted in response to major overcrowding in schools. Gompert attempted to streamline school construction, creating a system of financial accountability. He standardized design and construction, drafted general contracts instead of individual contracts, and established a double shift system to reduce construction time. However, Gompert was ousted after a series of investigations aiming to determine if his buildings were faulty in design. In 1928, the New York City Board of Education released a report absolving him and suggesting that his schools were, “in general honest, safe, efficient and appropriate to the purpose.”

King’s County was in the running for the country’s horse-racing capital in the late 19th and early 20th century. Brooklyn had three horse racing tracks: one in Sheepshead Bay, one in Brighton Beach, and the Gravesend Race Track. Though not as grand as the Sheepshead Bay course, Gravesend was still internationally known, particularly as the venue for The Preakness Stakes (a flat thoroughbred horse race that now takes place in Baltimore). Built by the Brooklyn Jockey Club and opened in 1886, the venue stretched from McDonald Avenue to Ocean Parkway and from Kings Highway to Avenue U. The venue offered a bar, restaurant, betting pavilions, and carriage sheds. Passengers of the Prospect Park and Coney Island rail line could proceed directly to the stadium through a covered walkway after disembarking. The track was closed when the Hart-Agnew law banned gambling of any kind in the state of New York, charging disobeyers with heavy fines or jail time. Although the law was repealed in 1913, the Gravesend Racetrack would never reopen. Gravesend Handicap, an annual race held at the Aqueduct Racetrack, honors the facility to this day.

Lafayette High School, ca. 1942. Did you know? The Three Stooges developed four houses a block away. Read more below. Follow this link to see one of the houses. Before the Horowitz brothers became international superstars as The Three Stooges, they tried their hand at development. In the 1920s, seeing the potential in developing Gravesend Bay as neighboring Coney Island boomed, Moe purchased a plot of land with the help of his mother. Moe and Jerome Horwitz built four wood frame and brick houses at Bay 43rd Street and Bath Avenue. (On an interesting note, these houses were built on the block between Bath and Cropsey Avenue, or what is today Harway Avenue. Maps show that Harway and Cropsey mysteriously swapped names in the mid-1920s.) When Moe’s wife, Helen Schonberger (the cousin of daredevil Harry Houdini), got pregnant, Moe still failed to rent the homes. He lost the $22,000 he had spent developing them. Moe tried to make an income by selling merchandise in the small factory he had built adjacent to the houses. But that failed, too. Desperate, Moe reverted to an earlier profession of his: performing. We won’t go into detail of how Moe, Curly, and Larry became The Three Stooges. We will note that the Three Stooges fathered slapstick comedy, appeared in almost 200 shorts and feature films from the early 1930s to the early 1970s, hosted their own TV show, as well as appeared in countless stage and personal appearances. Today, their pop culture contributions are ubiquitous. Michael Jackson credited the Curly shuffle for inspiring his moonwalk. The Simpsons is abounding with Stoogeisms. The list is endless. And as for their precursory attempt at being The Property Brothers? Although some of the homes Moe and Jerome had built were torn down, a couple of the houses can still be found on Bay 43rd Street.

Five adjoining wood-frame rowhouses, on Cropsey Avenue at Bay 38th Street, October 27, 1936. No conversation about Gravesend Bay is complete without discussing the Italian mafia. Although Gravesend Bay is no longer noted as the nesting grounds of the Italian mafia, many members lived here. Dead bodies would appear frequently in the nearby Coney Island Creek. Somewhat ironically, members of the Gravesend community did not live in fear. This is striking when noting that innocents in the wrong place at the wrong time had been caught in the crossfires. When interviewed by the New York Times in 1992, following the discovery of two corpses shot in the head in a parked car, residents “spoke with some ambiguity of their uneasy coexistence with” their mobster neighbors. (Brooklyn’s Neighbors to the Mob by Sam Dillon) As one woman stated: “But in a way, the mafia keeps us safe. There aren’t half as many burglaries here as in other places. So their presence is kind of good because they give a kind of fear to other people.” (Brooklyn’s Neighbors to the Mob by Sam Dillon) And, statistically, she was right. Police surveyed for this article reported that the area had a murder rate one third the citywide average. Rates for rape, robbery, and felony assault were also noted as very low. If you’re interested in learning more about this dynamic, check out “Gravesend” on Amazon Prime.

Adventurers Family Entertainment Center – formerly known as Nellie Bly Amusement Park (not pictured here but in same location) Located on the south side of Shore Parkway between 25th Avenue and Bay 41st Street is the Adventurers Family Entertainment Center – formerly known as the Nellie Bly Amusement Park. Construction of the original amusement park required the modification of the lines and grades of the street system in the territory bounded by Bay 38th Street, Bat 43rd Street, Shore Parkway, and the U.S. Bulkhead Line in Gravesend Bay. Opened in 1966, Nellie Bly Park was named after the adventurer Nellie Bly - the mother of investigative reporting. Born Elizabeth Chochrane, she is best known for committing herself to the mental hospital on Blackwell’s Island (now Roosevelt Island) to investigate and report on the inhuman conditions at the facility. In 2007, the park was renovated and renamed the Adventurers Family Entertainment Center. The number of rides were expanded from a dozen to thirty rides and attractions. Most of these are kiddie rides geared for the enjoyment of children. The amusement park also offers an 18-hole miniature golf course, batting cages, and go-carts.

Before we end this exploration of Gravesend Bay, we’ll explore the bay itself. Not pictured but in the same location is the Shore Parkway Greenway Trail, a Robert Moses public amenity that allows pedestrians and cyclists gorgeous views of the bay. With Robert Moses at the helm, New York City in the 1930s began construction of the Belt Parkway, a 36 mile-long stretch of pavement and concrete wrapping around Brooklyn and part of Queens. Realizing the valuable real estate of Brooklyn’s southern waterfront, they installed a pedestrian promenade later called the Shore Parkway Greenway Trail along Gravesend Bay, overlooking Staten Island to the west and Lower Manhattan to the north. Visit the following link to see some spectacular views of the trail. We’ll be focusing on the shorter western section of the trail in Brooklyn, beginning at Bensonhurst Park and extending just over five miles north to Owl’s Head Park. Along the way, you can spot views of Coney Island, the historic Fort Hamilton Army Base, the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, One World Trade Center, as well as Staten Island’s Fort Wadsworth and Battery Weed. Shore Parkway Greenway Trail is fully-paved and wheelchair accessible. The trail offers a separate section for cyclists and pedestrians as well as several restrooms, benches, and parking areas. The Shore Parkway Greenway Trail is heavily used by families, children, professional athletes, and all those seeking respite from the bustling urban realm of New York City. As we trace Shore Parkway Greenway Trail, let’s discuss Gravesend Bay itself. Gravesend Bay has a storied past of boat racing, great fishing, and the development of one of the world’s largest and most iconic suspension bridges- the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. But did you know that the bay is on the migratory route for dolphins, seals, and even whales? Gravesend Bay is an estuary, or a partially enclosed body of water that eventually connects to the ocean. Estuaries are important “cradles” for young fish and coastal specific species. As such, they serve as a reliable food source for many birds and sea-mammals passing through on their migration routes. Voracious eaters, bottlenose dolphins frequently go off course to pursue schools of fish as they migrate south. The last two weeks of March and early April are the best time to possibly spot a bottlenose dolphin in Gravesend Bay. Seals can be spotted more frequently, from the winter to the end of April. Although several species can be found along the bay, the sweet faced harbor seals and the larger long-nosed grey seals are most common.

We'll end our exploration of Gravesend Bay at the magnificent Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Completed in 1964, the Verrazano Bridge was and still is the longest suspension bridge in North America. Designed by structural engineer and architect Othmar Ammann and advocated for by master planner Robert Moses, the bridge spans the Narrows. It is the last large-scale public works project overseen by Robert Moses. The bridge’s central span is 4,260 feet, with a total bridge length of 13,700 feet. When the bridge opened to the public in 1964, after five years of construction, the cost of the toll was 50 cents! While it does not have a pedestrian path, each year the bridge plays a part in the NYC Marathon and the 5-Boro Bike tours, allowing non-vehicular passengers to cross the span. The bridge is named for Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, who was the first documented European explorer to enter New York Harbor. Author Gay Talese, who chronicled the construction of the bridge, wrote that the missing letter was a “typo and everybody let it go.” On October 1, 2018, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill adding the second ‘z’ to the name, correcting the historical misspelling to honor the explorer and the state’s heritage. The city will replace the misspelled signs as they wear out in the next several years. Thank you for joining us on this virtual tour of Gravesend Bay!