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Sunset Park, Brooklyn: The Hill, the Terminal, Eighth Avenue

Sunset Park, New York

Pictures from Sunset Park

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Brooklyn Army Terminal from the street Atrium balconies, Brooklyn Army Terminal Sunset Play Center, Sunset Park Manhattan skyline from Sunset Park

Sunset Park is named for the hilltop the City of Brooklyn acquired on May 15, 1891: four blocks between Fifth and Seventh Avenues, extended to 44th Street in 1904, on a roughly 164-foot rise in the Harbor Hill Moraine. The first European settlement here came in 1636, when Willem Adriaenszen Bennett and Jacques Bentyn bought 936 acres, and the area was still primarily agricultural in the 1830s. Development followed the transit lines: the Fifth Avenue elevated opened in 1889 and reached a 65th Street terminal on October 1, 1893, and the Fourth Avenue subway opened to 59th Street on June 21, 1915. The waterfront filled with Irving T. Bush's terminal complex and, from 1918, Cass Gilbert's Brooklyn Army Terminal. In the 1980s Sunset Park became the location of the borough's first Chinatown, along Eighth Avenue.

  1. The hill the neighborhood is named for, with the Sunset Play Center at its edge.

  2. Tidal ponds, ball fields and a shore path on the old Bush Terminal piers.

  3. Thirty-five acres of the former Bush Terminal, with a climbing gym, petanque courts and event space.

  4. A Japanese food hall and marketplace inside Industry City, with the Sunrise Mart grocery.

  5. Cass Gilbert's 1918-1919 supply base; interior tours have been offered since 2013.

  6. Begun 1907, finished 1928, and raised to minor basilica in September 1969.

  7. Raymond F. Almirall's 1905 church on 42nd Street for a parish founded in 1870.

  8. The 1916 Finnish cooperatives on 43rd Street, listed on the National Register in 2019.

  9. A 1930-1931 courthouse, landmarked in 2001 and now in police use. Exterior only.

  10. A restaurant at 4508 5th Avenue, on the Latino dining corridor.

  11. A restaurant at 4317 8th Avenue, on the Chinatown corridor.

  12. A licensed hotel at 764 4th Avenue, inside the neighborhood.

Farmland, then a working waterfront

Irving T. Bush assembled Bush Terminal along the shore in two named portions, one running roughly from 32nd to 41st Streets and the other from 40th to 51st Streets. At its peak the complex employed about 35,000 people by 1928.

The Brooklyn Army Terminal followed, at 58th Street. Cass Gilbert designed the supply base; construction began on May 15, 1918 and finished in September 1919, and it is described as the largest military supply base in the United States through World War II. A decommissioning ceremony was held on December 9, 1966 and Army operations ceased on January 1, 1967. The city finalised its purchase in July 1981 for $8.5 million and started the renovation in 1985.

Inland, the neighborhood kept its late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century fabric. Alku and Alku Toinen, built in 1916 at 816 and 826 43rd Street for the neighborhood's Finnish community, are recognised as the first purpose-built non-profit housing cooperatives in New York State and were listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 20, 2019. A block of 40th Street, at the Imatra Society building at 740 40th Street, was co-named Finlandia Street in 1991. St. Michael's parish was founded in 1870 and its present church at 352 42nd Street was completed in 1905 to designs by Raymond F. Almirall; it is sometimes called Brooklyn's own Sacre-Coeur. The Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, at 526 59th Street, was begun in 1907 and completed in 1928 to designs by Franz Joseph Untersee, and was elevated to minor basilica by the pontifical decree Quamquam Christianus on September 15, 1969.

Getting there

Sunset Park sits on the BMT Fourth Avenue Line, and four of its stations are in the neighborhood. The 36th Street station is served by the R, D and N at all times. The 45th Street, 53rd Street and 59th Street stations are served by the R at all times; N trains call at 59th Street at all times, and at 45th Street and 53rd Street on late nights and limited rush-hour trips.

NYC Ferry's South Brooklyn route calls at the Sunset Park/Brooklyn Army Terminal landing, Pier 4, 140 58th Street. Free public parking is available at Pier 4 for Brooklyn Army Terminal visitors and ferry riders.

Two commercial avenues

In the 1980s Sunset Park became the location of the borough's first Chinatown, which runs along Eighth Avenue and is the borough's largest, with grocery stores, restaurants, Buddhist temples and bakeries. The Choi Yung Grocery opened in 1983 at 5517 Fort Hamilton Parkway, and the Winley Supermarket opened in 1986 at 5523 8th Avenue; Winley is credited with drawing more Asian visitors to the strip after roughly 90 percent of Eighth Avenue storefronts had been abandoned by 1988. Canton House Restaurant, the first Cantonese seafood restaurant on Eighth Avenue, opened in 1985. The corridor was settled first by Cantonese immigrants and is increasingly home to Fujianese and Wenzhounese immigrants. How far north and south it reaches is not settled. Addresses are firmer: Great Taste Dumpling is at 4317 8th Avenue.

Fifth Avenue carries the other one, a corridor of Mexican, Guatemalan and Colombian restaurants and bakeries. Its ends are likewise unsettled; the establishments trading along it run at least between the 4000 and 5500 blocks, Tacos Matamoros among them at 4508 5th Avenue.

The change on both avenues followed a long decline on the waterfront that began in earnest with the Brooklyn Army Terminal's 1966 closure.

Frequently asked questions

How do I get to Sunset Park?
By subway, the 36th Street station is served by the R, D and N; 45th Street, 53rd Street and 59th Street are served by the R, with N service at 59th Street at all times and at 45th and 53rd Streets on late nights and limited rush-hour trips. NYC Ferry's South Brooklyn route calls at the Sunset Park/Brooklyn Army Terminal landing at Pier 4, 140 58th Street.
Is Sunset Park a neighborhood or a park?
Both. The park sits between Fifth and Seventh Avenues from 41st to 44th Streets, covers about 24.5 acres, and gave the neighborhood around it its name after the City of Brooklyn acquired the original four blocks on May 15, 1891.
Can visitors get inside the Brooklyn Army Terminal?
Public interior tours have been offered through Turnstile Tours since 2013, and NYC Ferry has served the terminal since May 2017. The complex is a working light-manufacturing and commercial site, so check the terminal's own site before going.
How far does the Eighth Avenue Chinatown run?
Its northern and southern ends are not settled. What is firm is that it is the borough's first and largest Chinatown, with grocery stores, restaurants, Buddhist temples and bakeries along Eighth Avenue.
Is the Sunset Park Courthouse open to the public?
No. The 1930-1931 building by Mortimer Dickerson Metcalfe was designated a New York City landmark on June 26, 2001, but it has served as an NYPD applicant-processing centre since a 1996 renovation, so only the exterior can be seen.
Is there anywhere to stay in Sunset Park?
Yes. The Best Western Plus Prospect Park Hotel holds an active city hotel licence at 764 4th Avenue, inside the neighborhood. A second licensed hotel trades as Day's Inn at 437 39th Street.

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