#102 Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

Tom Meyers

Society & Culture, History, Documentary, Places & Travel

4.8 • 3.6K Ratings

🗓️ 30 April 2010

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today it's known as Brooklyn's thriving Russian community next door to the amusements of the neighborhood of Coney Island. But a hundred years ago, the neighborhoods of Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach were the homes of lavish hotels catering to the upper and upper middle classes. While many people were playing at Coney Island's Steeplechase Park, Dreamland and Luna Park, the wealthiest were playing at the three most toniest hotels -- Brighton Beach Hotel, the Oriental Hotel and Manhattan Beach Hotel.Find out the origins of these long-gone resorts and how they make their mark on the current neighborhoods. ALSO: Why should we care so much about one particular raging anti-Semite? And why did the Brighton Beach Hotel, several thousand tons of it, have to get dragged inland 500 feet?www.boweryboyspodcast.com Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/boweryboys

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Bowry Boys episode 102, the early days of Brighton Beach.
0:05.5	Hey, it's The Bowry Boys.
0:07.0	Hey.
0:09.0	The Bowry Boys is brought to you by EuroChipo.com.
0:13.0	EuroChipo editors personally visit and review the best budget hotels in Europe.
0:18.0	Now with hotels in New York City, on the web at EuroChipo.com.
0:22.0	Welcome to The Bowry Boys. This is Greg Young with another solo show this week.
0:26.0	I know last week we did Bronx Zoo, one of New York's greatest recreational places,
0:31.0	but I'm still in this recreational outdoorsy mood.
0:34.0	So this week I'm heading down to the Brooklyn neighborhood Brighton Beach.
0:38.0	For most New Yorkers, what immediately springs to mind when you talk about Brighton Beach is its Russian community.
0:44.0	In fact, the neighborhood is lovingly referred to even as Little Odessa.
0:48.0	It's one of the largest Russian communities outside of Russia, and it's bustling center right there at Brighton Beach Avenue.
0:53.0	It features all these amazing food shops, restaurants, lavish entertainment venues,
0:59.0	all advertised for you right there in rows of signs and Cyrillic letters.
1:03.0	If you want to feel like you're at an international vacation and you only have a few dollars in your pocket,
1:07.0	well, you could do worse than take the queue train down there and spend a couple hours enjoying the sights.
1:12.0	But Brighton Beach was a very different place for most of its history.
1:15.0	Being situated that long next to all of those legendary wacky sights in the sound of Coney Island,
1:21.0	well, that changes the neighborhood.
1:23.0	Both Brighton Beach and nearby Manhattan Beach, to its east, were resort districts of the 19th century,
1:29.0	with grand hotels and peers catering to the thousands crowded up north of New York City.
	...

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