Sometimes deciphering a neighborhood name can be pretty simple. It doesn't take a genius to puzzle out how Brooklyn Heights or the Navy Yard got their names, but other 'hoods have a little history behind their monikers. This story examines the background of some of Brooklyn's neighborhoods.

Brighton Beach Hotel, 1901. William A. Engelman was a businessman and developer who named the area now known as Brighton Beach in 1869 after a British seaside town. Over the last few decades of the 19th century, Engelman was developer of the beach resort community after purchasing several hundred acres of beachfront property. He developed and constructed the Brighton Beach Bathing Pavilion and Ocean Pier in 1871, which accommodated 1,2000 visitors for ocean bathing, walking along the water, and dining at the high end restaurants within the hotel. After Austin Corbin, competitor opened the nearby and larger Manhattan Beach Hotel on his own newly acquired chuck of land, Engleman upped the ante and with a group of investors built the Hotel Bright. It was a multi-story wood-framed hotel, with deep porches, towers, and manicured lawns, overlooking the boardwalk and the ocean. The hotel could accommodate more than 5000 people.

Spectators gather to view the Brighton Beach Hotel, previously known as the Hotel Brighton, prior to its move inland; April 3, 1888. Upon its opening in July 1878, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle hailed the new Hotel Brighton, "where all Brooklyn will summer" as "probably the grandest seaside hotel in the entire country." The 178-room hotel was situated a stone's throw from the shoreline, on thirty acres of beachfront property owned by the Brooklyn, Flatbush, and Coney Island Railroad Company. Just a decade later, the selling point of ocean proximity had become a liability: beach erosion threatened the integrity of the hotel's supporting piles, necessitating an ingenious relocation effort. (In this photo, taken immediately before the hotel was moved, waves can be seen lapping well beneath the building's main floor.) Engineers devised a novel solution: the entire hotel would be pulled 500-600 feet inland, atop 24 railroad tracks installed for the purpose. The Hotel was reopened at its new location at the foot of Coney Island Avenue, where it operated until it was shuttered and razed in 1923.

Brighton Beach Hotel demolished (foreground) with the nearby Music Hall soon to be taken down, 1924. Between 1910 and 1920 two of the other large high end hotels in the area (Manhattan Beach Hotel were , as massive changes came to the neighborhood. The prohibition of gambling caused the failure of the racetracks and the hotels where the wealthy, gambling clientele stayed. The Brighton Beach Hotel outlasted the others due to its proximity to the booming parks and beaches Coney Island (though this proximity to the working-class amusement area had once been a detriment). The building was demolished in 1923 and the land was sold to residential developers.

Brighton Beach Hotel ca. 1888 After becoming a millionaire selling mules and horses to the Union Army during the American Civil War, William Engeman returned home to New York where he purchased the land nestled between Coney Island and Manhattan Beach in Brooklyn for twenty thousand dollars, then known as Middle Division. He renamed the newly acquired land Brighton Beach and in 1870 opened the Ocean Hotel, a modest structure compared to what was to come. The year 1878 saw the opening of the Brighton Beach Bathing Pavilion and Ocean Pier, as well as The Brighton Beach Hotel, a grandiose building in design and in direct competition with Austin Corbin’s nearby Oriental Hotel and Manhattan Beach Hotel. The Brighton Beach Fair Grounds (known as Engeman’s Track”) were built a year later to attract more visitors to the pier and hotel. The multiple hotels and attractions to the area launched the heyday of Brighton Beach. Over time it became more noticeable the ocean was eroding the beach and threatening the Brighton Beach Hotel. In 1888, Engeman’s son (also named William) who had taken over the business after his father’s death, funded the colossal undertaking to lift the hotel onto train tracks in order to move it further inland to avoid the oncoming erosion. As outlandish as it sounds, this actually happened and seemingly without a hitch. In the photograph above, taken on April 3rd, 1888, you can see the tracks being laid and the train cars being prepared. The Brighton Beach Hotel survived through natural disasters, financial strain, and more natural disasters until 1924 when it was demolished and replaced with the Riegelmann Boardwalk. Thus, the heyday of Brighton Beach had come to an end.

It’s no secret that New York is one of the Jewish capitals of the world. The city alone is home to 1.1 million Jews. That makes the city the largest Jewish community outside of Israel - larger than Tel Aviv and Jerusalem combined! The city's Jewish communities are not only multiple but diverse – they are Ashkenazic and Sephardic, Hasidic, and secular. The city owes this diversity to various waves of Jewish immigration over time, but did you know that Jewish geography today still in many ways reflects these immigration eras? Indeed, when and from where your Jewish ancestors immigrated may actually inform where you live in NYC today!

After becoming a millionaire selling mules and horses to the Union Army during the American Civil War, William Engeman returned home to New York where he purchased the land nestled between Coney Island and Manhattan Beach in Brooklyn for twenty thousand dollars, then known as Middle Division. He renamed the newly acquired land Brighton Beach and in 1870 opened the Ocean Hotel, a modest structure compared to what was to come.

Now that the weather has (finally) taken a turn towards summer, many New Yorkers are likely thinking about escaping the city for the beach in the months ahead. Fleeing the city for the seaside is something New Yorkers have been doing for the past two hundred years, since early resorts were built on the nearby Long Island Sound and Atlantic coastlines.