Gravesend - Quaker Haven Neighborhood in Brooklyn
Lady Deborah Moody is the founder of Gravesend in the 17th Century, a wealthy widow and the leader of Anabaptists who settled the community in 1643; Lady Moody became the first woman to charter land in the New World in 1645.
Gravesend also held the distinction of being the only English settlement in Brooklyn, but was organized under Dutch law and allowed freedom of worship and self-government. It became a haven for Quakers in the 1650s. Lady Moody's home is still standing at 1875 Gravesend Neck Road, and the 1.6 acre Gravesend Cemetery at McDonald Avenue and Gravesend Neck Road is the oldest cemetery owned by New York City.
Although tourists flocked to the seaside neighborhoods of south Brooklyn in the 19th Century, the neighborhood of Gravesend remained rural and undeveloped until the 1890s when the opening of additional rail lines spurred residential development. Initially a large Italian-American community settled in the area, and in recent decades Russian, Indian, and Haitian immigrants and families of Asian and Irish descent have moved into the community.
The area features single-family homes that were primarily built after the 1920s; three and four-family houses; some apartment buildings, with larger buildings on Ocean Parkway and Coney Island Avenue; and the Marlboro Houses, a housing project.
L&B Pizza's Spumoni Gardens, which opened in 1939, is a neighborhood institution with lots of outdoor seating to accommodate local residents and Little League players after a tough game of baseball on the fields nearby.
