Manhattan Beach - The Restored Brooklyn Neighborhood
Wealthy New Yorker Austin Corbin founded the resort of Manhattan Beach after buying 500 acres of property and building two elegant hotels—the Manhattan Beach Hotel, which opened in 1877, and Oriental Hotel, which opened in 1880.
To make the trip to Manhattan Beach more appealing and convenient for Manhattanites, Corbin offered a ferry service from Manhattan to Brooklyn where vacationers would then board the Manhattan Beach Railway, built in 1876, and arrive at his resort within an hour.
As the resort business declined, another entrepreneur, Joseph P. Day, arrived on the scene. Day founded the Manhattan Beach Improvement Company, bought out the interest in Manhattan Beach Hotel, and in1908 began residential development on land north of the hotels. The Manhattan Beach Hotel was razed in 1911 and the Oriental demolished in 1916.
Single family homes now define the community, and few stores operate in the neighborhood. Shopping is abundant in both of these communities.
Kingsborough Community College is located on a 70-acre campus in Manhattan Beach, on the southern tip of Brooklyn. Founded in 1963, the College serves about 30,000 students a year. The Leon M. Goldstein High School opened on the campus in 2003. The facility offers breathtaking views overlooking three bodies of water: Sheepshead Bay, Jamaica Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.
