Known for its Romanesque and Renaissance Revival architecture, Sunset Park, part of the western section of Brooklyn, also is known for another architectural first. The neighborhood is home to the city’s first Finnish cooperative.

Bounded by Park Slope and Greenwood Heights to the north, Borough Park to the east, Bay Ridge to the south, and Upper New York Bay to the west, Sunset Park, according to the 2000 U.S. Census, had more than 120,000 residents. By 2010, that number had risen to about 126,000.

Finlandia

While today the neighborhood primarily consists of Puerto Rican, Mexican and Chinese ethnicities, Indians and Hispanics also predominate. Early on, though, an enclave of Norwegians and Finns settled here and made their mark in an area that became known as Finntown.

Finns constructed co-op buildings, opened Finnish-speaking businesses and established community centers, churches, newspapers and political groups. By the 1920s, New York was home to roughly 20,000 people who identified themselves as having Finnish heritage. Now that number has dwindled to about 3,500. They settled in Sunset Park to work in the shipbuilding industry and Scandinavians were a major population group up until about the 1980s.

There actually were two Finntowns in New York. The first was in East Harlem, where a stretch of 125th Street between Fifth Avenue and Harlem River was home to Finnish businesses during the first half of the 20th century. There were jewelry shops, clothing stores and restaurants, a bakery and a beauty parlor, making the newcomers feel at home.

Several Finnish clubs and associations were established; the most notable was called the Fifth Avenue Hall on the corner of 127th Street and Fifth Avenue. Starting in 1917, this club formed the headquarters of a local Finnish Socialist party, but many without political affiliation used its billiards room, library, restaurant and dance hall. Expatriates mingled and socialized here on weekends at community gatherings.

Co-op Beginnings

Sunset Park is where Finns built about 25 cooperative housing complexes. The first Finnish-built co-ops in Sunset Park, named Alku I (Beginning I) and Alku Toinen (Beginning II), date back to 1916 and are the oldest nonprofit co-ops in New York. The entrance of Alku Toinen on 43rd Street has become a symbol of New York City’s immigration history. A street sign on the corner of 40th Street and 8th Avenue reads “Finlandia Street,” and remains as a remnant of the area’s past.

A Changing Demographic

The area was originally settled by the Dutch, and was mostly all farmland until Brooklyn's street grid was laid out in the 1830s. Irish immigrants settled here, followed by Scandinavians, Poles and Italians. Following World War II there was in influx of Latinos; since the 1980s, Asian immigration has been strong. Arabs, Turks, Indians, Greeks and Russians also live in Sunset Park.

The core of the Hispanic population is west of the 5th Avenue, while the center of the Chinese population (now referred to as Brooklyn's Chinatown) originates from 7th Avenue east to Borough Park. The area between the 5th and 7th Avenues is mostly mixed. Sunset Park is served by the New York City Police Department's 72nd Precinct. There is a namesake city park within the neighborhood, located between 41st and 44th Streets and 5th and 7th Avenues.

Another wave of immigration marked Sunset Park's second coming of age. Many immigrants arrived from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador, as well as other Latin American countries. By 1990, Hispanics had come to comprise approximately 50% of Sunset Park's population, aiding property values and developing a thriving community. An abundance of Hispanic restaurants and businesses populate Fifth Avenue. People from Gujarat, India, have also been settling in and around Sunset Park since 1974. They are mostly Christian and attend three of the area's churches, at 45th Street and 8th Avenue, at 56th Street and 4th Avenue, and at 52nd Street and 8th Avenue. These churches have a mainly Indian congregation and hold festive parties in the church halls.

In the 1980s, Sunset Park became the location of the borough's first Chinatown, which is located along 8th Avenue from 42nd to 68th Street, and at the time, this area rapidly attracted many Chinese immigrants. Eighth Avenue is lined with Chinese businesses, including grocery stores, restaurants, Buddhist temples, video stores, bakeries, and community organizations, and even Hong Kong Supermarket. Like the Manhattan Chinatown (of which the Brooklyn Chinatown is an extension), Brooklyn's Chinatown was originally settled by Cantonese immigrants. In recent years, however, to the discontent of many of the Cantonese, an influx of Fuzhou immigrants has been supplanting the Cantonese at a significantly faster rate than in Manhattan's Chinatown; in recent years, this trend has slowed down, with fewer Fuzhouese coming to Sunset Park each year. By 2009, many Mandarin-speaking people had moved to Sunset Park.

Green-Wood and Other Landmarks

A portion of the neighborhood is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district, known for its Romanesque and Renaissance Revival architecture. The neighborhood has several individual landmarks designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, including a rare exterior and interior landmark, the Sunset Play Center. As the designation report states, "The Sunset Play Center is one of a group of eleven immense outdoor swimming pools opened in the summer of 1936 in a series of grand ceremonies presided over by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and Parks Commissioner Robert Moses. All of the pools were constructed largely with funding provided by the Works Progress Administration (WPA)."

Another famous landmark in the area is the Green-Wood Cemetery, designated in 2006, as one of the oldest rural cemeteries in the U.S. It is the final resting place of many famous and infamous New Yorkers, including William “Boss” Tweed, mobster Albert Anastasia, abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher, composer and New York Philharmonic conductor Leonard Bernstein, baseball owner Charles Ebbets, the builder of Ebbets Field where the Brooklyn Dodgers once played, DeWitt Clinton, former U.S. Senator and New York governor, actress Mae West, artist Louis Comfort Tiffany, Elias Howe, inventor of the sewing machine, Samuel F. B. Morse, inventor of the Morse code, and actor Frank Morgan, who played the Wizard in the movie The Wizard of Oz.

Green-Wood was a popular tourist attraction in the 1850s and was the place most famous New Yorkers who died during the second half of the nineteenth century were buried. It is still an operating cemetery with approximately 600,000 graves spread out over 478 acres. The Brooklyn Historical Society periodically offers guided tours, as do other historical organizations.

Housing Stock

Among its housing stock, if you want to live in Sunset Park, the area offers some co-ops and condos, and many brick, stone and frame one-, two-, and three-family homes. Prices are generally higher toward 8th Avenue, and lower as you move toward the Gowanus and the water. Many homes have yards and finished basements, though few have driveways. Most of the co-op buildings are about 70 years old. The entire area between 4th and 7th Avenues and 38th and 64th Streets, though not a city landmark, is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

If you want to live in a diverse neighborhood with excellent transportation access, culture and history, Sunset Park might just be a bright spot in a thriving metropolis to call home.    

Debra A. Estock is managing editor of The Cooperator.