Bath Beach - Brooklyn
Ask Me No Questions and I’ll Tell You No Lies
This week I’m visiting Bath Beach, a small neighborhood on the southwest shore of Brooklyn bordering Dyker Heights and Bensonhurst. Some would say it is part of Bensonurst, but not me, mainly because I discovered that after I wrote this whole thing.
Though it was named after the medieval spa city of Bath in England, Bath Beach has no spa to speak of. Well, that’s not entirely true. After scouring Yelp, I found out that there is, in fact, one spa in the neighborhood, the Angel Day Spa, located at 1938 86th St.
Emmy H., however, is not a fan, as evidenced in this excoriating review:
As soon as I got in and said eyebrows, they said YES! $5! She started tweezing the hairs and I said, "ummm wax please..?" a bit confused. She plugged in the machine and said, "wait 5 minutes." I should've left at that moment honesty. I told her over 5xs to clean them! Don't thin! What she do? She waxed half my eyebrow off! One lady was waxing and another on top of me watching as if she never seen eyebrows before. She wouldn't show me after and rushed me out. I would never recommend this place. If I can give 0 stars, I would! Blotched!
Back to Bath Beach. In addition to not being a spa town, Bath Beach doesn’t really have a beach either. It was infilled and paved over to create the Belt Parkway in 1940.
There is, however, a promenade that stretches the length of the neighborhood’s coast. I was excited to walk along the shore that once drew in New York’s elite, “dotted with fashionable villas and yacht clubs.”1 As I followed my map to the pedestrian bridge, the bustle and noise of the commercial district gradually gave way to rows of tidy houses with a mix of Italian and American flags and trim, green hedges.
Bath Beach shore access, if I could give it zero stars….
Here’s a picture off the far end of the promenade on a considerably less beautiful day last year with Coney Island in the distance.
The Turk
What Bath Beach lacks in spas and beaches, it makes up for in interesting history. Anthony Jansen van Salee was the son of a Dutch sailor who had been captured by the Barbary pirates, became a pirate captain himself, and converted to Islam. In 1629 Van Salee married German Grietje Reyniers, and together they set sail for New Amsterdam as colonists of the Dutch West India Company. He arrived on the shores of Manhattan in 1630 and was the first known person of Muslim descent to settle and own land in America.
Van Salee, more commonly known as "The Turk," had quickly become one of the most successful farmers and prosperous landowners in New Amsterdam.2 Soon, though, Van Salee would be forced to move.
After several years of failing to pay taxes to the Dutch Reformed church, tying up the court system with endless cases, including the allegation that his dog attacked the hog of one Anthony the Portuguese, and his wife’s reputation as a prostitute who “measured the male members of three sailors on a broomstick,” the Van Salees were told to leave the island of Manhattan.
Van Salee struck a deal with his former employer, the Dutch West India Company, and was permitted to purchase 200 acres of land in New Utrecht in Brooklyn. He began the process of settling again. Van Salee’s farm (just north of the old white oak stump) ended up being the first settlement in what is today known as the neighborhood of Bath Beach.
An interesting article about this particular map and The Neck of Land in Dispute can be found on the Brooklyn Historical Society site.
Slice Stack
Modern-day Bath Beach is probably best known as the backdrop for this iconic opening sequence in Saturday Night Fever. In perfect sync with the Bee Gee’s Staying Alive, John Travolta’s Tony Manero struts under the elevated subway tracks on 86th St, checking out women while wolfing down two slices of pizza. This scene was a revelation for thousands of pizza lovers who made the pilgrimage on the D train to Lenny’s Pizza to consume a double-decker like a local. It seems, however, that the stacking method is not how the residents of Bath Beach, or anyone else for that matter, eat their pizza. For a deeper dive into the subject, check out New Pulp City’s exposé: “Saturday Night Fever And The Double-Decker Slice Fallacy.” Sadly, since Lenny’s shut down just a few months ago, I was unable to conduct my own research into the matter.
The Land of the Touchy Situation
South Brooklyn, including Bath Beach, also had a reputation as the stomping grounds for the Five Families of the New York mafia, the Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, and Lucchese families. Before the coast under the Belt Parkway was paved over, it served as a convenient dumping ground for dead bodies. Even into the 90s, the notorious Bath Avenue Crew, a young mercenary arm of the Bonanno family, was involved in dozens of murders.
The NYT article Onetime Mob Stronghold Hears Echo of the Old Days, covers the shooting of the son of a Gambino family head and a Genovese soldier in 2007 and details the locals’ “turn a blind eye” approach to dealing with the mafia.
“Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies,” said an elderly woman at Nick’s Discount Store on Bath Avenue, where Mr. DeCicco had stopped shortly before he was shot.
In explaining some residents’ unease about commenting, one merchant said, “It’s a touchy situation.”
Bath Avenue was once the land of the touchy situation.
Thankfully, this was the last reference to any mafia-related shooting I could find. In recent years, the Italian American population has gradually been supplanted by an influx of Chinese residents.
SIGHTS AND SOUNDS
FEATURED PHOTO
This week’s photograph is from 1936 by the great Berenice Abbott
NOTES
I mentioned that Bath Beach (Bensonhurst?) institution Lenny’s shut down earlier this year. I have it on good authority that the best place to eat in the neighborhood is Tomasso, a classic red sauce restaurant with a live opera singer.
Speaking of food and the mafia, Frank Ricci wrote a book documenting his experience as a chef with an extensive mafia clientele called Catering to the Mob, Growing up in Bath Beach. I haven’t read the book, but I will attempt to make the recipe in this epic video and report back.
Also, Bath Beach has several Georgian restaurants, including Cafe G on 18th Ave., where I had a Khachapuri - a delicious cheese-filled bread that tastes even better when served on a wooden plate.
If that Saturday Night Fever trailer got you pumped up, it is probably due in no small part to the soundtrack. Besides Saturday Night Fever, the movie recommendation of the week is the excellent Bee Gee documentary How to Mend A Broken Heart. 4 stars
Incidentally, in my research for this newsletter, one of the first Google results I got for "Chinese population Bath Beach" led me to this terrifying image. Apparently, the face-kini is the must-have accessory on the beaches of Qingdao.3
Jackon and Manbeck, “The Neighborhoods of Brooklyn” Yale University Press, 1998
Gomez, Michael Angelo (2005). "Muslims in New York". Black Crescent: the Experience and Legacy of African Muslims in the Americas. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 128–42.
Chappell, Bill. “On Chinese Beaches, the Face-Kini Is in Fashion.” NPR, 20 Aug. 2012, www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/08/20/159366234/on-chinese-beaches-the-face-kini-is-in-fashion.
Also famous for the scene in French Connection when Gene Hackman nearly runs into a baby during arguably one of the best cinematic chase scenes ever!
Do not, repeat, do not go to Tommaso’s! It’s really sad there. The food isn’t great. G Cafe is excellent, for Italian go to Ortobello’s or hit Pastosa Ravioli and cook at home! RIP Lenny’s but Rob’s on Bay Parkway is some of the best pizza in the city!