Bensonhurst Park...
The largest park in either Bath Beach or Bensonhurst (much of Dyker Beach Park is taken up by the golf course), running between 21st Avenue and Bay Parkway and from Cropsey Avenue past the Belt Parkway to the bike path at the water’s edge. (The Belt parkway bike path ends here, forcing bikes onto the streets through Coney Island and Sheepshead Bay before resuming at Knapp Street. Past that point, it was an overgrown, broken-glass-strewn travesty, until 1993, then it was rebuilt!)
The city of Brooklyn purchased approximately 16 acres of land from the Benson and Lynch families in 1895 for Bensonhurst Park. There are still some older wood and concrete benches here and there.
In the Swingin’ Sixties people would pass the park to E. J. Korvettes Department Store, which was at the end of Bay Parkway. After Korvettes went bankrupt and closed in 1980 the store became part of the Caesar’s Bay mall where Schbus86 ends his SHORE PROMENADE series. Bensonhurst Park was also the southern end of my bike trips along Gravesend Bay and the Narrows. The northern end of the bike path is at the old 69th Street ferry pier. Eventually the city intends to connect the bike paths all over Brooklyn’s waterfronts, but how this will be engineered is anyone’s guess.
