Once Shunned, Chinese Population Booms In Bensonhurst And Dyker Heights

When Asian immigrants, mostly from China, began immigrating to Dyker Heights, the local Italian residents were unfriendly to the new community and resisted the move, according to an article in Voices of NY.

As we recently wrote, a report completed by The New York City Planning Department notes that Chinese residents have spread farther and faster to places like Dyker Heights, Bensonhurst and Sheepshead Bay than almost anywhere else in the city, and our area now boasts a larger Asian population than Manhattan’s Chinatown.

Such access to Brookyln wasn’t always so open for the Chinese Immigrant community, according to the Voices article. The story recounts how certain areas in Dyker Heights were off limits for the immigrants,

Stanley Ng, a member of the Citywide Council of High Schools, moved to Dyker Heights from Bensonhurst 15 years ago when he wanted to buy a home.  What he found, though, was that homes on 80th St. between 10th and 11th Avenues were off-limits to Asian buyers.  He now lives on 70th St.  where several Chinese families live.

“At the time, they wouldn’t sell to us,” said Ng, in a phone interview. “That told me we weren’t welcome on the block back then.”

Since then, Voices reports, the population in Dyker Heights has grown from 6,073 in 2000 to 12,149 in 2010, a 100 percent increase. And they now represent 28.6 percent of Dyker Heights’ population, compared with 15.4 percent a decade earlier.

The new arrivals are beginning to make their mark on the landscape, too. Back in December we reported on a new Chinese temple on New Utrecht Avenue.