Geography and World Class Fishing |
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Water is the story of Sheepshead Bay. This is where the Brooklyn fishing fleet docks. There are restaurants and fishing charters along Emmons Avenue, which includes a Brooklyn landmark called Lundy’s. A landmark for many reasons — but all the various separate reasons would lead back to one truth from a glorious past day: unbelievably delicious seafood and desserts. At the time of Hudson’s voyage Coney Island was a true island surrounded on all sides by water. The island lay south of the town called Gravesend, which as late as 1845 was separate not only from New York City across the East River, but from Brooklyn as well. At that time Coney Island ran west from Gravesend Bay to its easternmost point bordering Plumb Inlet, where creeks such as Shell Bank, Cedar and Broad ran across another island, this one called Plum. Beach sands abound this land, separately named in each neighborhood where they exist. Manhattan Beach is directly south of Sheepshead Bay, with Brighton Beach in the middle and Coney Island to the west. Though less than two miles separate their borders, each beach has a distinct history. At its western point, Coney Island beach was the world’s most famous in the 1880s. This beach offered recreational sands to a diverse population that less than twenty years after the end of the Civil War was still a concept in its infancy. Brighton Beach took up the middle of the island, and to the east was Manhattan Beach. Unfortunately, there was discrimination at Manhattan Beach as Pickerton Guards kept out certain classes, religions, and races of people, a sore point for the locals against real estate magnate Austin Corbin. Corbin came to southern Brooklyn after a successful career in railroad finance led to the Corbin Banking Company, which gained a national reputation. In 1873 his newborn child became ill and the doctor advised leaving mid-America Iowa to head for a place with sea breezes. He first found those breezes in a Coney Island hotel. From there he walked to an area called Sedge Bank. It was considered worthless, but Austin Corbin had money and real estate instincts. He bought the land and it was named Manhattan Beach in 1875. He built the Manhattan Beach hotel and had it opened on July 4, 1877 by Ulysses S. Grant. Falling back on his railroad experience, he built a train line that traveled over huge areas of Brooklyn’s still vacant lands, carrying passengers to the seaside resort. Austin Corbin thought up the wooden bridge, but its early history is controversial and tied into bigotry. He refused to open it in 1881, feeling undesirables would hurt Manhattan Beach’s high society atmosphere. He destroyed it and got into a rebuilding war with Gravesend Town Supervisor John Y. McCane. The bridge we see today was destroyed and rebuilt many times during the 19th century. At one time, servants of the grand hotels would cross the bridge into Sheepshead Bay for liquor. The Highway Commissioner wanted it closed down, as employees returned to Manhattan Beach inebriated and unable to work. Around 1881 a Supreme Court injunction was obtained preventing interference with rebuilding the bridge. Since then, wood has been replaced, albeit sometimes with problems, and 120 years later the bridge still leads walkers on their way to the beach over beautiful seascape views. If you fish, here’s a gateway to the northern Atlantic. While embarking places may exist on other parts of Long Island, and New England offers much, only Sheepshead Bay is in New York City. While the land offers it’s great legacy of seafood, Coney Island amusement parks, and now minor league baseball, the sea awaits with it’s own adventure. Whereas the natural land-locked harbor brought the first settlers to the southern tip of Manhattan and then laid claim to much of the shape of New York’s story, the waters around Sheepshead Bay were impassable during the Dutch era, colonial times, and safely locked away during the American Revolution. If the sea is responsible for Sheepshead Bay’s history, then one might expect hotels, delicious food, bathing, recreation, and fishing. In cycles, which roll in and out of economic depressions and the following good years, this is precisely what happened. At the turn of the century, in those days before air conditioners, original residents of either Emmons Avenue’s Millionaires Row, or working class houses slightly north, the hordes of crowds who rode those specially built railroads came to Sheepshead Bay each summer for relief found in refreshing sea breezes. That particular northeastern variety of heat and humidity can get pretty oppressive from late June through August. Many a worker’s tie has been loosened during those months, and however the outdoor heat makes one sweat in this century, before air conditioning the discomfort levels were exponentially higher. In the 1960s, when air conditioning was still a cutting edge technology and window fans omnipresent and wedged into many an apartment window frame, my friends and I would wander to Emmons Avenue seeking weather relief. We might stop off at Bernies Bait and Tackle, and look at numerous fishing rods, sinkers, floats, bamboo poles and varieties of fresh bait. We would learn about different families of worms, and that Mackerel were drawn to a plastic and colorful bait much like a wire sheath, which was nicknamed "spaghetti." With the numerous supplies in stock, Bernies told of a much bigger picture, one of the sea, a fisherman’s life, and adventure. Looking south beyond Bernies’, the reality of a nautical life was visible — fisherman tying their ropes, preparing the rods, the captain bellowing his orders, as they all went off sailin’, Atlantic bound. The harbor is forever. The times may change — the buildings come and go, the country’s economy may have an effect, and the residents may move on as well. The water, which was polluted at various times in its history is clean now. The wooden bridge reflects cleanly in the white moonlight. Schools of fish are clearly visible from the docks. If you fish, if the glory of the sport reaches deep into your soul and life seems more alive when you cast your rod, if the sight of land far out from sea is how you celebrate the best in life, Sheepshead Bay delivers. The story of Sheepshead Bay will forever be told in its marriage of land and sea. next: Chapter 6: |
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New York Around 1600 and Brooklyn Names |
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