5. Gerritsen Beach is often considered a predecessor to Levittown

Gerritsen Beach

Many New Yorkers may be familiar with Levittown, the planned Long Island community that was a breakthrough for planned middle-class housing. But over two decades earlier, Gerritsen Beach pioneered the suburban model that would inspire dozens of others in the early 20th century. William Greve, President of Realty Associates, had earlier erected thousands of homes across the borough in neighborhoods like Crown Heights and Bay Ridge, though he had his eyes set on Gerritsen Beach for his most ambitious project yet: a series of cheap bungalows that in many ways mimicked Venice. According to Bloomberg, Greve himself said he wanted to emulate Henry Ford-style manufacturing, producing these homes as efficiently as possible. The bungalows would be accompanied by shops and restaurants, a community clubhouse, and a place of worship.

With a workforce of 500, Greve led an assembly line in creating over 600 houses over just two years. The bungalows were arranged in a semi-grid with miniature blocks about a third the length of a typical city block, narrow enough to fit just about a car and a half. About 5,000 people rushed to purchase one of these homes, which did not exceed $5,750, or a bit over $80,000 today. Many of these new residents were working-class Irish, Swedish, and German New Yorkers. Greve kept going. Some 1,500 homes were erected by the time he was finished with his project. Gerritsen Avenue was one of the more popular streets in Brooklyn by the mid-1920s, with about two dozen shops and restaurants opening their doors; there were even attempts to get William Van Alen, the architect behind the Chrysler Building, to design a theater and dance hall. Despite this rapid development, it took about another decade to get a school in the area, as well as more sufficient transportation.