Why you should experience 39th Street in New York, NY.
39th Street is a welcoming corridor where Sunset Park's industrial heritage, residential character, immigrant traditions, and architectural continuity continue defining one of Southwest Brooklyn's most enduring neighborhoods.
Running through Sunset Park between Borough Park and Bay Ridge, the street passes early twentieth-century brick rowhouses, neighborhood churches, mature street trees, and longstanding community institutions that reflect more than a century of carefully sustained urban development. The corridor preserves the cohesive residential fabric established during the neighborhood's principal era of growth while illustrating its continuing evolution through successive immigrant communities and locally rooted businesses. Walking along 39th Street reveals a streetscape where historic architecture, neighborhood traditions, and civic institutions remain closely connected. The result is a corridor where industrial history and residential continuity continue shaping Southwest Brooklyn.
What you should know about 39th Street.
39th Street is best known for extending through Sunset Park, whose rapid growth followed Brooklyn's late nineteenth-century industrial expansion and the opening of the Fourth Avenue Subway in 1915, creating reliable transit connections that encouraged extensive residential construction throughout the surrounding neighborhood. During the first decades of the twentieth century, speculative builders introduced cohesive rows of brick and limestone houses, apartment buildings, churches, and neighborhood commercial corridors that accommodated workers employed throughout Brooklyn's expanding manufacturing and maritime economy. Residential construction followed consistent development patterns characterized by Renaissance Revival, Romanesque Revival, Neo-Grec, and Colonial Revival architecture, producing streetscapes that remain largely intact across the corridor today. Continued investment in transportation infrastructure, preservation initiatives, and neighborhood stewardship has enabled 39th Street to retain much of the architectural character established during Sunset Park's defining era of development.
Completed in 1918, the Federal Building at the Brooklyn Army Terminal centralized customs administration, military logistics, and port operations during the First World War era, reflecting the federal government's growing role along Brooklyn's working waterfront. Nearby the American Dock Company developed extensive piers, freight sheds, and rail connections that helped transform the surrounding harbor into one of the nation's busiest cargo-handling districts during the early twentieth century. The Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce actively promoted industrial expansion throughout Sunset Park by supporting maritime trade, manufacturing investment, and commercial infrastructure that strengthened Brooklyn's position within the regional economy. Together, these governmental, commercial, and maritime enterprises demonstrate how 39th Street developed within a neighborhood whose residential character evolved alongside one of America's most sophisticated port economies.
How to fold 39th Street into your trip.
39th Street is best experienced through an afternoon exploring Sunset Park's public landscapes, industrial heritage, and waterfront scenery.
Begin at Sunset Park, where elevated lawns, athletic facilities, and sweeping views across New York Harbor introduce the landscape that gave the neighborhood its name. Continue to Industry City, where historic factory buildings now accommodate designers, artists, independent retailers, restaurants, and creative businesses while preserving the district's manufacturing heritage. Conclude at Bush Terminal Piers Park, where restored shoreline habitats, fishing piers, and broad harbor views provide a memorable finale celebrating Brooklyn's longstanding relationship with the waterfront. The progression moves naturally from the neighborhood's defining green space to its industrial renaissance before concluding along New York Harbor, revealing how 39th Street connects residential Brooklyn with one of the borough's most compelling maritime settings.
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