Bergen Beach is a residential neighborhood in the borough of Brooklyn, New York City. It is located on a peninsula abutting Jamaica Bay in the southeastern portion of the borough, and is bordered by Mill Basin and the neighborhood of the same name to the south and west; the neighborhood of Flatlands to the northwest; Paerdegat Basin and the neighborhood of Canarsie to the northeast; and Jamaica Bay and the Belt Parkway to the east. Bergen Beach contains a sub-neighborhood named Georgetown. The vast majority of residents are white, and the neighborhood generally has a suburban quality. Bergen Beach was originally an island. The Canarsie Indians who occupied the area referred to it as Winnipague. The island was renamed Bergen Island for early settler Hans Hansen Bergen. From 1896 to 1919, Percy G. Williams and Thomas Adams operated an amusement park in the area. Bergen Beach was connected to the rest of Brooklyn via landfill by 1918, although development did not come for many years. In the 1960s, a housing development called "Georgetowne" was proposed for Bergen Beach, but it was never built due to opposition from local residents. As a result, much of Bergen Beach was not fully developed until the 1990s. Bergen Beach is part of Brooklyn Community District 18, and its primary ZIP Code is 11234. It is patrolled by the 63rd Precinct of the New York City Police Department. Geography Originally, Bergen Beach was an island in Jamaica Bay off the coast of Canarsie, called "Bergen Island" or "Bergen's Island". Most of the island was sea-level meadows, but of the island were uplands, or hilly areas located above sea level. The sea-level meadows were replete with shell middens, or mounds, harvested from univalves and bivalves caught in Jamaica Bay. A bulkhead was built along the shore in the late 1890s, and was later connected to the uplands of nearby Mill Basin. This created a continuous embankment between Mill Basin and Paerdegat Basin, which was later used for the construction of Belt Parkway. Bergen Island was connected to the mainland by 1918, when the marshland was filled in, though some sources state that the island was connected to the mainland by 1911. More fill was added in the 1980s. This fill was unstable, and as a result, parts of Bergen Beach have been sinking. Many homes in the area were built so that if the ground in