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Brooklyn

Sheepshead Bay

Fishing boats on Emmons Avenue, fried calamari under hot red sauce, and serious slices inland.

Photo: Marcela · CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

Sheepshead Bay takes its name from the sheepshead, an edible fish once plentiful in the inlet that still defines the neighborhood. Emmons Avenue runs along the water, its piers lined with charter fishing boats and party boats, and a wooden footbridge at Ocean Avenue crosses the bay to Manhattan Beach. In the late nineteenth century this was racing country: the Sheepshead Bay Race Track opened around 1880 and ran until New York outlawed betting on horses in 1910, and its grounds later became the blocks of houses that fill the area today.

The neighborhood is now one of the most mixed in south Brooklyn — Russian-speaking and Central Asian families, large Chinese and Turkish communities, Albanians, and the Italian-American households that set its tone for much of the twentieth century. That older layer shows in the food. Randazzo's has fried calamari across Emmons Avenue from the boats for generations, and the pizzerias inland, from Sheepshead Bay Road to Avenue X, are some of the most serious slice shops in the borough.

Come in the late afternoon, walk the piers as the boats come in, cross the footbridge for the view back over the bay, and eat by the water. The B and Q make it an easy ride down the Brighton line.

Charter fishing boats tied up along Emmons Avenue

The Spanish Colonial Revival Lundy's building, now a Russian gourmet market

Grandma and white slices from Sheepshead Bay Road to Avenue X

Pelmeni, chebureki and chicken Kiev in Russian cafés

Local notes

The Emmons Avenue piers

The bay has been reserved for private and charter boats since a 1929 compromise, after residents and local fishermen fought off plans for a commercial port. Today the piers along Emmons Avenue hold fishing charters and evening party boats; walk them in late afternoon when the day boats return.

A racetrack under the streets

The Sheepshead Bay Race Track opened around 1880 and was one of the country's major tracks until horse betting was outlawed in New York in 1910. It hosted auto racing from 1915 to 1919 before the land was subdivided for the houses that now fill the neighborhood.

The Lundy's building

Lundy Brothers opened its Spanish Colonial Revival restaurant at Emmons and Ocean Avenues in the mid-1930s; at its peak it was among the largest restaurants in the country. The building became a city landmark in 1992, and since 2009 it has housed Cherry Hill Gourmet Market, a big Eastern European grocery with deli counters and a pastry case — look for the Kiev cake.

Avenue U

Avenue U is Sheepshead Bay's other main street, home since the late 1990s to Brooklyn's second Chinatown alongside Russian, Central Asian, Turkish and Italian shops. The B3 bus runs its length.

Through the lens

Emmons Avenue faces south across the bay, so late-afternoon and golden-hour light falls on the boats from the west. The Ocean Avenue footbridge gives the best elevated view back over the moored fleet; shoot early on weekend mornings to catch charters loading.

Editorial draft — core details last reviewed October 19, 2026. Confirm practical details with the official site before you go.

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