Gothamist
A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC.
Gothamist
Listen Live
Arts & Entertainment
14 Photos Of Brooklyn's Brighton Beach In The 1980s
By
Jen Carlson
Published Aug 20, 2013
Modified Aug 20, 2013
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Never miss a story
Email address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .
Photo by Abraham Ravett
View all 14
By
Jen Carlson
Published Aug 20, 2013
Modified Aug 20, 2013
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
We rely on your support to make local news available to all
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Recently Abraham Ravett dug out his old photos from Brighton Beach in the 1980s, and published a book of them. You can click through for a preview, and below, a little history of the man behind the lens.
Abraham and his family moved to Brooklyn in 1955, after living in a tent at a refugee camp in Israel. At first they lived in a tenement apartment in Brownsville, and eventually (around 1960) moved to Brighton Beach—to "a block of new, twenty-two story, Le Corbusier knock offs, complete with handball courts and ocean views. Trump Village it was called. A clean, bright place with no past."
While he moved out in 1968, after starting his job teaching science in Bed-Stuy, his parents remained in the apartment through 1996.
These photos were taken during his visits back between 1982 and 1984, all documenting the area, including his former neighbors, the boardwalk, and the urban landscape of the neighborhood. (During that time he also took a pretty significant amount of video footage, which you can preview here and here.) He says, "thirty years later, these photographs have also become a visual embrace of the landscape that shaped my youth."
Tagged
1980s
Abraham Ravett
brighton beach
flashback
original
Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
Read more
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
MORE arts-entertainment
America's pastime began in New York. But baseball wouldn’t exist without New Jersey.
With room to play, the sport flourished in Hoboken.
By
Michael Sol Warren
Published Jul 29, 2026
What's happening at New York's libraries this August
N.K. Jemisin leads a workshop in the Bronx and more.
By
Alec Hamilton
Arts & Entertainment
What's happening at New York's libraries this August
N.K. Jemisin leads a workshop in the Bronx and more.
By
Alec Hamilton
Brooklyn’s smallest – and strangest? – art history museum is hidden in plain sight
By
Hannah Frishberg
Sitcoms from the 1990s made NYC apartments seem huge. The truth is coming out.
By
Sonia Rao
Battle of the beaches: The Jersey Shore vs. Long Island
By
Elizabeth Shwe
Never miss a story
Catch up on the most important headlines with a roundup of essential NYC stories, delivered to your inbox daily.
Sign upEmail address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .