[Crawford]

Another great neighborhood and you picked a nice part to explore.

Bay Ridge is historically a middle-middle class Irish and Italian neighborhood (though with some wealth closer to the water and more working class shown in these pics around the commercial areas). It has a pretty eclectic housing stock and is hard to characterize, but it is very dense and transit-oriented for such an outlying neighborhood.

In recent years it has gotten rather diverse, but remains overwhelmingly white (European and Middle Eastern) and Asian. In addition to Irish and Italians, it now has large communities of Russians, Albanians, Chinese, Lebanese Christians, and Arab Muslims of all stripes.

Fifth Avenue (one block to the west of these pics) is among the most heavily Arab shopping streets in the country. You can get anything from the Middle East along a 15-block corridor.

The furthest reaches (underneath the Verrazano Bridge) is still quite Irish Catholic and has a conservative cop/firefighter feel, along with a dash of Russians in nouveau riche waterside condos.

86th Street is one of the busiest shopping streets in all of NYC. Huge crowds flock to the Century 21 Department Store.

Bay Ridge is super-safe and has good public schools. It is starting to get some of the yuppie/hipster crowd closer to the water, but it is anything but trendy. Just a nice, unpretentious neighborhood.