Hood5six: Gravesend 3/25/2022 Saint Vitus Bar Brooklyn, NY

Gravesend is originally a neighborhood from South Brooklyn where I spent a lot of time hanging with my classmates when school let out in the adjacent neighborhood of Bensonhurst. It was named by the Dutch settlers who came before the English arrived and is possibly a reference to the Dutch settlement of ’s’Gravesande (now known as ’s-Gravenzande, a province of South Holland). Like the Polish city of ’Warsaw’, it has an incredibly badass name, and as well as a small historical cemetery. The perfect basis for the band Gravesend to go off of, but wait; there’s more... The more recent history of the neighborhood carries a darkness about it that only makes the Gravesend name more ominous. Gravesend was an Italian American enclave until white flight towards Staten Island and Long Island took place in response to a rise in immigrants moving into Gravesend and Bensonhurst, as well as other surrounding neighborhoods. Prior to this, the local representatives of New York’s five Italian