Eighth Avenue (Brooklyn)

Eighth Avenue is a major street in Brooklyn, New York City. It was formerly an enclave for Norwegians and Norwegian-Americans, who have recently become a minority in the area among the current residents, which include new immigrant colonies, among them Chinese and Arab-speaking peoples. Parts of it have been colloquially re-christened Little Hong Kong in recognition of these newer communities.

The avenue starts at its north at Grand Army Plaza, going through Park Slope for 1 mile (1.6 km). It is interrupted by the Green-Wood Cemetery between 20th and 39th Streets, and after traveling nearly 2 miles (3.2 km) further south through Borough Park and Sunset Park, finally ends at 73rd Street in Bay Ridge.

Lapskaus Boulevard is the nickname of part of Eighth Avenue, in a historically Norwegian working-class section of bordering Bay Ridge, and Sunset Park. In the earlier part of the 20th century, the part of Eighth Avenue in Sunset Park was primarily home to Norwegian immigrants, and it was known as "Little Norway", or Lapskaus Boulevard as the Norwegians termed it. Later on, as Norwegians left, the neighborhood increasingly became abandoned by the 1950s.

The name Lapskaus was derived from a Northern European stew that was a staple food of lower to middle income families. In Norway, lapskaus most often refers to a variation of beef stew. This dish may be called "brun lapskaus" stew made with gravy, "lys lapskaus" stew made with vegetables and pork meat or "suppelapskaus" where the gravy has been substituted by a light beef stock. While the New York City metropolitan area had a Norwegian presence for more than 300 years, immigration to Bay Ridge began to seriously take shape in the 1920s.

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