Bay Ridge is a neighborhood in the southwest corner of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is bounded by Sunset Park to the north, Dyker Heights to the east, the Narrows and the Belt Parkway to the west, and Fort Hamilton Army Base and the Verrazzano–Narrows Bridge to the south. The section of Bay Ridge south of 86th Street is sometimes considered part of a sub-neighborhood called Fort Hamilton.
Bay Ridge was formerly the westernmost portion of the town of New Utrecht, comprising two smaller villages: Yellow Hook to the north and Fort Hamilton to the south. Yellow Hook was named for the color of the soil and was renamed Bay Ridge in December 1853 to avoid negative connotations with yellow fever at the time; the name Bay Ridge was chosen based on the local geography. Bay Ridge became developed as a rural summer resort during the mid-19th century. The arrival of the New York City Subway's Fourth Avenue Line (present-day R train) in 1916 led to its development as a residential neighborhood. Bay Ridge is known for its Norwegian community, though it also has Irish, Italian, Arab and Greek communities, with smaller populations of Chinese, Russian, and Eastern Europeans.