In the 1960s, a housing development called "Georgetowne" was proposed for Bergen Beach, but it was never built due to opposition from local residents.

[7]: 10–11  The sea-level meadows were replete with shell middens, or mounds, harvested from univalves and bivalves caught in Jamaica Bay.

The sinking land is particularly pronounced in some parts of Bergen Beach, where minor rainfall or snow melt can cause ponding and flooding in the streets.

Small commercial overlays and recreational waterfront uses also exist, and a strip along Bergen Basin is zoned for light industrial uses.

[16] The coastal lands around Jamaica Bay, including present-day Bergen Beach, were originally settled by the Canarsie Indians.

[18]: 146 [19]: 64  This location may have been chosen because it was easy to defend: the Indians could see intruders from the uplands and form a line of defense across the narrow flat that led to the island.

[6]: 10  Remnants of Native American activity on the island, including stone markings, conch shell beds, and broken arrow tips, could be seen through the mid-20th century.

[7]: 11  By the turn of the century, it had been renamed for Hans Hansen Bergen, an early Norwegian[22] or Dutch settler of New Netherland.

[7]: 11  One story has it that Bergen's house was hit by British bombs during the American Revolutionary War,[25] but this is not supported by documentation.

[8]: 77 In the late 1880s, vaudeville theater manager Percy G. Williams partnered with Thomas Adams, the chewing gum magnate, to buy 300 acres (120 ha) of marshland on Bergen Island.

[7]: 38 [8]: 77 Williams and Adams had meant to construct housing, but instead decided to emulate the successful Coney Island resort further west.

[27] They converted Bergen Island into a resort, which was connected to the rest of the city by the Flatbush Avenue streetcar route (now the B41 bus).

[8]: 77  In August 1896, the New York Herald characterized the "brightly caparisoned and gilded resort" at Bergen Beach: The board walk echoes with the tread of Egyptian dancing girls, Irish villagers, knights in armor, girls in clinging lace costumes, young men in white duck trousers, soubrettes adorned with yellow tresses, jugglers, mountebanks, opera singers, and Frankfurter sausage venders.

The intervening gulfs (along the Boardwalk) are filled with Moorish castles, Egyptian encampments, Irish villages, black Americans, white Coney Island fakirs, blood testing machines, vitascopes, knock-the-baby-down skill games.

[30]The report went on to describe the Irish Village, Mystic Moorish Maze, Egyptian encampment, scenic railway and other attractions.

[7]: 38 [31] In March 1902, the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company offered to buy the Bergen Beach resort, but could not meet Williams's price.

[32] In April of that month, Williams announced that the resort would not open unless the BRT repaired the trolley tracks to Bergen Beach.

[31] The resort suffered $25,000 in damages (equivalent to $848,000 in 2023) due to a fire in 1904, but The New York Times reported that "the tide in Jamaica Bay and two Brooklyn Rapid Transit trolley cars" brought the water that ultimately saved the park from burning down.

[13] Pollution from Barren Island, a notorious waste processing site,[38] also decreased the appeal of Bergen Beach.

[31] In 1917, as part of a dredging project in nearby Rockaway Inlet, the city agreed to add bulkheads along 4,000 feet (1,200 m) of the Bergen Beach coast.

[21] In 1925, real estate developers Max Natanson and Mandlebaum & Levine bought Williams and Adams's former amusement park for close to $2 million (equivalent to $34,748,000 in 2023).

[21] The 1939 WPA Guide to New York City mentions that the area comprising present-day Mill Basin and Bergen Beach was the residence of "pathetic communities of squatters, who live in makeshift houses, and eke out a living by fishing and scouring the near-by city dumps for odd necessities".

[21] Starting in the 1950s, a series of suburban waterfront communities were being rapidly developed in Southeast Brooklyn, including in present-day Bergen Beach, Canarsie, and Mill Basin.

By 1963, a new 69th Precinct building for the New York City Police Department, as well as the South Shore High School in Canarsie, had to be constructed to accommodate the growing population.

[12] Around the same time, Mayor John Lindsay sought to build a 904-unit middle-class housing development called Harbour Village in the same area.

[50] However, it ultimately rejected the proposal in September 1972 after public outcry by the mostly white, mostly well-off residents of nearby Bergen Beach and Mill Basin.

[54] Bergen Beach and Georgetown are part of Brooklyn Community Board 18, which also includes Canarsie, Mill Basin, Marine Park, and the southern portion of Flatlands.

[57] Bergen Beach and Georgetown are located in ZIP Code 11234, which also includes Mill Basin, Marine Park, and the southern portion of Flatlands.

[62] Bergen Beach Playground is located in Bergen Beach's northwestern section along East 71st Street between Avenues N and T.[63] Hickman Playground, located on Veterans Avenue between East 66th and 68th Streets, is named for Flatlands resident Vincent Hickman, who died during the Korean War.

The academy spans 500 acres (200 ha) within the Gateway National Recreation Area, which borders Bergen Beach to the south.