In the aftermath of
World War II and subsequent
urban renewal initiatives that decimated longtime Manhattan enclaves (most notably on the
Upper West Side), Puerto Rican migrants began to settle in such waterfront industrial neighborhoods as
Sunset Park,
Red Hook and
Gowanus, near the shipyards and factories where they worked. The borough's Hispanic population diversified after the 1965
Hart-Cellar Act loosened restrictions on immigration from elsewhere in Latin America.