Gravesend is a neighborhood in the south-central section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn, in the U.S. state of New York. As of 2010, Gravesend had a population of 29,436. Gravesend was one of the original towns in the Dutch colony of New Netherland and became one of the six original towns of Kings County in colonial New York. It was the only English chartered town in what became Kings County and was designated the "Shire Town" when the English assumed control, as it was the only one where records could be kept in English. Courts were removed to Flatbush in 1685.