No East New York, BKLYN! A rich history with landmarks still in place. One of the Early Dutch settlements originally called New Lots and the home of Murder Inc, Danny Kaye, Jimmy Smits and Lloyd Blankfein and yours truly.
3
No Brighton beach mentioned. Tel exchange NI as in Nightingale.
Loved this article...took me back more than a half century! Gerritsen beach was a bunch of truck farms back then south of av u..and brennen and Carr's roast beef sandwiches. Fresh fish from the boats at sheepshead bay...fishing off the rocks at coney island..ah nostalgia...
5
Great article but I feel bad for the author getting all the grief for the places he didn't mention. Geez, people. It's a newspaper article, not a doctoral thesis.
27
As far as NYC history goes Spuyten Duyvil and Kingsbridge in the NW Bronx are big omissions in this article.
7
What, no Hell's Kitchen?
7
Wonderful I now know why neighborhoods got their names. Hope NYT can continue on with Long Island .
4
SoHo,TriBeca and Nolita are acronyms not portmanteaus
I think they actually are portmanteaus...
TRIangle BElow CAnal=TRIBECA
SOuth HOuston = SOHO
NOrth LIttle ITAly = NOLITA
unless I’m missing something.
14
I’d love to know why they call my area Auburndale. It’s in Flushing near Bayside.
1
@Dennis Kelly "The neighborhood is the namesake of Auburndale, Mass., a Boston suburb and the hometown of L. H. Green, who was president of the New England Development and Improvement Company. It started developing the area's farmland in 1901, the same year that Long Island Rail Road service arrived." Developers were responsible for most of the place names in Queens.
5
Middle Village in Queens was named after its location equally bisecting the distance between Flushing and downtown Brooklyn.
It was a convenient place for a traveler on horse or stage to stop for the night.
5
New Utrecht survived. It's the name of a Brooklyn high school.
6
Brooklyn -From the Dutch word Breukelen, a small town in The Netherlands.
Harlem -From the Dutch city Haarlem.
Wall Street - The name of the street originates from an actual wall that was built in the 17th century by the Dutch
› Battery Island (a batterij or battery of cannons was once stationed here)
› Beekman Street (Manhattan, after Willem Beekman)
› Bleecker Street (Manhattan, after the Bleecker family)
› Bowery Lane (Manhattan, Bouwerijlaan)
› Bronx (New York, after Jonas Bronck)
› Bridge street (Manhattan, after Brugstraat)
› Broadway (Manhattan, after Breede Wegh which means broad road)
› Bushwick (Brooklyn, after Boswijk)
› Boerum Hill (Brooklyn, after the Boerum family)
› Coney Island (Brooklyn, after Konijneneiland which means Rabbit Island)
› Cornelia Street (Manhattan, after Cornelia Herring)
› Cortlandt Street (Manhattan, after Stephanus van Cortlandt)
› Dutch Kills (Queens, any local names ending in Kill are of Dutch origin)
› Dyker Heights (Brooklyn)
› Flushing (Queens, after Vlissingen)
› Gansevoort Street (Manhattan, after Peter Gansevoort)
› Gerritsen Beach (Brooklyn, after Wolphert Gerritse)
› Gravesend (Brooklyn, after 's Gravesande)
› Greenwich Village (Manhattan, after Grenen wijk)
› Hells Gate (New York, after Helle Gadt, referring to dangerous currents in the East River)
› Hempstead (New York, after Heemstede)
› Long Island (New York, after "Lange Eylandt" named by Adriaen Block, 1614)
And there are some more.
21
When I was a kid the old ones still called the neighborhood down the hill from us "Germantown". Nowadays it's only known as part of Yorkville. (I guess being the center of the German-American Bund during the pre-WWII era didn't help). But there were still German businesses down 86th Street when I was a kid. We got our pastries there, and little marzipan pigs.
8
You missed Kip's Bay in Manhattan.
Taken from a the name of the family farm on the bay. I believe, it served as a strategic point in the Revolutionary war as it was a place of anchor to attack upper Manhattan for 4,00 British troop[s under General Howe.
4
Great article. Thanks!
5
Interesting that "Hell's Kitchen" merits no mention, but then we Americans often turn a blind eye toward the history of the least among us -- just as we ignore the plight of those who are suffering the most in our "Second Gilded Age." Human nature, I guess.
1
Interestingly the Yankees currently have a Staten Islander on their spring training roster named Zack Granite. I wonder if he's from Graniteville and if there's a story there?
Zack also has a dog named Jeter but that has nothing to do with this story.
1
Wonderful article. But how did state coaches "on their way to Philadelphia" get to Bulls Head on Staten Island? Perhaps a subject for another interesting article?
2
Interestingly, the country of Jamacia is a corruption of a word in a different indigenous language.
4
What about Washington Heights?
2
While Staten Island (pron. "StatNisland" by natives of this small continent off the coast of America) is thought by some who went to school there to be named after the governing body of the Netherlands at the time, the Estates General, or "Staaten General"), the truth as any Dandelion knows, is that a Dutch sailing ship captain back in the day pointed to it and asked, "Is dot an eylandt?"
It turned out so to be.
A Dandelion is a native islander, who like the spores of our eponymous national flower, has grown up, blown away and alighted in one of the fair lawns of the world, where they can hardly get rid of us. Good in salads, one hears, as well. Don't ever try eating one, however, esp. if found growing on S.I.
2
Really enjoyed this article!
4
Wasn't Murray Hill in Manhattan once called Rose Hill?
1
Mackerelville was not named for the fish vendors on Avenue A but for the large early concentration of Italians as well as Irish, who were Catholics, hence "mackerel-snappers."
2
You never did tell us about how Flushing got its name, and more importantly, why its unhappy residents never changed the name.
1
Hey! New Utrecht still exists!
5
Apropos of the naming spree the Dutch went on, Brooklyn derives from the Dutch "Breukelen," meaning broken land. Think of the way Brooklyn Heights juts up out of the East River and the harbor.
2
Is there any real substantiation for the Tenderloin story regarding police and steaks? You here the same story to explain the Tenderloin here in SF and it strikes me as fanciful apocrypha.
2
It would have been nice if the author identified the locations of some of the areas that are no longer on the maps.
And what about Rockaway, a corruption of the Lenape (a Canarsie tribe)'s Rick-u-wacki name?
3
Did the "Real Good Construction Company" have a CEO named Ron Swanson?
2
I was once on the #7 train sitting opposite two Chinese men talking in their language. One man said "Flushing" and the other looked very astonished. He then made the familiar bathroom gesture and the other nodded his head in agreement. Of course, the town is named for the Dutch city of Vlissingen.
4
“Dutch colonists controlled New York for just 40 years — from 1624, when they set foot on Governors Island, to 1664, when they handed their keys to the British”
Did the Dutch LITERALLY hand the British Keys?
1
@Ken Jacowitz : Try this expression; Figuratively. Happy now?
3
My husband grew up in the Kingsbridge area of the Bronx - his family's phone exchange was KI7.
2
You missed one: Maclarendale. That stretch of the Upper West Side between 59th and 72nd where aggressive mothers push strollers fitted with spear-headed hubcaps through retail doors slashing the ankles of anyone daring to walk by.
3
@Tony Adams : Modern Orthodox?
1
@Concrete Man Not sure what you mean, but I always think of the chariot scene in Ben Hur.
3
I'm curious - is Hell's Kitchen really
a neighborhood? If so, how did it get the name? I love that Gordon Ramsay used it as the name for one of his shows.
1
@Country Girl : Yes. An Irish enclave, but now deracinated by snowflakes who call it Clinton. Interestingly enough, a neighborhood called Clinton is close by. Bill Clinton’s daughter once lived, or still lives in the area. Her name is Chelsea Clinton. Believe it, or not!
1
@Concrete Man : Should be: “Chelsea is close by”.
1
Interesting story. I did not know that Carroll Gardens is named after a former slave owner. One wonders how many skeletons are buried in the closets of many place names.
2
Fabulous and honest! A REAL NY article, probably lost to the unwashed masses from outta town.
2
This is the best thing the NYT has published in months. Thanks.
4
I'd love to learn the story behind the "Sunnyside" area of LIC
2
Wonderful article. Although, any chance the Maryland plantation owner namesake of Carroll Gardens was a slave owner? I believe he was. Uh oh.
1
Kips Bay? Tottenville?
2
What about Turtles Bay?
1
Where does it say “Woodstock” as referenced in the caption “...Few people call this area Woodstock, but the name lives on above the doors of this public library...”?
1
In San Francisco, most people are familiar with the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, named for the cross streets Haight and Ashbury.
Head east on Haight Street and there is the intersection of Haight and Fillmore Streets; this neighborhood, once predominantly black, used to be known as Haight-Fillmore.
In the 1980s, real estate speculators renamed it “Lower Haight” and another predominantly black neighborhood to the north known as Upper Fillmore got renamed “Lower Pacific Heights” because foreign investors wanted to avoid anything called Fillmore.
To add insult to injury, new suburban transplants started referring to the Haight-Ashbury as the “Upper Haight” because they were ignorant of where the name “Lower Haight” came from.
When neighborhood names are changed, it is usually to whitewash the prevailing culture to make it more appealing for gentrification by “urban pioneers”.
4
@Roxie :You mean, like, how the Pilgrims destroyed Native Americans?
4
Why isn't Williamsburg included in this article?
2
Too much real estate mumbojumbo is using "Dumbo" for the hundreds-years-old Fulton Ferry Landing. Would the East River ferry service right this, please?
2
Great article but what happened to Linoleumville (now Travis) on Staten Island?
1
Astoria used to be called Hallet’s Cove, after the Hallet family estate (not sure what it was called before above mentioned white settlers). Name eventually changed pre-emptively to “Astoria” bc of town’s efforts to lure John Jacob Astor to invest in it - he barely did.
From Astoria, Queens’ Wikipedia page:
“The area was renamed for John Jacob Astor, then the wealthiest man in the United States with a net worth of more than $40 million, in order to persuade him to invest in the neighborhood. He only invested $500, but the name stayed nonetheless, as a bitter battle over naming the village finally was won by Astor's supporters and friends. From Astor's summer home in Hell Gate, Manhattan—on what is now East 87th Street near York Avenue—he could see across the East River the new Long Island village named in his honor. Astor, however, never actually set foot in Astoria.”
3
Only the dead know Brooklyn.
5
I enjoyed this article.
5
As far as character goes, most of these monikers have little meaning any more, since, thanks to Bloomberg, these neighborhoods have become so homogenized, they are virtually indistinguishable, particularly in Manhattan and Brooklyn. If you want to find out who used to live there, look at the name on the funeral parlor.
1
@stan continople: Beautiful and true statement!
2
One of these helps explain the San Francisco neighborhood called the Tenderloin, probably for similar reasons. New York and other East Coast place names are found in other US regions as well, probably carried by homesick folks still thinking of family and friends they left behind when migrating west.
2
It's not just names of places that make NYC. Sixty years ago we rode the IRT, BMT and the IND. Does anyone still use those names -- or have they passed into history?
5
My wife and I, who lived in city in the late 19790s, use these terms a lot, particularly IRT for the numbered lines. Even back then the MTA ruled all the subways, though.
5
I doubt the explanation for the naming of Carroll Gardens. I don't think it was because Marylanders were so popular due to their role in the Battle of Long Island. Charles Carroll was a huge hero to Irish immigrants in the 19th Century desperate to claim a piece of American history. The fact that one of their own was an educated, wealthy, Patriot made him a desirable avatar for a neighborhood that was Irish long before the first Italians moved in. These Irish did not care about the fight of the Maryland Line by the Old Stone House. They wanted to identify with a revered name with roots in Ireland.
3
"Hell's Kitchen" has hung on even though the area was given a new name - "Clinton" - (or maybe that's the original name?). For a while it seemed as through "Hell's Kitchen" would go the way of the dodo, but I've not heard the area referred to as "Clinton" for some time. "Hell's Kitchen" is such a colorful moniker it would be a shame to lose it.
10
You missed Kip's Bay in Manhattan.
Taken from the name of the Kips family farm on the bay, I believe, it served as a strategic point in the Revolutionary war. It was a place of anchor to attack upper Manhattan for 4,000 British troops under General Howe.
5
@Ignatius J. Reilly
Yes, Jacob Hendricksen Kip was an alderman for years in the last half of the 1600s, and was granted property for his farm on the bay, which has since been filled in.
5
What happened to the turtles in Turtle Bay? The hidden garden used to be full of them.
3
@frank
Same thing that happened to the beavers that used to inhabit Manhattan and the rabbits that once inhabited Coney Island? "Turtle Bay" may actually be a corruption of an Old Dutch term for a word with an altogether different meaning, some sources guess possibly "knife", but I can't find any proof of that. A 1776 map of Manhattan shows Turtle Creek flowing into the East River right there.
4
Anyone know how Unionport in the Bronx got its name? Castle Hill Avenue? Clausen Point? And who was Hugh Grant - not the actor but how the Circle by Parkchester got its name@
1
@Margaret Fraser
"Castle Hill got its name from its most striking topographical feature, a small hut that a 17th-century European observer thought worthy of a castle." There's no source citation for that claim at the article I found: https://www.villagevoice.com/2003/11/25/close-up-on-castle-hill-the-bronx/
However, some Native American villages, at least the Mohawk ones in the Mohawk Valley, were called "castles".
7
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.” But was Shakespeare absolutely correct? He did put the words in the mouth of a passionate and poetic young man.
Emerson also spoke of names: “By virtue of this science the poet is the Namer, or Language-maker, naming things sometimes after their appearance, sometimes after their essence, and giving to every one its own name and not another's, thereby rejoicing the intellect, which delights in detachment or boundary.”
Gabriel García Márquez knew the importance of names. Of the early times of Macondo he says, “The world was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point.”
Later on, Salman Rushdie muses, “Names, once they are in common use, quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being buried, like so many of the earth's marvels, beneath the dust of habit.”
But the dust of habit is history, really, names that linger although their origins are frequently obscure. As it does in place names in my own county, Hale, in Alabama.
Here’s a list of a few local and mosly unofficial names in a five mile radius of where I live now. Some are actual names of places that once existed. At least one still appears on maps today although there is no there there. All suggest the history of my county to me. Just like thos of my former city New York.
Crackerneck
Erie
Hatchee
Hollow Square
Kimbrough Bottom
Mason Bend
Tinkertown
Umbria
Wedgeworth
5
In Manhattan West 28th Street between 5th avenue and 7th avenue has been known over the years as the Tenderloin ,Tin Pan Alley ,Flower Market and presently the Flatiron -NoMad district.
7
Broadway is again going back to the Dutch, it was the first major street on the island called "Breede Weg" (wide street).
"The Island at the Centre of the World" a book by Russell Shorto explains the first 40 years of the creation of Manhattan!
A terrific read!
10
@A. Poort
Oh, that is indeed one fantastic book, and anyone who is interested in the history of New Netherland and New Amsterdam should definitely check out the New Netherland Institute website. Gold mine!! Russell Shorto works closely with them.
3
@A. Poort
Absolutely agree. This book should be on the must read list of every New Yorker whether born there or an immigrant. Shorto really makes history come alive.
5
I'm not sure how you can have a history of historical neighborhood names and fail to mention Chquaesgeck. This is the area of northern Manhattan known as Lange Berg by the dutch and that became Fort Tryon Washington Heights, and even Harlem. You know? The hill where Washington escaped New York and evacuated first to Fort Lee and eventually Vernon Valley. The reason we call the George Washington Bridge the George Washington Bridge.
Last I checked the fort and the bridge still exist along with the hills and the neighborhoods.
6
I grew up in Carroll Gardens in the 70's & 80's, and Court Pastry was one of the highlights! Between the end of our marriage ceremony and going into the reception, my (ex) wife and I sneaked out of the Kane St Synagogue (with the help of my aunt and uncle, of blessed memory), and walked around the block to get Court Pastry Italian ices! While we were waiting on line, a car screeched to a halt, and the driver jumped out and ran over: "I can't believe you people are making these two wait in line! Can't you see they just got married?!" he shouted with both condemnation and hilarity. People all around turned and looked (a sunny, August evening). They shuffled us to the front of the line, the man bought us our ices and drove away. On the walk back chocolate ice dripped on the dress. Later, my (ex) wife told my mother to *not* clean it- a great memory for us. My mother did, anyway. My (ex) wife and I never really forgave her for it.
Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. 1998.
14
@EDF : So this was a harbinger of your divorce then?
1
@EDF My mom (96 years old, her last birthday in Feb) grew up in Carroll Gardens; she and her mom went to Court St. Pastry often. Imagine her surprise, 50 yrs after she moved out of Brooklyn, to be brought pastries by her granddaughter, that were boxed, wrapped in string, with "Court Street Pastry" lettered across the top. Her granddaughter had moved into an apartment just a few blocks away.
4
A nice idea would be to take a look at a couple of old maps, say 1780 and compare with a map from 1880, to trace the development of places names in the New York City area. A little place history, and you'd have a nice running article topic that would probably prove of interest to many readers.
5
@Karen
I'd start in the 1600s, when the city was born. There's even a Rapelye Ave. in Carroll Gardens, named after one of the the first known couples to arrive in 1623/24 to settle Manhattan and then Brooklyn. (They actually settled in Ft. Orange/Albany first, but came to Manhattan a couple of years later, where it was safer.) They were Joris Rapalje and Catalyntje Trico, who have a zillion descendants, including me, and they had a tavern on Pearl Street, next to the fort, which was then a LOT closer to the water. Later they were granted a large tract of land on Wallabout Bay by the local Natives (the original agreement still exists!) where they farmed, and which now happens to be the entirety of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. I suppose Rapelye Ave. is named after one of their sons, since it's a ways away from their farm. When my son was in grad school, he got a summer job with a design firm in the Navy Yard, and we joked about his going to work on Grandpa's farm for the summer.
8
Rode Hoek doesn‘t mean „red corner“ in Dutch, but „red cape“ - the geographical kind, not an item of apparel. Yellow Hook must have been substituted for Gele Hoek, in despair over trying to pronounce the Dutch word for „yellow“. A cape is a kind of corner, of course, but such a good article deserves precision. And I must beg to differ about the comment on the meaning of Breukelen (Brooklyn), a pretty town on the river Vecht near where I lived in Holland. As far as I know it means „little bridge“.
7
@Glen Wilson
Thank you for the clarifications! I thought "horn" meant "corner". I have a Dutch ancestor called Jan Cornelisen van Hoorn or van Horn, and it's been determined that he was likely not from Hoorn, but that there were more than one Jan Cornelisen, and he was the one who lived on a street corner in New Amsterdam.
5
Interesting! Developers have wiped more than neighborhood names away. They, with the help of our “leaders” and often with our tax dollars, have wiped entire communities off the map. Robert Moses, an unelected but powerful neighborhood destroyer and the alleged progressive Bill DeBlasio come to mind.
3
@Justice Holmes: Names come and go. European settlers wiped away Native American names. Englishmen come to mind.
1
@Justice Holmes Among other developments in the name of progress, Robert Moses destroyed the neighborhood (Italian-American) just west of St.Stephens Church (literally across the street) to build the BQE. Neighborhood stores, family shoppes, and brownstone apartment buildings were vastly acquired by eminent domain, and the working families that lived there uprooted, and the neighborhood forever split apart. My mom grew up there; her church was St Stephens, and she forever lost contact with friends and families who once were her neighbors.
4
You forgot about Coney Island, also known as Rabbit Island when the first discovered the abundance of the named animal at that time!
4
@Salvatore
Yes, it was reportedly originally something like "Konijn Eiland" (or whatever that would be in Old Dutch for "Rabbit Island"). A 1639 map has it labeled as "Conyn Eylant".
3
As a native of The Bronx (who's name itself is a mystery to many people; Hint = Jonas Bronck, The Broncks Family), we never used the neighborhood names.
It was always, "near the Stadium," "Co-op City," "Mosholu Parkway," "Parkchester," "The Concourse," etc.
The neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens seem to have stuck over the years.
9
@David G
By the way, if you really want to tick off a resident of Riverdale, use the address, "Bronx, NY," instead of "Riverdale, NY."
That'll get them fuming!
11
Thanks to Lindsey Spinks for the map, which I just printed for dinner conversation purposes.
“Most New Yorkers live within three blocks and everything beyond that is an abstraction.” This comment by historian Robert Snyder is very much about the future.
In my usual last-minute desperation on Valentine's Day I learned that I am already unable to "live within three blocks." Should I give her a slice of pizza, a manicure, a bottle of shampoo, or a pack of cigarettes? Finally I chose having her favorite sweater dry cleaned as the most romantic gift option.
The recent proliferation of empty storefronts and rise in crime may or may not be related, as we have so many factors to choose from. But urbanist Jane Jacobs believed that the bustle of law-abiding locals on the sidewalk, including shoppers and shop keepers, was a key to safe cities.
Shipping into our crowded city only the merchandise customers have already ordered does make sense environmentally. But the time has come to consider what will become of our empty ground floors and laid-off retail workers. Not all will (can) be retrained as financial software analysts or hired as doormen.
One can order food, play games, and telecommute from towns far cheaper and sunnier than NYC. The glory of this place is the street - the Agora - from trading floor to candy shop.
I encourage everyone to think and talk about the future of our streets and neighborhoods. You never know what you may contribute. Let your imagination fly.
15
some of these also stuck around. there may not have been a neighborhood called new Utrech, but my mother manged to graduate from new Utrech high school in 1942. the oral tradition is powerful !
8
@ariel Loftus
A visit to the Met's important collection of Dutch Baroque paintings will convince you that this city ought to have at least something named "Utrecht."
I just learned that Utrecht was the most Catholic city in the newly-liberated Protestant Netherlands. Its famous painters studied in Rome under Caravaggio. This would seem to drop (not dorp) right into Mr. Hughes' article.
2
On Staten Island we have many interesting names, (yes there are many more then when I was growing up, due to realtors.) I grew up in New Brighton, West Brighton and now Sunset Hill. All without moving.
We have Todt Hill (not an amphibian but death in Dutch.) Emerson Hill, (named after Ralph Waldo), Prohibition Park (now called westerleigh) Grymes Hill, Tottenville, Quarantine Station, New Dorp.
Side note James Outerbridge’s daughter Mary Outerbridge brought the game of tennis via Bermuda. Growing up I thought it was the Outer Bridge not the Outerbridge Crossing.
9
Manhattan certainly retains many old names for neighborhoods.
Kips Bay is named in the 1600's after Dutch frame Jacobus Hendrickson Kip (1631–1690), whose farm ran north of present day 30th Street along the East River.
Kips Bay was the site of the Landing at Kip's Bay (September 15, 1776), an episode of the American Revolutionary War and part of the New York and New Jersey campaign. About 4,000 British Army troops under General William Howe landed at Kips Bay on September 15, 1776, near what is now the foot of East 33rd Street.
11
@Ignatius J. Reilly
...in a nation of 3 million. Rather intimidating.
That'd be like 400,000 troops landing here today.
Another interesting vestige of Manhattan agriculture (and brewing) is the Rutgers farm on the Lower East Side, which is very visible on today's map as a grid of about twenty blocks tilted about 30 degrees off the grids of other downtown neighborhoods.
3
@Ignatius J. Reilly: Jacobus Kip was a “frame”, and not a human being?
1
@Concrete Man
Auto-correct is definitely not human and prone to human error ;).
I'm from Flatbush, but my address was always shown as Brooklyn, NY, just as with every other Brooklyn address regardless of section.
It has always struck me that Queens residents masquerade as suburbanites, showing their addresses as Rockaway Park, NY; Astoria, NY or whatever section of Queens they're from.
Would mail addressed to Queens, NY ever make it to the intended recipient?
12
@Kevin Banker It is likely because Brooklyn was The City of Brooklyn before it became the Borough of Brooklyn. It had already gobbled up the original 6 towns that were there. Some neighborhoods kept their names, but not for postal addresses.
Queens was a collection of small towns and villages in the County of Queens until the consolidations of 1898, so the names may have had a greater holding power, though some are anglicized Dutch names so have been around a long time, for example, Flushing was called Vlissingen.
7
@ALB
Thanks for affirming my supposition. I would guess that a zip code would get one's letter into the hands of postal workers who knew that Flushing (for example) was in Queens.
3
Before zip codes, there were postal codes. Mine was Brooklyn 15, New York. The comma is placed correctly.
When milkmen delivered milk bottles into a metal box on the front porch.
And when the Italian vegetable man, singing out the names of vegetables, and his horse clomped down our Windsor Terrace Street in early morning. The horse was pastured in the field (later filled with junk, now a building site) to the right of the northbound F train just before it dips into the Carroll Street station. I was always thrilled to see that horse, grazing or galloping as he chose.
10
My father claimed that, in the late forties, the Vinegar Hill boys won a pick-up game against a team that contained Bob Cousy.
6
My family and I moved to 4th Avenue in Brooklyn, just off Park Slope, back in the early eighties. It was called 'Gowannus;' a strip of boulevard lined with bodegas and tire repair shops. Now, when mom referred to it, she did as Park Slope. We didn't want to be associated with the Superfund site thigh deep with carcinogens and mob wacks.
Today? Real estate agents take pains to point out that, 'No, this isn't Carroll Gardens, and it's not Park Slope. It's Gowannus, and that makes it better.'
8
@Adam
You Go, Wannus!
As one example of Gowannus' rising profile, a group of urban planning students recently made a study of the area. As with so many neighborhoods, by the time you've heard of it, it's gone from untouchable to un-touchable.
2
I can see this feature becoming a regular column. There are many "town" names in New York City that need explanations.
19
@Harriet Lotz: How about East New York? No one seems to be proud or nostalgic about this particular neighborhood. I wonder why?
2
Really enjoyed this article!
I grew up in Ozone Park.
10
Then there's the Bowery or “bowerie,”, Dutch for farm in the 17th century.
Neat how names of cities towns, and areas are founded. Leyden St. in Plymouth MA is well known as being the oldest street in America. It is named after Leiden, Netherlands. As is Harlem, NYC after Haarlem, Netherlands, and Beverwijk, Albany NY's early name.
Thank you for this interesting look back.
13
How did you overlook Williamsburgh?
I grew up there and never knew the origin of the name.
3
@Bob Hankins
The Williamsburg in Brooklyn has no "h" on the end.
The Williamsburgh in Virginia does.
Gets me too!
Yes, should have been included, maybe with an explanation as to why the difference!
3
@Ignatius J. Reilly - Williamsburg VA has no “h”.
1
Poor girls from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, my beautiful, stylish mother and her equally attractive sisters, when young, during World War II, when asked where they were from, used to get a little Southern lilt into their voices when they replied, "Williamsburg."
No H.
2
A little surprised not to see mention of Flushing. By one reference, named ater the Dutch city of Vlissingen. Perhaps that's a flawed explanation?
5
If other readers enjoy learning the etymological origins behind place-names, I highly recommend reading blogs like 'Forgotten NY'.
14
The Bronx has many other famous "neighborhoods" withe some arbitrary borders. They include:
Pelham Parkway
Van Nest
Morris Park
Throgs Neck
Castle Hill
Parkchester
Soundview
I fondly remember them all.
11
@USNA73 And don't forget the Melrose section of the Bronx. It had the great 3rd Ave shopping district with Alexanders Department store and the famous 3rd Ave el ran through it. Now gone...sigh. I loved to go shopping there with my parents when I was a kid.
3
@USNA73 They’re still around, so easy to “remember”.
“Place names come and go-but a few that have stuck around offer a window onto the city’s past.”
And the name Manhattan offers a window onto the city’s past: Manhattan in the Lenape tribe’s language means “The place where we get bows” to shoot arrows with. The wooden bows were made from the Hickory tree which was abundant in Manhattan island in 1626 when it was purchased for 60 guilders ($1059 today).
The abundant Hickory trees of the past were replaced with a forest of skyscrapers.
11
How could leave out High Bridge in the Bronx?
Named after the walking bridge between Manhattan and the Bronx that carried water to Manhattan from Westchester.
See Google
The High Bridge (originally the Aqueduct Bridge) is the oldest bridge in New York City, having originally opened as part of the Croton Aqueduct in 1848.
9
@Robert Pryor I lived in the High Bridge section for the first 18 years of my life. We never once used that name! We just said, "University Avenue."
4
Does this explain why the mascot of Jamaica High School (my alma mater) was the beavers?
8
Interesting article, It’s a shame you left out Bedford-Stuyvesant, in the heart of Brooklyn, from your article. A good read nonetheless.
6
New Utrecht may have lost as a neighborhood name, but it still lives on as a library branch in Bensonhurst.
5
I love this type of trivia..fun and interesting too me
12
I have a cousin who lives in New York- After looking at all of these names of neighborhoods and the views of the people I can understand why he still thinks Portland is such a great... neighborhood...
1
What about Hunt's Point? My mother used to recite an inscription on one of the Hunt's tombstones..."Behold and see as you pass by, as you are now, so once was I. As I am now, you soon will be. Prepare for death and follow me." Eerie but memorable.
7
A missed opportunity with "Brooklyn" - named after the Dutch city of Breukelen. And "vlacke" really means "flat", so it's closer than suggested.
5
One of the playgrounds in Rego Park is named the "Real Good Playground" and a local C-Town grocery store has a sign outside that it is "REal GOod".
8
I was told there are only three "main" post offices in Queens. Jamaica, Flushing, and Long Island City. All Queens mail can be addressed and delivered using one of those designations. Over time, the names of some areas (and local post offices) stuck while others didn't. For example, the stops on the Port Washington Long Island Rail Road line include names still used by residents who could be using Flushing (e.g., Little Neck, Douglaston, Bayside) and others (e.g., Auburndale, Broadway, Murray Hill) that are seldom used (and residents simply say they live in Flushing). The same is true in Long Island City and Jamaica.
5
@Charles mail doesn't just go to main post offices. Those place names in Queens are not neighborhoods, they are town names, and Bayside, for example, is near but not in Flushing. Queens was 'allowed' to retain the use of its town names when it was absorbed by New York City, a vote that barely passed in Queens only with the help of political promises and pressure.
6
@Karen In the early 60's our postal address was Jamaica 27, NY. Once zip codes were established, the Jamaica name wasn't really needed anymore and people started using Queens Village as the neighborhood address.
3
Grew up in bay ridge. Always loved the neighborhoods of NYC and the history of the immigrants and original settlers that lived there and shaped the neighborhoods. I remember not only being identified by your ethnicity and neighborhood, but also by your parish. The fact that Carroll was the only catholic that signed the Declaration of Independence was quite relevant to the Italian and Irish Catholics that settled in “south Brooklyn”. Great article. Well done. NYC is such a great place - the old neighborhoods were so unique back in the day. Even with the wealth and gentrification that has poured in over the last twenty some odd years, I hope they maintain their character and identity.
12
Thank you very much for providing us history of New York with beautiful photographs and a lovely Christmas card. I sincerely thank artist Lindsey Spinks too.
10
Heads up to someone wanting to make lotso bucks: There is a full book here. Many New Yorkers would love to read about the origins of their neighborhood names. New York, The Novel, had many fascinating details about name derivations. I would buy a copy if this book existed, and if it were any good, it would make a great gift.
17
Wonderful article and what a great generator of comments. Also, the Hudson River was originally the North River as it is still called by many commercial boatmen on the harbor radio net. And I wonder how long the East River will survive before it's renamed to honor someone as were various roads, plaza's etc. (I miss Idlewild ).
11
Stu Reininger,
The North River is known by most now as the Hudson River.
The Delaware River was originally known as The South River.
1
@Stu Reininger We still use "Idlewild" -- friends get used to it. Youngsters learn from it.
1
Idlewild, which was the name of the golf course in that area, is certainly evocative. And perhaps it shouldn’t have been changed.
But it WAS changed almost 60 years ago, and it’s silly to use a defunct name. Absolutely no one in the airline industry uses it, most have probably never even heard of it.
3
Anyone who claims the whole universe can be seen in a grain of sand never visited New York City. What a wonderfully well researched and informative article! Thank you, C.J. Hughes.
13
Many neighborhoods are named by real estate agents. 20 years ago, a friend moved to Flatbush; now, without moving, she lives in Prospect Lefferts Gardens. Whatever sells apartments, I guess!
2
The name Prospect Lefferts was created in 1968. Of course you probably know that the Lefferts family goes back hundreds of years.
Before the turn of the last century, Gertrude Lefferts Vanderbilt wrote a marvelous history of Flatbush. She is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery and made provisions for her longtime black housekeeper to be buried in that same family plot. You can visit the resting places of both Gertrude Vanderbilt and Mary Jane Williams.
You might not know that my late aunt, who'd be way over a hundred years old now, and no doubt many others in Brooklyn, were aware that at least a few streets in Prospect Lefferts sported the homes of black gentry -- a veritable "doctors' row" -- going back a very long time.
New York City has always been about real estate, but most of our place names have their very real histories.
9
I love the history of the town in Queens on the North Shore that I grew up in, College Point, an individualistic burg with a rich history. I was proud to live in a feeder community for the illustrious town of Flushing, and am a graduate of Flushing High School. My public school education devoted a lot of time to field trips to historic sites on Long Island like the Friends Meeting House and the John Bowne House in Flushing, Old Bethpage Village and Sagamore Hill further out the Island, to instill in young residents a real feel for the importance of the history of the area, incluiding the Parson's influence on the horticultural aspects of life there on the North Shore. A lot of people in College Point still felt they'd been robbed when New York City took over all the towns of Queens wholesale, and remained proud denizens of Long Island. You can get a good look at many old towns all across the United States through a great book series called Images of America.
11
@Karen
I love to think of Queens as a vibrant horticultural area, and love that you got that great education, and learned so much about the rich history of the area. Another umpteenth Great Grandfather of mine, William Lawrence, founded your hometown. His daughter married Richard "Bull Rider" Smith, and I wonder if you ever learned that local legend about nearby Smithtown.
2
Thanks for this piece! It's really nice to know these things about the lovely NYC
8
Great stuff. As a kid living in Jersey my cousin and I took the bus into the city or sometimes since we lived in the Elizabeth Port would walk across the old not new Goethals Bridge great view from the bridge. Then get a soda in the building where the toll takers had their lockers and office. But, when we went into the City our parents could never understand what we went into the City for what was the sense. They missed the magic of all the different areas. When Tina my late wife of 46 years were married at the Unitarian Church West 76th and Central Park and we lived on 51 West 81st Street and Central Park. On a trip last fall with her ashes found our old apt rents for $4,000 a month now. We were social workers for the City of New York and got to see and experience alot of the City. Her grandmother lived in Astoria and I remember there is still a move studio there. As our daughters grew our visits always included Steinway Street for the baked goods, Chinese food, deli and always the shops that had toys back then it was Rubic Cubes and all sorts of other wonderful things. When we wanted a boat trip on a summers evening Tina and I took the Staten Island ferry twilight cruise. Lights on the bridges coming on, stars coming out the smell of the water. Last fall some of her ashes went off the ferry by the Statue of Liberty and into Central Park where she loved to do snow angels. I love these articles and if I could I would move back to the city it has it all. Jim Trautman
70
@trautman
Thanks for the great stories, Jim!
10
@trautman
It sounds like you and your wife had a lovely relationship that left you with many memories to cherish.
4
@trautman I love your story JT.
6
And speaking of Jamaica, Mario Cuomo's father had a grocery store on 150th Street just a couple of blocks south of the tracks. My parents had their floor covering store, Star Tile, and warehouse north of the tracks at Jamaica Avenue, directly across the street from King Park and Manor, shown in the article's photo. Between the Cuomo store and my parents' store, just south of the tracks and closer to the Cuomos, also on 150th Street, was a fish warehouse operation but they would sell fish to my mom retail. I was sent to pick it up. The fellow in that store knew how to slice lox as thin and well as they do at Russ and Daughters in the city. And their whitefish was sublime. Jamaica was a wonderful place in which to grow up, even as it went through difficult times in the 60's and 70's.
16
Although a prosaic name, West Farms in the Bronx (where I grew up) interested me because I understood it was a resort area for people from the "city", prior to the coming of the "railroad" to the area.
5
I LOVE this kind of historical background. One I'd have included is the oddly named Throgs Neck, named after my umpteenth Great Grandfather, John Throckmorton, who came to Salem from England in 1631. He then either got kicked out by the Puritans or fled their restrictive ways, and went to today's RI with Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, and other dissenters. In 1642 he went to New Amsterdam, where the Dutch, not big fans of the English, allowed him to settle way out yonder on that peninsula. Throckmorton ended up (and died) in Monmouth County, NJ. Sorry he left such an awkward name place behind!
55
@Julie I grew up in College Point which some old timers still referred to as Tew's Neck. As a kid I would try to picture what a Tew's neck might look like, trying to get some frame of reference for such an odd sounding name, which I mentally associated with the nearby Throg's Neck Bridge, which I initially heard as the Frog's Neck Bridge. I assumed a Tew was some kind of a shorebird.
10
@Julie
(As an aside, he's the umpteenth Great Grandfather of countless others, too, of course.)
4
@Julie, When I was a kid growing up in the Bronx (well before construction of the Throgs Neck Bridge) we used to call the area "Frogs Neck".
8
The article fails to note that prior to consolidation in 1898, Queens (which as the time included what became Nassau County) was a separate county jurisdiction with many towns and villages. As the western part of Queens voted to join the City -- the eastern, more rural part chose not to and separated to become Nassau County -- a county jurisdiction still comprised of villages and towns plus a couple of cities.
The former separate villages of Queens now remain as neighborhood names preserved for use as place addresses. It's why one would never use "Queens" in a mailing like one uses "New York" for a Manhattan address. Doing so would ensure that the fate of the envelope would be to reside in the dead letter box at the Post Office.
17
@George S.
Interesting point which I never realized before. However I think that as long as a piece of mail has a zip code, it will get delivered. The confusing thing about Queens though is that there will be say a 68th Avenue, a 68th Drive and a 68th Road one after the other, no it’s 68th Ave, 68th Road then 68th Drive... Bet tons of mail gets mis-delivered in those neighborhoods.
11
Some sixty years ago my mother would say that Queens was known as the borough of communities. I recall as a child nobody said they lived in Queens, instead they named the neighborhood. Before the zip code we would receive mail addressed to Forest Hills, 75, L.I. New York, the L. I. an abbreviation of Long Island.
19
There are places in the city (I'm here for 20+ years now) that go by names that locals use. My most recent move landed me (I learned) in "Bloomingdale," nearby "Manhattan Valley." (part of UWS but with it's own separate pride). And how could they leave out "Sugar Hill"?
8
Great article but I missed Throggs Neck. I was born there, at Westchester Square Hospital, went to St. Frances de Chantal School and St. Helena's HS. Throggs Neck was a force in the Revolutionary War. Many historical sites. I lived two blocks from the beaches on Long Island Sound and spend wonderful summers there as a kid.
17
@Helen
I lived across the street from Westchester Square Hospital throughout my college and early working years.
The area around Westchester Square was fascinating: St. Peter's Church, The Museum of the American Indian, the Huntington Reading Room.
7
Helen,
I'm still waiting for the correction of the misspelling of the Throgs Neck Bridge to "Throggs Neck".
They corrected the Verrazzano, what's taking so long?
Maybe they're afraid it'll be renamed the Andrew Cuomo Bridge?
1
How could you skip Spuyten Duyvil?
It’d be grand to see a companion piece about the old telephone exchanges that began with two letters. I’ve seen of MU2 (for MUrray Hill), MO5 (for MOrningside), BE2 (for BEekman), and of course BUtterfield 8, but I’d love to hear about more.
I’ve picked up a lot of NYC neighborhood history through genealogy. Fascinating that places like Washington Heights used to be open country dotted with grand estates. That neighborhood (iirc) got its name from the Revolutionary War when General Washington took advantage of its high ground and commanding views over the Hudson.
29
@Jack: my exchange was FO for Foundation. Then we went to all numbers and it was 99. It stood for WY, which was the abbreviation for Wyandotte...
7
Our phone number in the Bronx began with LU(Ludlow).
I never understood why. I can’t recall any area or neighborhood called Ludlow,
4
SA stood for Saint George in Staten Island
3
I have been thinking about Corona recently. What's the story?
BTW, what is Novel Coronavirus?
3
@Ted M All flu is a form of corona virus. Corona describes the shape of the virus. Novel means it's one we hadn't seen before.
13
@JeezLouise Influenza isn't a coronavirus. The common cold can be though
8
@Ted M The real and pressing question is whether that neighborhood's going to have to pull a Yellow Hook and change its name!
1
A wonderful article! I live in hicksville, but have been fascinated with nyc since my fresh year in high school when I visited this electric city. I’m now a senior citizen and would love nothing more than the opportunity to live in NYC for several months to satisfy my thirst for its history. The comments, however, give a glimpse into why people would rather remember and revere the legends of their youth than the objective facts.
5
@Lost In A Red State
Interestingly, Hicksville is derived from a Mr. Hicks who was a senior official of the LIRR at the time the railroad was being laid out.
It was set up as a major transfer point on the railroad and he just chose to name it after himself!
5
My home town in Brooklyn was a happy place called Gravesend -- named after a town in England, and located a bit north of Coney Island, and likely now considered a part of Bensonhurst.
20
@Gene it also could have been named after a small town in the the Netherlands "Gravenzand"
(Count's County).
2
Interesting article, but I wish there had been more about Manhattan neighborhoods. The Lower East Side where my mother was born is fairly obvious, but I would have liked to have read more about Hells Kitchen, where my father was born over a century ago. When I was very young, we lived in Jackson Heights, also not mentioned.
24
@Barbara I agree I too would have enjoyed reading about the origin of Hell's Kitchen, as well as the Battery and the Bowery areas (the stomping grounds of my youth).
9
@Barbara When I was attending Fordham U @ Lincoln Center during the 1980s, realtors tried to rename Hell's Kitchen "Clinton," which was taking off at the time. When my family visited the city around Christmas time last year, staying at a hotel on the far west side of 42nd St., I was happy to see a lot of local stores proudly having "Hell's Kitchen" as part of their names. Retro nostalgia?
4
How about Flushing Queens? were I grew up it was the brunt of many jokes.
27
Came from the Dutch city Vlissingen (which the Dutch used to name this area of NYC), which was called "Flushing" by the English.
My family are from Flushing, so I'm with you on needing to tamp down on the jokes.
34
@Duncan
Vlissingen in Holland is still called Flushing by the English. There used to be a car ferry service between Vlissingen and Sheerness in England.
The Brits make up their own name for various places on the continent, that they can't pronounce. Livorno in Italy is called Leghorn. Like Vlissingen, Livorno is a port, English ships have been sailing to for hundreds of years.
45
Technically Vlissingen is in the province of Zeeland, the Netherlands.
2
@Karen
I think it was named after the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. There were many African Americans who enlisted as volunteers for that war from 1936-1939. The majority of them lived in “San Juan Hill“ around West 59th Street to the present Lincoln Center area.
10
@Jerry Mander
The Lincoln Square name goes back to 1906.
Wikipedia:
"Lincoln Center was named after Lincoln Square. The reason for naming the area "Lincoln Square" is unknown, however. The name was bestowed on the area in 1906 by the New York City Board of Aldermen, but records give no reason for choosing that name.
There has long been speculation that the name came from a local landowner, because the square was previously named Lincoln Square. City records from the time show only the names Johannes van Bruch, Thomas Hall, Stephan de Lancey, James de Lancey, James de Lancey Jr. and John Somerindyck as area property owners.
The area may also have been named as a tribute to U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. One speculation is that references to President Lincoln were omitted from the records because the mayor in 1906 was George B. McClellan Jr., son of General George B. McClellan who was general-in-chief of the Union Army during the American Civil War and a bitter rival of Lincoln."
11
@Jerry Mander
San Juan Hill was indeed an African-American enclave in Manhattan. But it was named in honor of Teddy Roosevelt's Battle of San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War in Cuba.
4
@George S.
Jazz great Thelonious Monk was born in Rocky Mount, N.C., but he grew up in the San Juan Hill neighborhood and continued to live there for most of his adult life.
In his 2009 biography of Monk, Robin D.G. Kelly writes: "San Juan Hill was so named in part because several black veterans of the Spanish-American War settled in the area. (San Juan Hill, near Santiago, Cuba, was the site where the legendary black cavalry known as the Buffalo Soldiers, alongside Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders, waged there most ferocious battle.) But the name stuck to the neighborhood for another reason: its reputation for violence. Legend has it that the name was first used by (Kelly now quotes a source from 1909) 'an on-looker who saw the policemen charging up during one of the once common race fights.' Between 1900 and 1917, the place was famous for it's race riots."
4
The name of New York City’s most remote bridge, the Outerbridge Crossing, also has a surprising origin. Although everyone would assume it got its name because it is such an outlying bridge, it was named for the first chairman of the Port Authority: Eugenius Harvey Outerbridge.
68
I used to assume that the Holland Tunnel was named for “Holland,” as in The Netherlands. The origin of so many New York names.
Until I discovered that it was named for the chief engineer of the project, Clifford Holland!
4
I love local history, so I really enjoyed this article.
My family is from Queens originally, and moved to Nassau County when I was little. I barely remember that our first phone number there was “Argo 8”, with Argo being the name of a sub-division, I later learned. The practice must have fallen away soon after because I grew up knowing the number as “488”. I also remember asking my parents why letters to Queens were always addresses to the names of areas, eg, Corona, Flushing, Astoria, etc., whereas something sent to Brooklyn was simply addressed as “Brooklyn, NY.” I don’t remember their answer, though.
Finally, along similar lines, I remember when street signs in the different boroughs used to be different colors. They are all uniform now, but there was one that was missed in Corona, near the Lemon Ice King—that was probably 20 years ago, but I remember getting a kick out of seeing it. All of this reminds me of how different NYC was, not that long ago—when it was home to ordinary people, not just the uber-rich.
28
@Cirincis The Brooklyn-Queens dichotomy may have something to do with the Postal Service. All of Brooklyn's intraborough mail was handled in Brooklyn, I believe, but that wasn't the vase in Queens; some of the Queens mail was handled in Brooklyn. Perhaps the Queens place names were meant to help the mail along.
9
@Cirincis, It's possible (although this is a guess) that it might have been due to the fact that Brooklyn was a separate city until 1898 when it joined the others 4 boroughs of New York City.
10
@Cirincis
I was born in 1948 and grew up in Flushing; although it was, and remains, Fresh Meadows, which is in what was the town of Flushing before consolidation into the Greater City of New York. That Queens addresses always maintained their distinct feel of separate villages was always a point of pride for those of us in the borough. Although no longer living in NY, I find it disconcerting that numbered addresses now mirror those of the rest of the city. I remember when a dash between what was either the avenue of the street was used before the number of the house or business, such that it was easy to discern where each addressee was located.
16
Great to see these, thank you!
Many years ago, I made/sold a line of t-shirts featuring the old/original* names of our boroughs/neighborhoods, and I wanted to add a few more to this list. My memory isn't quite what it used to be, but if I recall correctly:
Breuckelen (alt: Breukelen): Dutch, meaning either "broken land" or "bridge land"
Konijn Eiland/Coney Island: Dutch, meaning "rabbit island" because of the abundance of rabbits in the area.
Broncksland: Name after Jonas Bronck; literally, Bronck's Land
Nieuw Amsterdam (Cue the They Might Be Giants' song): Dutch, meaning "New Amsterdam," before the Brits came along and renamed it New York (no translation needed). Of course, both of these were after the Native Americans had already named it Manahatta, which clearly and closely resembles the current-day Manhattan.
*Dutch, though not necessarily Native American
31
Coney is also the name of the type of rabbit that was on "Rabbit" Island.
2
@Dash And fun fact: the Bronck's ownership is the reason The Bronx is the only borough with the article "the" in front of it's name -- we're still basically referring to it as The Bronck's land (their territory) even though they turned it over to the City umpteen years ago.
10
I live in"Lincoln Square" formerly known as "San Juan Hill", as listed on your map. The current name came about in the late 1940s and early 1950s as part of its gentrification. Leaders of the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra were interested in moving to new neighborhoods, while Fordham University was interested in creating an additional campus in Manhattan. They approached Robert Moses (the guy who actually ran the City in those days) for help and decided on San Juan Hill, which at that time was a slum. Moses sped the process along by declaring, as only he could, that "San Juan Hill" was the worst slum in New York City. This prioritized "San Juan Hill" as first on the list for slum clearance, making way for the construction of Lincoln Center and the Manhattan Campus of Fordham University, as well as the housing project, Lincoln Towers, where I live. Many of the people who had lived in the tenements of "San Juan Hill" were dispossessed but were able to return when the Amsterdam Housing Project was constructed west of Lincoln Center. Immediately south of "Lincoln Square" is "Hell's Kitchen" but that is another story.
28
@JerryV
A remnant of that time can be seen in the opening scenes of the original West Side Story movie which were shot near the LC construction site. (Not all the movie was shot locally)
17
@m.pipik
Yes! Shot on 68th St. between Amsterdam Ave. and West End Ave. which does not exist any more. The abandoned building you see in the background of the dance sequence were razed to make way for Lincoln Towers.
1
Thoroughly enjoyed the article. Currently living in NoCal, I grew up in No Jersey, worked in Manhattan for years and got to know NYC very well. Possible to shed light on how the names of five boroughs came about? Thanks!
15
@Gregory Ciurczak As some of the comments indicate, the Bronx is named for Jonas Bronck, and Brooklyn for a town in the Netherlands. Manhattan stems from a Native American word describing a place with hills and tidal rivers. Queens honors Catherine of Braganza, wife of Charles II, king when the city became British in 1664. Staten Island refers the States General, similar to a legislature in 17th century Holland.
27
@Gregory Ciurczak
It took about 15 seconds to find this link--
https://www.hellobigapple.net/how-did-the-boroughs-of-new-york-city-get-their-names/
1
@m.pipik many thanks for the link
1
Though I have visited New York, I'm neither from New York, nor have any family there. I do however love word origins and am a historian so this is right up my alley. This was a very fun read, even if most of the places are unfamiliar to me. I really wish every town in America would do something similar. Thank you for bringing local history to the masses.
65
I grew up in Astoria and for any one old enough to remember the old telephone exchanges they were a key to the old neighborhood place names. My first telephone number started with RA4 which was short for Ravenswood. My aunt’s number started with YE2 which was short for Yellowstone. Some friends had AS which was short for Astoria of course. And others had LI which was short for Long Island City. Indeed my high school was named Long Island City High School which also is another key to old neighborhood names.
46
In Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, our exchange was HYacinth.
A friend's was STerling. Another's was ULster.
In Manhattan, my aunt's was NE, which I think stood for NEtherland.
A lovelier world.
38
@B. Yes, we lived on E 82nd Street in Yorkville. Our phone exchange was LE for Lexington. Thanks for the memories.
22
@Vicky
My parents' number started with GE for Gedney. I've always wondered what that stood for. We lived in Brooklyn, near Old New Utrecht Road (it's still there!), and I always assumed it was Dutch.
We have the same number, more than 50 years later, but now it's known as "43." Not nearly as intriguing :(.
Our business number began with PE for Pennsylvania. The business was a couple of blocks over from Penn Station. All my life, it reminded me of a wonderful song by the Glen Miller Band, "Pennsylvania 6-5000."
Now, of course, that prefix is the much more mundane "73."
16
The Upper West Side is, of course, named for the great Austro-Hungarian shipping magnate Üpir Fester Tzeid, who opened a bagel-and-lox emporium in the neighborhood at the turn of the 19th Century, which was eventually put out of business after losing business to Zabar's. (Mr. Tzeid was also the inspiration for Uncle Fester in "The Aadams Family," but that's a different story.)
116
@Jay
And of course there was his brother, Löer Äster Tzeid, who feuded with Üpir and moved across Manhattan next to the East River. The two never spoke after the move and only met one more time before they died, running into each other in Central Park, then proceeding to beat upon each other with their canes until separated by passers-by.
62
@Jay, My wife, who is of Hungarian ancestry disputes this. The main Hungarian neighborhood (also for Germans and Czechs) was on the higher upper East Side and was disparagingly named "Yuckville", until it was renamed Yorkville after the First World War in honor of Sgt. Alvin York, a hero of that war, who was played by Gary Cooper in the movie of that name. There is still some dispute over whether Cooper was named after Gary, Indiana or Cooperstown, NY.
21
@Jay
Austria-Hungary used to have a navy. No joke. In 1866 they fought a major naval battle against Italy in the Adriatic Sea. The Austrians won.
The Italian fleet's flagship was built by a shipyard on the East River. The Austrians gave her the deep six.
12
I’ve always called Vinegar Hill by that name. I’ve never known it to be called anything else. Real estate companies may think they’re rebranding a neighborhood but the residents usually know better.
40
@Jonathan Janov
Lol, it’ll always be Hell’s Kitchen to me!
1
In Manhattan, Lincoln Square and Lincoln Center are named for the family who had a farm there when it was first settled by Europeans, not for Abraham Lincoln as most people think.
30
@Karen The origin of the name has been much debated over the years since it was first adopted in 1906. There are no property records for anyone named "Lincoln" in the area. While still mysterious, the President seems the most likely source of the name.
18
The Carroll Gardens entry is perplexing. How does it make sense that Park Slope, Carroll Gardens and Boerum Hill were considered South Brooklyn when the southern border was 3 miles distant?
And, the First Italian-focused church "between Brooklyn and Montauk"...you mean, the first of its kind on Long Island? Or was there already one in Montauk? If so, why not say between a place with another extant Italian church and Montauk? If you are talking about something in a place why would you indicate it as being between that place and another place?
9
@Clotario South Brooklyn was simply the historic name of this area; it comes from the fact that the original Village of Brooklyn (circa 1816) was concentrated around the foot of Fulton Street. The author is jumping the gun when he brings in 60th Street---those areas were incorporated into "Brooklyn" in 1894. The term South Brooklyn stuck for Red Hook and surrounding areas well into recent times, but only among older residents. Now, it is used in its more geographic sense.
As far as Sacred Hearts... yes, author could've used a Catholic editor. What he means is that Sacred Hearts, founded in 1884, was the first Italian "national parish," in the Diocese of Brooklyn. National Parish was a term, no longer used much, wherein immigrants from a certain national group would worship at the church that used their language and understood their culture, regardless of where they may have lived (parish in the traditional sense, being a fixed geographic area).
In short, he should've just said the first Italian national parish on Long Island---even through or perhaps in the outer boroughs (since they existed already in Manhattan), for people who think of Long Island as Nassau and Suffolk Counties, where to be sure, there were no Italian national parishes in 1884 and wouldn't be until well into the 20th century!
22
@Clotario Legends re: Brooklyn neighborhood names -
The geographical area of the City of Brooklyn expanded significantly over time. For a period, its southern border was District Street (now Atlantic Avenue). When the city expanded, the areas south of Atlantic Avenue became "South Brooklyn". (today's Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Red Hook). All of South Brooklyn, too, was once Red Hook, although the BQE helped accelerate the distinction of the areas.
As referenced in the article, a regiment from Maryland (the Maryland 400) valiantly delayed the British advance during the Battle of Brooklyn at a site now known as the Old Stone House. This site is across Gowanus Canal from now Carroll Gardens. Charles Carroll, who signed the Declaration of Independence, was a famous Marylander, link to the Maryland 400, and is believed to be the Carroll of local street and neighborhood names.
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@Clotario yes, that phrase was odd, but St. Stephen’s Church Actually is in Carroll Gardens, and, as I read it, there were no Italian focused churches to the East of there until you reached Montauk (but I haven’t been there). My late aunt and uncle were married in St Stephen’s church. I did not know that Carroll Gardens was named for Maryland’s Charles Carroll, nor did I know that the Graniteville Staten Island’s “granite” isn’t actually granite. There are lots of interesting and historic names on Staten Island that are worth exploring (Huguenot, anyone?)
Thanks to the author for this interesting article.
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Where did Allerton come from? I ask because my mother is from Allerton, Liverpool, and I always wondered if the two were linked
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@Neil I grew up in the adjacent neighborhood of "Pelham Parkway". We all attended Columbus HS. The area was named for Daniel Allerton who owned the large farm which he and his wife settled.
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@Neil
According to Wikipedia, "It is named in honor of Daniel Allerton, an early Bronx settler who purchased and farmed this area with his wife Hustace."
Perhaps Danny came from Liverpool?
@Neil Answered my own question, if Wikipedia is accurate: " It is named in honor of Daniel Allerton, an early Bronx settler who purchased and farmed this area with his wife Hustace"
I grew up in Allerton. Of course, we never called it that. We called it Williamsbridge. Or is that a different neighborhood?
Anyway, my mother was active in local politics. She was instrumental in getting a library for the neighborhood -- the Allerton Branch of the New York Public Library.
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@Joel Solonche Allerton Ave ran from just west of White Plains Road all the way to Williamsbridge Road. I attended Columbus HS and we served the student who lived in Allerton, Williamsbridge ( both sided of Pel Pkway) and the area known as Pelham Parkway, both north and south sides.
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@USNA73
I went to Evander Childs HS on Gun Hill Road.
I understand it is no longer a high school.
Thanks for a wonderful and fascinating article! This fourth generation Brooklynite, long in exile in Miami, remembers hearing some of the old names from grandparents.
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@June Teufel Dreyer
Fear not, Ms. Dreyer. You're in the "6th Borough."
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