Brooklyn By Name: How the Neighborhoods, Streets, Parks, Bridges, and More Got Their Names

1 Northern Brooklyn - Bushwick, Greenpoint, Williamsburg

1 | Northern Brooklyn Bushwick, Greenpoint, Williamsburg A map of Northern Brooklyn appears on the following pages. 6 | Williamsburg Stoop Scene, 1970s | 7 Greenpoint waterfront, 1992 Map of the City of Williamsburgh with part of Greenpoint, 1852 Settled by the Canarsee Indians, Northern Brooklyn was originally known as Cripplebush for the cripplebush or scrub-oak trees that were predominant in the area. Sold to the Dutch West India Company in 1638, the largely swamp-filled region would come to be the preserve of this chapter’s three principal neighborhoods: Bushwick, Greenpoint, and Williamsburg. In 1661, three years prior to New Amsterdam’s fall, Governor General Peter Stuyvesant named and helped patent the new town of Boswijck. Dutch for “town in the woods,” or as some have argued “heavy woods,” it became one of Kings County’s six original towns. Arriving at the tail end of the Dutch period, the name had only a brief existence, being anglicized to Bushwick soon after the British takeover. Topographical considerations were also relevant in the naming of Bushwick ’s neighbor, Greenpoint. Originally referring to a point of land covered by grass and jutting beyond the shoreline, Greenpoint is said to have been bestowed its name by seventeenth-century sailors who traveled past. The designation was eventually extended to the entire area—today’s Greenpoint neighborhood. Though Greenpoint is reputedly the birthplace of the patois “Brooklynese”—a version of the Kings (County) English—no names have been changed to reflect that cultural reality. Similarly bounded by the East River, Williamsburg was the brainchild of Richard Woodhull, a ferry operator who purchased thirteen acres of Charles Titus’s farm in 1802. Woodhull commissioned his friend Col. Jonathan Williams (1750–1815)—U.S. engineer, first superintendent of West Point, and grandnephew to Revolutionary giant Benjamin Franklin—to survey the land. Woodhull honored his comrade by naming Williamsburg after him. Until 1855 the neighborhood had a decisive “h” at the end: Williamsburgh , that is. Yet consolidation into the city of Brooklyn (after a brief period of independence, 1852–55, as a chartered city) stripped the final “h” away. The lost “h” today can be found only on the Williamsburgh Savings northern brooklyn | 11 Bank. (For consistency, Williamsburg is written sans “h” in the entries here unless part of a formal name.) Having absorbed Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and Bushwick in 1855, Brooklyn’s size doubled overnight. In its changed configuration, northern Brooklyn for a time took on a different regional name and became known as Brooklyn’s Eastern District, in contrast to traditional Brooklyn to its west. The last nomenclatural holdout from that period, Bushwick’s Eastern District High-School, succumbed only a few years ago. Upon incorporation with Brooklyn in 1855, Greenpoint and Bushwick were forced to change some street names to avoid confusion. For example, Henry Street in Greenpoint was changed to North Henry to differentiate it from South Brooklyn’s Henry Street. Greenpoint also developed an acrostic naming system with alphabetical and numbered streets, later changed to named ones. Finally, many streets in Williamsburg were renamed to honor signers of the Declaration of Independence. Ainslie Street James Ainslie was for many years a local judge and school district trustee in Williamsburg. In 1847 Ainslie was counted as one of forty-four persons in the town with a net worth in excess of $10,000. Anthony Street Possibly named for Susan B(rownell) Anthony (1820–1906), who dedicated her life to the struggle for women’s suffrage and other progressive causes. With Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, Anthony founded the National Woman’s Suffrage Association in 1868. Anthony spoke publicly in Brooklyn quite often. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported her affirming that “a woman is a person, a person is a citizen and a citizen has a right to vote.” Arion Place Formerly Wall Street, it was renamed after Arion Hall, a nineteenth -century Bushwick concert venue. The associated Arion Society was a choral group and musical society begun by immigrant Germans. In Greek mythology, Arion refers to a seventh-century BC poet and lyre player. Ash Street Once A Street, the red and white coal ash common to the industrial locale is the probable source for the renaming. Astral Apartments (184 Franklin Street between India and Java streets) Named for Charles Pratt’s Astral Oil Works, these apartments...