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Neighborhoods, Names, and Shocking Revelations
The borders of Park Slope and its slightly-less-contested neighbors (Windsor Terrace, Gowanus, Sunset Park, and Prospect Heights) are always a lively topic. Add in the seemingly newly-named Greenwood Heights and South Slope, and you've got a debate on your hands. I'm a curious sort. I decided to do some digging.
I've always considered Park Slope, by definition, to be the-slope-on-the-side-of-the-park, Grand Army Plaza to 15th Street - sloping down to Gowanus. I was wrong. (Historically, at least.)
1890s Brooklyn Eagle items often refer to "the Park Slope" as the block immediately off the park (Prospect Park West). The rest of the neighborhood is repeatedly cited as ... Prospect Heights. (I'm not kidding.) Mirroring that, the church at Eighth Ave and 10th Street was originally named Prospect Heights Presbyterian. Prospect Heights Boys' School was at 51 Seventh Ave. There is record of a law suit to stop a stable from being built in Prospect Heights at Seventh Avenue and Union Street. Check out this notice about a concert by the Prospect Heights Choral Society.
So where does that leave the neighborhood on the other side of Flatbush, currently called Prospect Heights? It was was also Prospect Heights. This photo from the 1940s features holiday carolers at the (still kicking) Prospect Heights High School at 883 Classon.
On the flip-side, an early 1900s newspaper article reports a public water problem. One of the offending water samples was collected from Sixth Avenue near Berkeley... in Park Slope. Seems our ancestors were not as picky about their neighborhood monikers as we are today. Or maybe they were just as conflicted.
On the front-lines of neighbor neighborhoods, tiny Windsor Terrace has seemingly always been Windsor Terrace. At the dawn of the Twentieth Century, a scandalous Brooklyn Eagle article (about a young couple's elopement) quotes the girl's suffering Dad as a resident of Seeley Street in Windsor Terrace.
The Greenwood Baptist Church has stood watch at Seventh Avenue and Sixth Street for decades. Twelve blocks to the southwest, believe it or not, the name "Greenwood Heights" is not a new concept. Over one-hundred years ago, the Greenwood Heights Reformed Church was built at 609 45th Street, in what we would today consider Sunset Park ... but back then, Sunset Park was Bay Ridge.
In the early Twentieth Century, Sunset Park was not specifically a whole neighborhood ... just a park. The name "Sunset Park" grew up with the neighborhood around the public space. The actual park grew too, as pointed out in this Brooklyn Eagle article from September of 1902.
Of course, neighborhoods change, colloquialisms change with them, and our neighborhood names are not a governed, legal issue. (Except for Historic Districts, I guess.) Were I a little more idealistic and a lot more political, I'd suggest a movement called "Brooklyn Without Borders." But I'm not. I just like looking at old newspapers.
All photos and Brooklyn Eagle clippings
courtesy of the Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Collection.
I've always considered Park Slope, by definition, to be the-slope-on-the-side-of-the-park, Grand Army Plaza to 15th Street - sloping down to Gowanus. I was wrong. (Historically, at least.)
1890s Brooklyn Eagle items often refer to "the Park Slope" as the block immediately off the park (Prospect Park West). The rest of the neighborhood is repeatedly cited as ... Prospect Heights. (I'm not kidding.) Mirroring that, the church at Eighth Ave and 10th Street was originally named Prospect Heights Presbyterian. Prospect Heights Boys' School was at 51 Seventh Ave. There is record of a law suit to stop a stable from being built in Prospect Heights at Seventh Avenue and Union Street. Check out this notice about a concert by the Prospect Heights Choral Society.
So where does that leave the neighborhood on the other side of Flatbush, currently called Prospect Heights? It was was also Prospect Heights. This photo from the 1940s features holiday carolers at the (still kicking) Prospect Heights High School at 883 Classon.
On the flip-side, an early 1900s newspaper article reports a public water problem. One of the offending water samples was collected from Sixth Avenue near Berkeley... in Park Slope. Seems our ancestors were not as picky about their neighborhood monikers as we are today. Or maybe they were just as conflicted.
On the front-lines of neighbor neighborhoods, tiny Windsor Terrace has seemingly always been Windsor Terrace. At the dawn of the Twentieth Century, a scandalous Brooklyn Eagle article (about a young couple's elopement) quotes the girl's suffering Dad as a resident of Seeley Street in Windsor Terrace.
The Greenwood Baptist Church has stood watch at Seventh Avenue and Sixth Street for decades. Twelve blocks to the southwest, believe it or not, the name "Greenwood Heights" is not a new concept. Over one-hundred years ago, the Greenwood Heights Reformed Church was built at 609 45th Street, in what we would today consider Sunset Park ... but back then, Sunset Park was Bay Ridge.
In the early Twentieth Century, Sunset Park was not specifically a whole neighborhood ... just a park. The name "Sunset Park" grew up with the neighborhood around the public space. The actual park grew too, as pointed out in this Brooklyn Eagle article from September of 1902.
Of course, neighborhoods change, colloquialisms change with them, and our neighborhood names are not a governed, legal issue. (Except for Historic Districts, I guess.) Were I a little more idealistic and a lot more political, I'd suggest a movement called "Brooklyn Without Borders." But I'm not. I just like looking at old newspapers.
All photos and Brooklyn Eagle clippings
courtesy of the Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Collection.
(Anonymous)
Good Job Icky
I grew up on President Street and "my" neighborhood was South Brooklyn. Since the heart of the City of Brooklyn (during the 19th century) was in Brooklyn Heights, everything to the south of that portion was "South Brooklyn" - even though south Brooklyn is really Coney Island, Canarsie, etc. The City of Brooklyn extended through most of today's Sunset Park (to about 58th Street). Eventually, north of 39th Street was South Brooklyn and 39th to around 60th was loosely "lower" Bay Ridge. The folks who lived in lower bay ridge called their neighborhood bay ridge, but folks in the 60th and south portion called the rascals on the north side of the tracks (old long island railroad cut at 65th) "lower" bay ridge. The area was labeled Sunset Park by city officials to make the area eligible for President Johnson's "great society" funding.
Do you know the story behind the names Red Hook, Yellow Hook and Bay Ridge? tony
Re: Good Job Icky
(Anonymous)
Thanks for the fodder...guns loaded
But heck, we all have great 'nabes, regardless of the current moniker.
--ccgh