Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Brooklynites, did you know Empire Boulevard was originally Malbone Street, but was renamed after a devastating 1918 Brighton Beach Line train accident there that killed more than 90 people? Did you know that parts of DeGraw St. in Park Slope were renamed Lincoln Place in 1873 because a famous murder there had caused the street name to be tainted by association? This book is full of amazing name origins like these. It opened my eyes to the tumultuous history of my city and the remnants that are everywhere, once you know where to look. Get this book and impress your smartalecky Brooklyn friends with your obscure wisdom!

I thought I would leaf through a few pages and that would be enough. Was I wrong! I literally could not stop reading this marvelous work. It is immensely readable, beautifully written and funny, to boot.

Brooklyn has several patterns of street numbering, but streets that carry names of people add the presence of those folk, yes, even if the named are deceased! Congratulations to authors Leonard Benardo and Jennifer Weiss for the scholarship and style that went into this handy, fascinating book of Brooklyn neighborhoods and names. A few years ago, when a friend inquired about Maujer Street, Williamsburg, where she grew up, I inquired at the nearby branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. We learned he was a local alderman, but the informative source was only a few typed pages of Brookyn street names. "Brooklyn by Name" has come to the rescue. I believe it is the first book published on this topic. Arranged geographically into eight chapters, it is aided by well-selected and helpful photos. The authors introduce the history of the region, then explain the street names alphabetically. The book's index is complete, not limited to street names, but including famous Brooklynites mentioned in the volume. As for The Bronx, James McNamara spent his lifetime compiling and revising his "History in Asphalt." Two books have been published about Manhattan stret names. As far as I know, no author has published a guide of Queens street names nor those of Staten Island. "Brooklyn by Name" is a model of the genre.

Wonderfully informative and interesting book for anyone from Brooklyn or interested in the great borough.

This is a wonderfully enjoyable read: informative, witty, original. And I'm not even from New York!

This book was a real treat to read. I'm always interested in why places are called what they are. This book is one that will be read again and again.

Overall, this book is an acceptable read. The authors could have done their homework while researching the histories of a number of street names. Using historical maps would have provided correct street names, such as Ewen Street, not Avenue.

Calling "Brooklyn By Name" a well researched and concise compilation is stretching the facts. Most of Greenpoint, Williamsburg and other neighborhoods north of DUMBO were superficially covered. I suppose that the authors are residents of Park Slope or Brooklyn Heights. Most denizens of these two neighborhoods have an elitist attitude when commentating outside their enclave.

It seems that "Brooklyn By Name" was written with non-native hipsters in mind. As a teaching aid, I would recommend "Brooklyn's Eastern District" by Eugene Armbruster (1942). It's somewhat outdated; but, it contains much more concise historical information written by a preeminent scholar and historian of all things Brooklyn.

If this review comes across as an overly harsh critque of "Brooklyn By Name", it's because I'm a lifelong resident of "The Borough of Churches"; and, it irks me to no end when obvious obvious ommisions and errors are made.

Overall, BROOKLYN BY NAME is a fascinating concordance, providing capsule descriptions and interesting factoids about hundreds of streets and sites in my home town.

Having been six separate cities, then one unified city, and then a borough of New York City, Brooklyn has a rich and varied history. Its numerous neighborhoods each have their own distinct personalities as befits an amalgam of small clustered villages, which, much like London, is what they were and still are, and BROOKLYN BY NAME confirms this.

On the down side, the book simply does not have enough photographs. Nor does it do a particularly good job of discussing the histories of the six original cities of Kings County, why they amalgamated, and why they amalgamated the way they amalgamated. The authors admit that the book is not exhaustive, and there are some odd deficiencies; an entire section of Canarsie is missing, both from the maps and the listings. The often-odd names of the islands in Jamaica Bay (technically in Queens) are not mentioned, Canarsie Pol among them.

It really is a case of the forest for the trees. Although our Brooklyn walking tour-in-print divides the borough into workable sections and lists street after street, personage after personage, and building after building, "Brooklyn" the fourth largest city in America almost but not quite gets lost among all the details. Although this is a reference guide, not a social history, a little on the unique Brooklyn sense of self (nobody's ever proud of being from Staten Island, but Brooklyn is a different story), would have made a nice finishing touch to the book. Somewhat expanded entries (they should have been further expanded) on such topics as the Brooklyn Bridge and the Dodgers do give us some sense of a unifying thread.

No true Brooklynite calls himself a "New Yorker," and Walter O'Malley is STILL hated fifty years later for taking our beloved Bums to Lost Angeles; the Borough of Churches (how many?) has never been the same.

Still, history unfolds as you walk your Brooklyn roads with this little book in hand. Welcome home.

THREE-AND-A-HALF STARS

So many memories were relived. Some forgotten and some never known about. Lived on Ovington Ave. for years and never knew how it got its name.
This is the Brooklyn of my youth and the one I want to remember.
I'll share this book along with my memories with my children of how it was in 'the good old days'.
Even if you never lived here or visited Brooklyn this book lets you see its history and charm like it really was. It's not only a tour of its many sections but also a peek into the heart of it.
Molla

A well-designed, carefully researched, and long overdue introduction to the history of Brooklyn through its place names. Both residents and visitors intrigued by the County of Kings and its colorful past will want to take this companion on their roamings across the borough.

Some of the entries are overly pedantic. For instance: "Like neighboring Neptune Avenue, Mermaid Avenue suggests the fantastical, otherwordly seaside excitement of Coney Island." Duh! At least the auhors assume we can figure out "Surf Avenue" on our own. At the same time, some figures, like Lady Deborah Moody, who founded Gravesend as a utopian community, get short shrift.

Given its range and accuracy, however, I'd call it an indispensable guide.