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September 4, 2007
Southern Border of Bed-Stuy?
What is the southern boundary of Bedford-Stuyvesant?
Atlantic Ave?
Sterling Pl?
Eastern Pkwy?
Comments
Atlantic Ave.
Posted by: guest at September 4, 2007 8:40 PM
Atlantic.
Posted by: guest at September 4, 2007 9:55 PM
A grerat reference book is the Neighborhoods of Brooklyn by Jackson and Manbeck published by Yale University Press. It puts the border between Bed Stuy and Crown Heights several blocks to he south, to approximately Prospect Place. This encompasses the hsitoirc black communities of Carrville and Weeksville. Obviously there is never one right answer to these questions.
Posted by: Putnamdenizen at September 5, 2007 9:47 AM
Interesting, Putnamdenizen. When was that published?
I know Bed Stuy has always claimed Weeksville as its own, even though technically it is part of Crown Heights, being on the other side of Atlantic Ave. But I think that is more of a cultural affiliation, not geographic. It's just easier to see the dividing line as Atlantic, anyway. Because of its width and the LIRR line, it makes a good neighborhood border. Not that it matters, both neighborhoods have similar populations, and share the train line, banks, shopping, etc.
Posted by: Montrose Morris at September 5, 2007 1:32 PM
1998. Obviously neighborhoods end whereever we say they end. And what may seem like a natural border to some, may seem like a main street of a unified neighborhood to others (as in the Rhine River and the border between France and Germany).
Posted by: Putnamdenizen at September 5, 2007 3:49 PM
FWIW, the southern boundary was considered to be Eastern Parkway when I moved to Brooklyn in 1970 and was so defined in the Brownstone Revival Committee's guide to brownstone neighborhoods. I guess the term Crown Heights North hadn't yet been coined.
OTOH Ruby Ford, who represented the neighborhoods [PLURAL]of Bedford and Stuyvesant Heights at meetings of the Brooklyn Brownstone Conference insisted that there was no such neighborhood as Bedford-Stuyvesant, a name which. shev maintained, had been coined in the '50s by the Daily News to describe any predominantly black Brooklyn neighborhood that figured in one of their crime stories.
Neighborhood names are rather amorphous and some brownstone area names [i.e. Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens, and my own Prospect Lefferts Gardens]were completely made up in the '60s.
Does it really matter?
Posted by: Bob Marvin at September 5, 2007 5:02 PM
So true Bob. When I lived in Bed Stuy in the early 80's, any crime that involved black people took place in Bed Stuy, no matter where in Brooklyn that was. There were only a few neighborhoods in Brooklyn then, according to the media: Brooklyn Heights, Red Hook, Bed Stuy, Flatbush, Bensonhurst and Coney Island. Park Slope had only recently been rediscovered, and barely made the list.
Posted by: guest at September 5, 2007 11:53 PM
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