Brownstoner takes on Brooklyn history in Nabe Names, a series of briefs on the origins and surprising stories of neighborhood nomenclature.

The English roots are in name alone in Kensington, a small residential nabe populated by pre-war brick co-ops and detached Victorians, rowhouses, apartment buildings and American Foursquare homes.

Located just south of Windsor Terrace, Prospect Park and Green-Wood Cemetery, the area is known for its relative affordability and ever-lessening “under-the-radar” status. While it is adjacent to Windsor Terrace and shares its neighbor’s British name origins, Kensington is proliferated by far fewer American flags and columned porches, and has a distinctive diversity, with a mix of South Asian, Orthodox Jewish, Russian, Caribbean and Australian residents, not to mention more than 300 immigrants from Darfur.

Its title, like much of its population, also originates overseas: Kensington is named for London’s eponymous western borough, which also contains Chelsea. The name didn’t stick until after Ocean Parkway, which cuts down the nabe’s center, was completed in the late 1800s. Following both its naming and the completion of this main thoroughfare, residential development in the area began in the 1920s, and Italian and Irish immigrants flocked there.

While modern British culture in the area today is lacking, English titles are ubiquitous in apartment-building names and streets throughout the area, like Albemarle and Beverley roads. Such titles were meant to convey an air of sophistication.

The G train is sometimes rerouted through the neighborhood. Photo via Forgotten NY
The G train is sometimes rerouted through the neighborhood. Photo via Forgotten NY
kensington brooklyn
Photo via Street Advisor

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