Bed-Stuy Landmark Name Change
House for sale/let in the Bedford Section. Brand new three story plus basement in Stuyvesant Heights. These are the ads that you would see 120 years ago in the Brooklyn news papers. I was looking at an old map of the Bedford Stuyvesant area and the neighborhood was split up into areas such as Tompkins…
House for sale/let in the Bedford Section. Brand new three story plus
basement in Stuyvesant Heights. These are the ads that you would see
120 years ago in the Brooklyn news papers. I was looking at an old map
of the Bedford Stuyvesant area and the neighborhood was split up into
areas such as Tompkins Park (or East Brooklyn), Bedford Corners (or
Hancock Heights) and Stuyvesant Heights. When many outsiders hear the name Bed-Stuy the first thing that comes to mind is someplace negative. It is true that in the 1980s and early 1990s it was a time when the area was full of crime and drugs. Bed-Stuy is a rather
new name that started in middle of the last century. Could a name
change be good for the neighborhood? As many of you know Bedford Stuyvesant is in the process of landmarking different sections of the neighborhood such as Bedford Corners Historic District, Agate and Alice Ct Historic District, Ocean Hill Historic District and extending Stuyvesant Heights Historic District. Do you think a name change is what it
takes to draw higher end businesses into the area? Right now we are starting all over again with landmarking. It was started in the mid 80s but someone dropped the ball.
What do you think about the breaking up of the area and going back to the Victorian names?
Amzi, I’ve heard of the St. Mark’s District, or St. Mark’s in literature I’ve come across. Bedford has always seemed to be around Fulton/Bedford/Atlantic, so it now encompasses parts of both what we now call Bed Stuy and Crown Heights North. Then you also have Crow Hill, of course.
Brower Park used to be Bedford Park, maybe the St. Mark’s area was also called that, as well, to expand it from just St Mark’s Ave. itself.
I love this stuff!
Bedford Stuyvesant is HUGE.. I find it funny when people say they want to buy in Bedford Stuyvesant but closer to the Clinton Hill side.. Little do they know is that the neighborhood is more handsome architecturally closer to the south and east. Bedford Corners is nothing to look down at you have some of the best streets in NYC like Hancock and Jefferson with Montrose Morris buildings still very much in tack. You have have great little two story homes in the east closer to Ocean Hill and you have grand homes in the Stuyvesant Heights Section. While the neighborhood has been raped architecturally by developers from outside the area in the northern section near Bushwick and Williamsburg you still find gems.
Vinca,
FWIW, I recall hearing teenagers referring to Manhattan as “New York” when I lived in the South Slope in the early ’70s. They’re not THAT old today–or, at least, they’re younger that me–it’s all relative.:-)
Dave, I have admit, I cracked up laughing at the thought of telling a cabbie that I’d like to go to Bedford Corners. He might think I’m delusional, that I think I’m Donna Reed looking for Jimmie Stuart.
You know, it’s simply a question of practicality. All you folks who are reading class distinctions into the discussion are over-thinking it (though I appreciate your thoughtfulness). This name division will happen naturally just as it has in other neighborhoods. We already hear “South-Stuy”, so what’s the difference if the name is designated rather than evolved? And it’s not even a phony designation. Those involved are drawing upon history.
Fortunately for me, Bob, I’m old enough to know better, but not old enough to call the City “New York.” Grateful for small blessings and a brain that can sometimes still count them…
“very old-school Brooklyn. Very happy that, by reflex, I still call Manhattan, big as it is, ‘the City.'”
Having grown up in Queens, I still call Manhattan “the City” but AFAIK, REAL old-school Brooklynites refer to that borough as “New York” (referring to the days before the mistake of 1898) 🙂
Montrose or NOP have you ever heard of St. Marks Heights or Bedford Heights. I seen those names many times when talking about Crown Heights North in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle from 1886-1902+…
I think the notion to subdivide can come from both ways, positive and negative, as most here have said. I’ve said in other threads of this nature, that Harlem has long been subdivided into Hamilton Hts, Striver’s Row, Sugar Hill, etc,etc. I think those names help give a definite pride of place, especially to an area that may have bad connotations as a whole. All three of the above names were tony, much sought after parts of Harlem for those better off, or more famous, so there is always the snob factor, which can never be discounted. The same goes for sub dividing Bed Stuy, where Stuyvesant Hts has more snob appeal than whatever one would call over there by Nostrand/Willoughby.
Bed Stuy is so very large, some dividing up is inevitable. In that inevitability will always be the propensity to assert that Stuy Hts is better than Bedford Corners, is better than Thompkins Park, is better than…..I still call Harlem, Harlem, and Bed Stuy is Bed Stuy.
I usually have to break it down to give directions or to give someone a better idea WHERE in Bed Stuy I’m talking about, so neighborhood names are inevitable. Cabs don’t want to go to any part of Brooklyn other than the Hts and the Slope anyway, so I usually get in, give an address, and then directions, if necessary. After they get there, I told them they were in Bed Stuy, or Crown Heights. Most of the drivers, if they didn’t know, were usually shocked to find they weren’t in the middle of hell, after all.