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?
When I moved to Park Slope 25 years ago, I lived in the much-maligned south Slope. Now the same block is quite definitely situated in the much-coveted center Slope. Will I ever use either of those monikers to describe where I live? Never.
Am I better or different because I live north, center or south? Did my living here have anything to do with the changing boundaries? When people ask where I live,
I tell them I live in Brooklyn near Prospect Park, and I give them the cross-streets. Same way I have for every other place I’ve ever lived in Brooklyn (described by local feature whose name they might recognize, and followed by an intersection). Very provincial, very old-school Brooklyn. Very happy that, by reflex, I still call Manhattan, big as it is, “the City.”
People in Riverdale don’t even say they live in the Bronx. One of my friends in college from there told me that Riverdale is in Manhattan. I find out later that Marble Hill is really the only part of Manhattan on the continental US. Even Park Slope is North and South. When a neighborhood is too big people start splitting it up.. Most people from NYC tell people that they are from NYC and not just NY. NY is a good size state and many want to make it clear they they live in the section of the state.. I think the same goes with neighborhoods that are large like Bedford Stuyvesant.
What’s the difference between living in Yonkers and living in Riverdale? But you know how many people who live a few blocks from the “dividing line” would rather say they live in Riverdale than say they live in Yonkers, even when their zip code says otherwise. Some percentage of people who want to say they live in Stuyvesant Heights will say that because of their many-generation history and neighborhood pride, and some percentage will say that because they want to quickly communicate that they’re in the neighborhood but “above” the neighborhood, not quite part of the neighborhood, or different in one way or another from existing stereotypes. It’s not unlike newcomers to Brooklyn who might be willing to name their neighborhood (because of it’s reflected cachet) but certainly don’t want you to confuse them with being native Brooklynites. In my childhood of the 50s, most people named their neighborhood by their block, because right around the corner was someone else’s block and someone else’s turf. I’d hate to see us return to that. The difference of opinion on place-names speaks to how multi-faceted your original question and how even more complex the underlying issues.
FWIW I was told (in the ’70s) that the name Bedford Stuyvesant was coined in the ’50s by the tabloid newspapers to describe any predominantly black Brooklyn neighborhood that was the location for one of their crime stories.
Whats the difference between now and 1950 when somepeople starting calling the area Bed-Stuy? Some of the old timers of that period might have been upset with that name. I know the older people in my family always told us they lived in Bedford Area and they came to the area in the early 1930s.
Bedford Stuyvesant is a VERY large area. Perhaps Flatbush, also very large and generally broken up into the various neighborhoods of Victorian Flatbush, plus PLG, and lots of un-named areas in between, could be a precedent for developing separate identities within the larger area.
The desire to create separate identities for parts of Bedford Stuyvesant is hardly new. When I represented PLG at the old Brooklyn Brownstone Conference in the 70s, Ruby Ford, who attended meetings for a group called (IIRC) Brownstoners of Bedford Stuyvesant, always insisted that she was representing the neighborhoods (plural) of Bedford and Stuyvesant Heights.
When someone from Harlem tells me they live in Hamilton Heights or Mt. Morris Park I get a good idea of where they are in Harlem. Like Susan I think it helps.
yeah i lived in two places when i lived in harlem. first in morningside heights and then in hamilton heights. when people asked me where i lived i would alway say harlem. if they wanted to know i guess specifically which area then yeah id say either boringside heights or hamilton gunfights.
bed stuy should just stay bed stuy.
i work in soho and i can’t stand the nolita and noho monikers.
*Rob*
Susan: your comments are exactly among the reasons why I would argue against a name change (and I’m still turning the whole question over in my mind, not arguing one way or another). But to your point, the refusal to drive to Bed-Stuy lies in deep-seated cultural prejudices and fears, quickly learned and hard to overcome. A name change is unlikely to produce the mental, spiritual and cultural shift that would make “otherness” and cultural diversity less frightening to average folks who may not even be conscious of where their hesitations and fears come from.