Cambridge and Gates: A History Lesson
We picked up an awesome new book this week by Leonard Benardo and Jennifer Weiss (check out photos on their blog), called Brooklyn By Name that provides the historical background behind most of the place names in the borough. We’re sure it’s going to be an invaluable reference for us going forward. Today, we thought…
We picked up an awesome new book this week by Leonard Benardo and Jennifer Weiss (check out photos on their blog), called Brooklyn By Name that provides the historical background behind most of the place names in the borough. We’re sure it’s going to be an invaluable reference for us going forward. Today, we thought we’d give you all a tast by taking a look at an intersection not far from Brownstoner HQ. And we quote…
Cambridge Place: The name comes from London’s Cambridge Terrace, one of the exclusive terraces lining Regency Park. Cambridge Place was originally Ryerson Place for the early Dutch Ryerszen family and later Trotter Street for Jonathan Trotter, Brooklyn’s second mayor from 1835 to 1836.
Gates Avenue: Born in England, Horatio Gates (1727-1806) served with George Washington in the French and Indian War as a member of the British Army. He later moved to Virginia with his family, where he became active in revolutionary politics. By 1777 Gates was supreme commander in the north and orchestrated the pivotal American victory at Saratoga, which helped bring France into the war. His success was such that some contend that his followers tried to replace Washington with him. Yet miserable failure at South Carolina’s Battle of Camden in 1780 led to his own replacement by Nathanael Greene [of nearby Greene Avenue].
Excerpted from Brooklyn By Name, NYU Press, 2006.
My favorite is Kosciuszo, who was a Polish general that engineered the massive chain that was suspended across the Hudson River near West Point during the Revolutionary War, preventing British ships from traveling up it, and was also later one of the leaders of the Polish revolution. He was also appatently a guest of Horatio Gates while in the states, appopriate enough as they’re consecutive J-train stops.
Interesting spin on historic names. What makes it snooty? Just cause they are predominantly English in origin? They reflect the leaders of the day. As far as not big enough to be called an Avenue, Washington and Clinton certainly deserve the moniker. Perhaps given the Franco nature of FG today we should rename the lesser streets “Rue”. After this summer I nominate renaming Putnam as Ho Row, and Irving as Crack Walk. Oh, I guess that might decrease my property values.
Snooty names. Try the heights for that.
I hope they’re working on Volume II because they left out a lot of streets that were renamed earlier last century, to name one, President St between Smith & Hoyt used to be gated and was called Secor Place. Would love to know the history on that.
I’ve always gotten a chuckle out of the fact that most of the streets in Clinton Hill have snooty names:
Vanderbilt Avenue
Washington Avenue
Clinton Avenue
Cambridge Place
Grand Avenue
I also love the fact that streets that really aren’t quite wide enough to seriously be considered avenues, are called avenues rather than the more proletarian “street”.
Have you noticed that most of the avenues in that area are named after generals?
Lafayette
DeKalb
Gates
Greene
Washington
Clinton