From Rhode Island Farm to Brooklyn Battlefield: How Fort Greene Got Its Name

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

From the Brooklyn Academy of Music to the BRIC arts organization, Fort Greene is rife with cultural institutions and Brooklyn pride.

Home to Fort Greene Park (Brooklyn’s first), the hulking Brooklyn Technical High School, prestigious Pratt Institute and the famous Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower at 1 Hanson Place, it is truly a neighborhood of superlatives. Even the former residents are notable, including Walt Whitman, Richard Wright and Spike Lee.

The nabe is named for a Rhode Islander, the Revolutionary War general and military strategist Nathanael Greene. The son of a Quaker farmer, Greene surveyed the creation of Fort Putnam, a military garrison erected during the Battle of Brooklyn, and played a key role in enabling Washington’s East River retreat.

Today, the neighborhood is known for its abundance of large-scale cultural and educational institutions and its housing stock of Italianate brownstones.

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