Brooklyn By Name

From Bedford-Stuyvesant to Williamsburg, Brooklyn's historic names are emblems of American culture and history. Uncovering the remarkable stories behind the landmarks, "Brooklyn By Name" takes readers on a stroll through the streets and places of this thriving metropolis to reveal the borough's textured past. Listing more than 500 of Brooklyn's most prominent place names, organized alphabetically by region, and richly illustrated with photographs and current maps, the book captures the diverse threads of American history. We learn about the Canarsie Indians, the region's first settlers, whose language survives in daily traffic reports about the Gowanus Expressway. The arrival of the Dutch West India Company in 1620 brought the first wave of European names, from Boswijck ("town in the woods," later Bushwick) to Bedford-Stuyvesant, after the controversial administrator of the Dutch colony, to numerous places named after prominent Dutch families like the Bergens. The English takeover of the area in 1664 led to the Anglicization of Dutch names, (vlackebos, meaning "wooded plain," became Flatbush) and the introduction of distinctively English names (Kensington, Brighton Beach). A century later the American Revolution swept away most Tory monikers, replacing them with signers of the Declaration of Independence and international figures who supported the revolution such as Lafayette (France), De Kalb (Germany), and Kosciuszko (Poland). We learn too of the dark corners of Brooklyn's past, encountering over 70 streets named for prominent slaveholders like Lefferts and Lott but none for its most famous abolitionist, Walt Whitman. From the earliest settlements to recent commemorations, such as Malcolm X Boulevard, "Brooklyn By Name" tells the tales of the poets, philosophers, baseball heroes, diplomats, warriors, and saints who have left their imprint on this polyethnic borough that was once almost disastrously renamed "New York East."