interesting from nyt: Q. I grew up on Ellwood Street, in Inwood, Manhattan. I suspect that all the streets around me (Sherman and Nagle Avenues, Sickles, Thayer and Arden Streets and Bogardus and Dongan Places) are derived from the Civil War. Am I right? A. Surprisingly, not a single one of those street names comes from the Civil War, even though Sylvanus Thayer, William T. Sherman and Daniel E. Sickles were famous Union officers. Donald Rice, a historian of northern Manhattan, explained the street names’ local origin. Thayer Street, he noted, was named in 1911 for Francis Thayer, a lawyer active in improving the area. Sherman Avenue’s name comes from the Sherman family, whose members lived on a little waterway known as Sherman’s Creek for more than a century, beginning in 1807. Sickles Street derives from Zachariah Sickels, who arrived in New Harlem in 1693 and whose descendants acquired various local properties. Arden Street was given the name of a butcher and Revolutionary War private named Jacob Arden. Bogardus Place was named in 1912 for the Bogardus family, which arrived in America in 1633 and later included James Bogardus, the noted designer of 19th-century cast-iron buildings. Dongan Place came from Thomas Dongan, the first Roman Catholic governor of the colonial province of New York (1683-1688). Nagle Avenue was named for Jan Nagle (or Nagel), a Dutch soldier who bought land here in 1677. The only street you named whose derivation is a mystery to Mr. Rice and his sources is your own, Ellwood Street, which was laid out in 1891 and named in 1911. nytimes/2013/07/28/nyregion/answers-to-questions-about-new-york.html?ref=nyregion&_r=0
Posted on: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 00:55:35 +0000
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