A map with a crezy definition of Prospect Heights

Carnivore wrote: [quote=Lo Kee][quote=ams][quote=Carnivore][quote=stah00]dont want to beat a dead horse, but does this mean one side of franklin is crown heights and the other is prospect heights? Doesn't really matter but it would explain all the confusion in past postings.

Both sides of Franklin are Crown Heights. Prospect Heights starts at Washington.


Stop stating your opinion as fact.

What he said.

You guys are like the "Intelligent Design" freaks who want biologists to "teach the controversy" in their classes. :roll:

I share Carny's belief that the border is Washington Ave (despite the fact that I live just east of Washington), but I also share ams/Lo Kee's belief that this is an opinion, not a fact. If nothing, all of these maps show that neighborhood boundaries are unofficial and highly malleable. Like a language, all that's needed to change the boundaries is that the belief be shared by enough individuals, regardless of how or why it was started. NYC has always been a city of change, more so than most cities.

Raulism, can you post the article link?

squindar wrote: Then I looked for early mentions of "Crown Heights" to see when that came into use and didn't find anything before like 1908 or 1910. And then I lost interest. For now, anyway.

I believe Crown Heights is some kind of fancy-pants interloper, the former name being Crow Hill. The hill being the next bump along the ridge after Prospect Heights as you follow Eastern Parkway.

doctorj wrote:
I believe Crown Heights is some kind of fancy-pants interloper, the former name being Crow Hill. The hill being the next bump along the ridge after Prospect Heights as you follow Eastern Parkway.

right. the area was renamed "Crown Heights" after Crown Street (I assume that name was also coined by developers -- it's mentioned in references to apartments and houses "ON the Crown Heights" lah dee dah). I'm not sure when that name came into use...the first mentions in the Times are around 1908 and I don't see any mentions in the Eagle archive, which ends at 1902.

Yer all wrong. Prospect Heights is actually Bedford Hills ...damn newcomers and their fancy renaming crap...

Those hills in Revolutionary days wore covered with woods and, the woodland within the limits of the present City of Brooklyn having been apportioned to the different towns years before, the name of the range had been changed and different sections of the Green Mountains were known by different names. The high hill just east of the park entrance was known as Mount Prospect and the hills generally ceased to named the Green Mountains and became the Mount Prospect range. That portion of the woodland
adjoining Bedford which extended from the park to the Rockaway footpath, which passed through what is now known as the Cemetery of the Evergreens, also became known as the Bedford Hills', while those hills cast of the footpath were known during the Revolution as Bushwick Hills.

As time passed on the Bedford Hills were divided into sections and had different names applied to each. The Battle Pass, in Prospect Park, became Valley Grove. Then came Prospect Hill and Bedford Hills. The Clove road cut through the range just east of what is now Nostrand avenue, and down in
this hollow, just north of the southern city line, Ralph MALBONE, a well known citizen of Brooklyn, laid off a number of city lots and started what was subsquently known as Malboneville, along in the thirties. The exact boundaries of this section it seems impossible to obtain, but it may be set down
as including the section between the Eastern Parkway and the city line, and from Nostrand to New York avenue, although the territory as far west as Rogers and as far east as Brooklyn avenue was sometimes included.

The Bedford Hills followed the line of the Eastern Parkway, on both sides, until about Buffalo avenue, when the trend was more directly east than the Parkway, which followed a course slightly south of east and up to and around the west and north side of East New York. The Bedford Hills included, in a general way, all the territory between Atlantic avenue and the southern boundary line of the city, from Prospect Hill to east of Buffalo avenue, where the hills, as stated, did not extend south of the Parkway.

Um Jack, if you look carefully at the map Raulism has provided, Prospect Heights is starting at Washington Ave. according to that reference.

Just curious, what''s the big deal about the name anyway? If you live that close to the Crown Heights - Prospect Heights murky border of Washington,Classon, Franklin etc, the neighborhood really looks and feels similar.

It's not like comparing Vanderbilt to Franklin.

I'm only curious about the name now because this article http://tinyurl.com/n5thej says it was coined circa 1870 but at the other end of the park - i.e. PPW and Prospect Ave, and other articles clearly show "Prospect Heights" as being where Park Slope is today (for instance this article from 1890: http://tinyurl.com/n5yf96 talks about Methodist Hospital being in Prospect Heights at 6th Street and 7th Avenue)...how did the neighborhood name get squeezed up into the little triangle it's in today? It's fascinating.

then again, I'm not a property owner, so my interest is a little more casual, I'm sure

SnowboardQueen wrote: Um Jack, if you look carefully at the map Raulism has provided, Prospect Heights is starting at Washington Ave. according to that reference.

Just curious, what''s the big deal about the name anyway? If you live that close to the Crown Heights - Prospect Heights murky border of Washington,Classon, Franklin etc, the neighborhood really looks and feels similar.

It's not like comparing Vanderbilt to Franklin.

Look again, SQ. It does have Prospect Heights bordered by Washington, but only south of a street that's unlabeled, but looks like it may be Eastern Parkway, where it has Washington as the WESTERN border. In addition, according to that map, PH only goes as far north as Park Pl.

squindar wrote: I'm only curious about the name now because this article http://tinyurl.com/n5thej says it was coined circa 1870 but at the other end of the park - i.e. PPW and Prospect Ave, and other articles clearly show "Prospect Heights" as being where Park Slope is today (for instance this article from 1890: http://tinyurl.com/n5yf96 talks about Methodist Hospital being in Prospect Heights at 6th Street and 7th Avenue)...how did the neighborhood name get squeezed up into the little triangle it's in today? It's fascinating.

then again, I'm not a property owner, so my interest is a little more casual, I'm sure

I think your explanation earlier is probably close to the mark.

squindar wrote: The "Prospect Heights" name was coined by a landlord/developer who built buildings so far south (i.e. 550 5th Avenue) we would now call it "South Slope" and a little later developers started using the "Park Slope" name (probably because it used the word "Park", so it was more specific than Prospect Heights) and what was called "Prospect Heights" seems to have ended up being squeezed between "Crow Hill" (later Crown Heights) and "Park Slope" like a vestigial tail.

Googled it and found this map

http://images.nymag.com/realestate/map/prospectmap061211_730.gif

looks like it extends to franklin

And the article is from 06

http://nymag.com/realestate/map/25311/

Rlackner, those maps don't show any borders. They do include a number of amenities outside the boundaries of the neighborhood proper, including the Botanic Gardens (south of Eastern Parkway) and the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial and GAP Green Market (west of Flatbush), as well as one now closed restaurant on Classon and two restaurants on Washington Ave. That doesn't really support Franklin as boundary.

the neighborhood is ever changing. 5 years ago nobody on Franklin would even "think" they lived in Prospect Heights. 5 years from now if the gentrification continues eastward the argument will shift to Nostrand if it makes it that far. As realtor's get more interest in avenues more east, they will say it is "Prospect Heights" and eventually a map will reflect that.

squindar wrote: I am finally getting around to reading "Of Cabbages & Kings County" (ISBN 087745714X) which has a lot of fascinating information about the transformation of points east and south of Prospect Park from farmland into residential developments. Worth a read if you're into that stuff.

Thanks for the recommendation- I'm definitely going to pick that up. I love reading about local history.

You might also be interested in Water for Gotham and Low Life, two of my favorites in the genre.

squindar wrote:

The "Prospect Heights" name was coined by a landlord/developer who built buildings so far south (i.e. 550 5th Avenue) we would now call it "South Slope" and a little later developers started using the "Park Slope" name (probably because it used the word "Park", so it was more specific than Prospect Heights) and what was called "Prospect Heights" seems to have ended up being squeezed between "Crow Hill" (later Crown Heights) and "Park Slope" like a vestigial tail.

So if the neighborhood names were created by real estate people, then why do we get so upset when real estate people try and bend the neighborhood boundaries? Were the developers of the 1800s somehow closer to truth then the brokers of today?

I think neighborhood boundaries move all the time. Look and the line between Chinatown and Little Italy...