Nickname your neighborhood

i think that CroHo is a lock... not that i'm necessarily thrilled about it, but... well, shit, i'm just not feeling too creative right now and i can't suggest anything better...

Medusa wrote: The Crown of Kings?

aka ... CroKi ??

I'm in PH as well, so take this with a grain of salt ... as they say.

Subject: how about

just the 'hood. for one it sounds rough around the edges but acknowledges a certain fondness for it. and for two it makes me sound all tough when i can tell people i live in the 'hood.

Subject: Crow Hill

I'm not sure where the mysterious line is drawn between Prospect Hts and Crown Hts... according to some realtors, PH extends pretty far...

At any rate, everyone I've asked that's been around for a while knows it as Crow Hill. I happen to like that.

No other nicknames need apply.

bluedove wrote: I was under the impression from various sources I can no longer remember that the line was Washington Avenue.

Realtors have a certain interest in "extending" Prospect Heights a little farther, though...

Case and point, the Jewish Hospital.

Ha! Well maybe what we need to be nicknaming is the border zone...Can I say I live in ProCroHo? :P

bluedove wrote:
Personally, I enjoy the look that comes across people's faces when I tell them I live in Crown Heights.

When i tell people that i'm going to be in Crown Heights, it's been met with a "really? i hear that the area is up-and-coming!!!" No :shock: , no :? ... it's disappointing, really... i don't want to look like i'm jumping on a bandwagon, following the crowd...

Oh, c'mon, Josh. You often refer to our block as Prospect Heights.

I live across the street from Congregation Kol Israel on St. John's between Franklin and Classon, and there is a big, very old sign on the outside that says that it serves the Prospect Heights community. So I say I live in PH, but I frequently say "Prospect Heights/Crown Heights."

Past Washington is Crown Heights. Anything else is made up by real estate agents to make more money.
Accept it for what it is- there's nothing wrong with Crown Heights. It just isn't Prospect Heights any more than it's Flatbush or Bed Stuy.

ana.log wrote:
- survey papers that are part of my building's proprietary lease from the 1930's refer to the building as being located in PROSPECT HEIGHTS, even though it is just slightly on the other side of washington.

This doesn't prove anything in itself (people in your building could have been wrong for a long time), although I admit that the early date is compelling. I will check out what the depression-era WPA guide to New York says about this today at the GAP library.

ana.log wrote:
- it is not unusual for neighborhoods to grow or change names, case in point, the East Village, which was referred to as the Lower East Side 50 years ago. i don't see too many people yelling at their friends in the East Village to start admitting they live on the LES

Making up a new name to carve a neighborhood out of an existing one is hardly the same thing as claiming to be part of an adjoining neighborhood. A more fitting analogy to your example would be the current real-estate ploy of calling parts of bed-stuy "east williamsburg".

ana.log wrote: - realtors are not always the impetus for these changes; changing demographics often are

That is just nonsense. If changing demographics were sufficient justification for a name change, Prospect Heights would already be called Park Slope. People in Prospect Heights take pride in not being from Park Slope despite the increasingly similar demographics and higher property values that go with the Park Slope label. Why can't people from Crown Heights be advocates for their own neighborhood? Again, I am not criticizing Crown Heights as a neighborhood at all. I just think it would be better for everyone but real estate brokers and property-owners right on the border for people to take pride in their neighborhood identity and work on developing it into a place that people outside will also want to claim they're from.

Where you shop or spend most of your time is irrelevant. When I lived in the Bronx, I spent much more time in the East Village than I did around my neighborhood. That doesn't mean I lived in the East Village. Living in the adjoining neighborhood doesn't make it any more true. Someone who lives on 98th street and 3rd Ave and spends most of their time on 86th street (or even 94th St) still lives in Spanish Harlem, not the UES.

Re: Prospect Height formerly being considered part of CH, I'm not contradicting myself at all. This is another example of neighborhood "splitting. Notice that the people living between Flatbush and Washington didn't start claiming to be from Park Slope. They got a new name. Maybe you're actually from the up-and-coming neighborhood of "West Crown Heights" or "TriClaWa" (triangle between Classon and Washington).

I'm going to the library right now. I'll see what the WPA guide (still the definitive guide to NYC) says. I promise to report back either way- I'm willing to admit if I'm wrong.

I'd call it a "spirited debate", not a fight.
I'm logged in at the GAP Library right now.

In the WPA guide to New York City, originally published in 1939, there is no mention of a neighborhood called "Prospect Heights". The area is included in the map of "Middle Brooklyn" which includes Park Slope. The neighborhood of Crown Heights is listed in the section "East Brooklyn", which defines Nostrand Avenue as its eastern border in the text (although on the map, the legend for "Crown Heights" clearly spills over this border to near Bedford Avenue). Interestingly, on the maps in this book, Stuyvesant Heights occupies pretty much the entire area now considered Bed-Stuy, while Bedford is kind of where we now call Clinton Hill. The area of Prospect Heights has no legend at all on the map, although the library, the museum and the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial are all listed in the "Middle Brooklyn" section which includes Park Slope. So I'd say overall, that as late as 1939, the entire existence of Prospect Heights was somewhat ambiguous, let alone it's border with Crown Heights.

The Encyclopedia of New York City, by Kenneth Jackson and published in 1995, has this to say:

Prospect Heights. Neighborhood in Northwestern Brooklyn, lying along the northern edge of Prospect Park and bounded to the north by Atlantic Avenue, to the east by Washington Avenue, to the south by Eastern Parkway (which begins in the neighborhood at Grand Army Plaza), and to the west by Flatbush Avenue. It was developed after Prospect Park was completed in the 1870s. The population consisted mostly of middle-class Italians, Irish and Jews until after the Second World War, when it became predominantly black. Eventually many buildings were abandoned and the neighborhood declined, and during the 1960s Washington Avenue was the site of severe race riots and arson that destroyed many buildings. In the mid 1980s the city sold off clusters of abandoned buildings to encourage the development of middle-income housing. A wave of speculation resulted, and during teh next eight years almost a third of the neighborhood's housing was renovated, becoming unaffordable for most residents, many of whom were forced from their homes by rising prices. The middle class grew, attracted by relatively inexpensive condominiums and cooperatives, and by the proximity of the neighborhood to Park Slope, Prospect Park and Manhattan. Most of the immigrants who settled in Prospect Heights during the 1980s were from the Carribean, especially from Jamaica, Haiti, Guyana and to a lesser extent from Trinidad and Tobago, the Dominican Republic, Barbados, and Panama. The population in the mid 1990s included working-class and middle-class homeowners and low-income renters and was largely black, with some whites, West Indians, and Latin Americans. Along Eastern Parkway stand the Brooklyn Museum, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and teh Brooklyn Public Library; the streets are lined with brownstones and townhouses built at the turn of the century, along with small apartment buildings.

Whew! Ana.log, no hard feelings? I'll buy you a beer at the next happy hour.