Red Hook it is
Isn't it nice to have smart readers? Francis Morrone -- who teaches at NYU, leads walking tours all over the city and has just written a new book, "Brooklyn, A Journey Through the City of Dreams" -- has been kind enough to fill me in with some good info on my new neighborhood. Passing it along (with his permission, of course.)

(I love that area on the other side of the BQE. Historically, it's Red Hook. "Columbia Street District" was a name realtors started using so they didn't have to say "Red Hook." Ironically, "Red Hook" would probably be a plus nowadays.)

If you walk around your new neighborhood, or look at a map, you'll see how the BQE, and the Gowanus Expressway, and the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel all chop up the area into distinct sections. Well, none of those was there until the 1950s. That means that Carroll Gardens, the Columbia Street District, and Red Hook were all a seamless whole. Many very old Carroll Gardens (a name that didn't exist until the 1960s) will tell you they live in Red Hook. But more common among the old-timers (including those who live in what we now call Red Hook) is to say they live in "South Brooklyn." This confuses people, because on the map this isn't that far south. But it was once the southernmost part of the original City of Brooklyn, which extended south to about halfway into what we now call Sunset Park before hitting the border of the Town of New Utrecht, which later became part of the City of Brooklyn--south of South Brooklyn. ... I think you can proudly call yourselves residents of Red Hook.

Francis will be at Book Court in Cobble Hill next Thursday from 7 to 9 p.m. with his co-author, Judith Stonehill, to celebrate the book's publication. Book Court is at 163 Court Street -- a mere block away from all those Smith Street restaurants. And while I'm plugging all things Francis, I should mention that his walking tours this weekend focus on Fort Greene and DUMBO.
- posted by Amy @ 5/27/2004 10:23:00 AM