Whatever happened to Yellow Hook, Brooklyn?

Back when the Dutch settled this part of the town of New Utrecht in the 17th century, they named it Yellow Hook—after its yellowish soil.

[illustrations from the NYPL’s digital collection]

The problem with Yellow Hook, however, was that it sounded too close to Yellow Fever, outbreaks of which were regularly killing New Yorkers.

So in 1853, locals gave Yellow Hook a more pleasant moniker: Bay Ridge, for the ridge that offers such amazing views of New York Bay. 

Or did they intend to call it “Bay Bridge”? An article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle archives from December 19, 1853 includes this:

“. . . it was resolved that the locality hitherto known as Yellow Hook and included in the boundaries of School District No. 2, in the town of New Utrecht, be henceforth known by the name of Bay Bridge, and that an application be made to the proper authorities for an establishment of a Post Office in the vicinity, to be designated as the Bay Bridge Post Office.”

Two innocent typos, or perhaps the neighborhood’s real name?

Brooklyn’s lost village of Cripplebush

This map of the borough’s original five Dutch towns and one English town depicts a Brooklyn with the same geographic place names used today.

Bushwick, Flatbush, New Utrecht, Gravesend—they still go by their 17th century monikers. And the smaller villages within them, like Williamsburgh and New Lots, remain local names as well.

Then there’s Cripplebush, in the town of Brooklyn. What’s the deal with Cripplebush?

The Eastern District of Brooklyn, published in 1912, explains that Dutch residents of nearby Wallabout were granted a patent in 1654 to incorporate Cripplebush, “at the intersection of the Cripplebush Road and the Wallabout and Newtown Road or about Flushing and Nostrand Avenues of to-day.

“In 1830 Wallabout Village was started, including within its limits the Cripplebush settlement, and still later the section became known as East Brooklyn.”

Cripplebush Road no longer exists. And Cripplebush settlement, which other sources have described as a swamp, must have been quietly absorbed into Wallabout in the 19th century.

Manhattan’s lost village of Harsenville

Some of New York’s old village names survive today: think Chelsea, Yorkville, New Utrecht, and Gravesend. Others get unceremoniously wiped off the map, with not even a train station bearing the old name. 

That’s what happened to Harsenville. In the late 1700 and 1800s, this little hamlet spanned 68th Street to 81st Street between Central Park West and the Hudson River. It got its name from Jacob Harsen, a farmer who settled there in 1763.

This is his house below, at today’s Tenth Avenue and 70th Street, in an 1888 New-York Historical Society photograph.

Other farm families followed, and soon, a real town formed. Harsenville Road went through what is now Central Park; schools, churches, and shops opened.

By 1911, however, Harsenville was kaput, reports a 1911 New York Times piece on old-timers reminiscing about their ‘hood. The blocks of brand-new brownstones and apartment houses were soon to be known collectively as the Upper West Side.

Interestingly, one new condo building on West 72nd Street capitalizes on the Upper West Side’s small-town history: The developers named it Harsen House.

Taking a joy ride along the river in Bay Ridge

The back of this 1906 postcard states that the view “looks north from 85th Street.” The riders in that vehicle must have endured some rough bumps along the road. 

I wish the postcard identified the structure with the lovely porch and turrets. In the distance you can see, faintly, the Statue of Liberty.

Bay Ridge got its name from the glacial ridge beneath it that provides high, sloping views of the water. Originally called Yellow Hook after its yellowish sand, this village in the town of Nieuw Utrecht was renamed following a yellow-fever epidemic that ravaged the area in the 1840s.