On a street grid packed with lettered avenues, Brooklyn’s Quentin Road stands out.
Stuck between Avenue P and Avenue R, Quentin Road actually used to be known as Avenue Q. But in 1922, a petition to change the name was brought to the city’s Board of Aldermen. So who was Quentin, and why did Brooklynites want to honor him with a street name?
Quentin was Quentin Roosevelt, 21, fifth child of Teddy Roosevelt. Rambunctious and mischievous as a child, Quentin left Harvard and his fiance, Flora Vanderbilt Payne, in 1916 to volunteer for World War I.
He trained as a pilot at a field on Long Island (today known as Roosevelt Field), but was killed in combat over France in 1918.
The petition to rename Avenue Q for Quentin may have had to do with his father’s popularity in New York. After all, he was the former city police commissioner and state governor, not to mention U.S. president.
Reportedly devastated by his son’s death behind enemy lines, Theodore Roosevelt died the next year.
“To those who fearlessly face death for a good cause; no life is so honorable or so fruitful as such a death,” he said.
“Unless men are willing to fight and die for great ideals, including love of country, ideals will vanish, and the world will become one huge sty of materialism.”
Ephemeral New York 