Brooklyn: the borough that breeds comic giants

Ever notice how many legendary comedians—especially comedians who are actually funny—hail from the county of Kings?

Like Jackie Gleason. Born Herbert Walton Gleason, Jr., at 364 Chauncey Street in Bed-Stuy in 1916, he attended P.S. 73 and Bushwick High School.

The Three Stooges also launched in Brooklyn. Moe (born Moses Horwitz) Howard and his two brothers, Curly (Jerome) and Shemp (Samuel), grew up in Bensonhurst in the early 1900s.

And of course, Woody Allen, aka Allan Stewart Konigsberg, made a career out of mining his Avenue K childhood for laughs.

He was a student at P.S. 99 on East 10th Street and Avenue K and Midwood High School.

P.S. 99 must have made quite an impression on him. Allen gave Mia Farrow’s character in Zelig the name Eudora Fletcher—the real name of P.S. 99’s terrifying spinster school principal in the 1940s.

The famous alumni of Midwood High School

What do Woody Allen, Marvin Hamlisch, and Emmanuel Lewis all have in common? All three graduated from Brooklyn’s Midwood High School. Woody got his diploma in 1953, Hamlisch in the early 1960s, and Webster in the ’80s.

Other famous Midwood students include Grease‘s Didi Conn, poet June Jordan, and Prison Break star Wentworth Miller (though Miller transferred elsewhere before graduating).

For a school known for its math and science brainiacs, Midwood seems to produce a lot of actors and musicians too.

Midwood was built in 1940 on Bedford Avenue and Glenwood Road; construction costs ran to $2 million. Looks like the board of education got a good deal. It’s a lovely looking school building, with its six columns and cupola crowning the top.