The triangle of Pitkin and East New York Avenues and Legion Street in Brownsville, Brooklyn was called Zion Park as early as 1911. The Zion Park War Memorial, also known as the Brownsville War Memorial, was created by sculptor Charles Cary Rumsey (1879–1922) and dedicated in 1925. It lists local war heroes who died in World War I. The space was renamed Loew Square in honor of the massive Loew’s Pitkin Theatre across the street in 1930, but by 1997 the theatre was long shuttered and the name was changed back to Zion Triangle.
Street name mavens have plenty to chew on here in Brownsville, as many streets have changed monikers over the decades. Barrett Street was changed to Legion in the late 1930s, while Ames Street became Herzl in homor of the Theodor Herzl (1860-1904) the Austrian journalist and father of modern Zionism, a movement that led to the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Not sure when that change was made, but it was between 1913 and 1938.
Much more in FNY’s Brownsville-East New York page
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