Hillel Place runs for a block between Campus Road and Flatbush Avenue in the Brooklyn College area, in the heart of Brooklyn known by local denizens as “the Junction” where Flatbush, Nostrand and Avenue H meet. It’s also the southernmost penetration of the IRT subway, as its Flatbush Avenue station terminates the #2 and #5 trains here. The Place is home to fast food joints such as Starbucks and Quizno’s, serving students, faculty and shoppers.
The street was mapped and was known for the first few decades of its existence as Germania Place, named for the Germania Land Improvement Company, whose president, Henry Mayer, was — you guessed it — a Teuton. After the college’s Hillel Building was constructed on the adjoining campus in 1959, the Place was renamed for it. Its namesake was a first century Jewish philosopher, best known to Gentiles perhaps for two sayings, which, in altered form, remain with us today:
“If I am not for myself who is for me? And being for my own self, what am ‘I’? And if not now, when?”
and what became the Golden Rule:
“That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow…”
I must confess, I was previously mistaken about the date of the name change; I had presumed it had come during World War I, when other German-sounding names on the map, such as Hamburg Avenue and Bremen Street in heavily-German Bushwick, and Berlin in what is now Maspeth, disappeared from maps. The renaming is relatively recent and came during my lifetime.
8/2/16
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I am almost certain that between the time this street was called Germania Place and Hillel Place, it had another name, but I can’t recall it or find any information about it. If my memory serves me at all there were two bookstores on the street and a small stamp collector’s shop. At the end of the street which opened up on Flatbush, I am sure there was a restaurant there, but I can’t recall the name There appears to be a credit union there now. If anyone can identify the street name and the name of the restaurant, I would be very grateful.
The two book stores were Barchas, which was between the Junction and Kenilworth Place,and Barrons which was between Kenilworth Place and Campus Road. Barrons was my favorite. I walked that route every day between Amersfort Place and the B44 bus stop on Nostrand Avenue. The Campus Sugar Bowl was on the corner of Hillel Place and Kenilworth Place, with a window on Hillel Place were we always went to buy candy, and Wolfies had an entrance on Hillel Place as you went from the College to the Junction on the right-hand side. Wolfies went through to Nostrand Avenue. A McDonalds replaced it in the mid 1970’s. Also used to have a Chock Ful’oNuts on the corner of Hillel Place and Nostrand Avenue.
Where the credit union is was Chock full o nuts. The restaurant across Flatbush was ice cream parlor, Jentz, which was turned into A diner by the same name.
I’m reading an interesting diary about a student who went to school there in 1970 and he mentions all of these stores. I was too young to remember them:
https://thoughtcatalog.com/richard-grayson/page/64/
Thank you for sharing. I’m interested in reading this as well now. I came upon it looking at trolley pictures in Flatbush Juntion and attempting to identify the roads of late 1800’s and early 1900’s.