I make no apologies for being a nostalgist. I spent my first 35 years in Bay Ridge and return often, first to visit my father, who passed away in 2003, and then for regular dentist visits—I’ve patronized the same office since 1964. I still went to my favorite lunch spots, Zeke’s Roast Beef and the Nathan’s on 86th St. When I worked nights in Manhattan, my Mondays were always happy because before heading off to work at five p.m., I’d head to Zeke’s for a repast, which capped off my weekend, which ran from Saturday afternoon when I got up to reporting for work at Photo-Lettering at eight p.m. on Monday.
In July 2018 I was in Bay Ridge for one last lunch at its Nathan’s at 7th Avenue and 86th Street, which has been there since the 1970s; before that, it was another roadside fast food place. It’s recently been sold and the restaurant will be razed for apartment buildings that overlook the golf course. Nathan’s Coney Island location remains open, and will hopefully be there till the ocean swallows the Coney Island peninsula.
I always manage to discover something new or at least something I had previously overlooked in this historic neighborhood where I grew up.
The Bay Ridge Avenue, Prospect Avenue and 53rd Street stations were recently given a complete makeover by the MTA, adding wifi chargers and updated infrastructure. In addition, several elevated stations on the Astoria Line are getting similar treatment. I’ve questioned the MTA spending money and closing stations for months for what seems like cosmetic changes (though the Astoria Line stations required intensive repairs) but it’s hard to argue with the state-of-the-art results.
At the Bay Ridge Avenue station the newly installed artwork is the glass and ceramic mosaic “Strata” by Katy Fischer.
The side streets of Bay Ridge are chockablock with attached row houses made with brick or stone like these; probably the same developer(s) built most of them in the first couple of decades of the 20th Century. While today’s developers cut costs by sticking to cookie cutter formulas, these houses had similar variations by using oval and polygonal bays in the same row, and other subtle differences.
This apartment building between 3rd and 4th on Bay Ridge Avenue has a more utilitarian design. Even so, it has retained its original entrance canopies which feature ornamental metal brackets. How handy are these when it’s raining and you need to get your keys out?
The peaked building with the rounded edge at the SW corner of 3rd Avenue and Bay Ridge Avenue has been home to a pharmacy on the ground floor for apparently most of its life, Lowen’s since 1953; my friend Brian Merlis at brooklynpix has a photo from 1913, when it harbored Wolff’s. Much of the detailing on the corner section is unchanged, but oof, what they’ve done to the 3rd Avenue side.
This stolid structure on Bay Ridge Ave. (er, 69th St.) just west of 3rd Ave. has served as a Masonic temple, a church, and a school in recent decades, but its original purpose can be discerned on the keystones above the windows. Though some have been buffed out, the remaining ones depict former volunteer fire companies’ seals and names—such as Old Jackson H&L (Hook & Ladder); Blythebourne Engine; Neosho H&L; Bay Ridge Engine—of the former New Utrecht Exempt Firemen’s Association. (“Blythebourne” is the original name of the development that gave rise to Borough Park. “Neosho” stumps me, since it is a town in Missouri. Mets star Donn Clendenon was from Neosho.)
In the name “New Utrecht Exempt Firemen’s Association” you find two tidbits of history. A fireman known as “exempt” was a member of a volunteer fire company for five years; a number of other exceptions and corollaries to this rule further explained the term “exempt.” As far as “New Utrecht” is concerned, Bay Ridge was a part of the town of New Utrecht since the town’s establishment in 1683 until it was annexed by the City of Brooklyn in 1894, and then Greater New York absorbed Brooklyn in 1898. While Brooklyn had its own fire department (the BFD, the trigraph seen on a number of old firehouses around the borough) far-flung realms like Bay Ridge were served by a number of volunteer fire departments. This was a building where exempt firemen could meet and take advantages of services offered by the Association.
In Bay Ridge, many of the non-numbered streets are named “Ridge”, “Bay” or a combination. Bay Ridge Place runs between Bay Ridge Avenue and Ovington Avenue west of 3rd, and part of it is lined by some more of those attached townhouses I like so much. Weirdly, half of it is Belgian-blocked and half of it is surfaced with asphalt. And, from the way they’re worn down, these Belgians seem to be the original paving stones.
Another of Bay Ridge’s short lanes is Perry Terrace, between 70th and 71st Streets west of Ridge Boulevard. There’s also an apartment building called Perry Arms, at Ridge Boulevard and Bay Ridge Avenue. What’s with all the Perry names here?
To get the answer to that you would need to go back to 1890, when this was still part of the town of New Utrecht, long before Bay Ridge was part of New York City. At that time the neighborhood was transitioning from countryside and farms into a more urban existence. On the map, the roads in purple were already paved and the ones in the dotted lines were still planned. Ridge Boulevard was still “Second Avenue.”
One of the property owners here was the Perry family. The names “Joseph Perry” and “A.C. Perry” are seen on the map. The land developed for the terrace and the apartment building were likely purchased directly from the Perrys.
A pair of classic, or at least superannuated, signs from the 1970s or 1980s on Bay Ridge Avenue between Ridge Boulevard and Colonial Road.
Bliss Terrace, between 68th Street and Bay Ridge Avenue west of Colonial Road, was named for a prominent industrialist who lived in Bay Ridge. Owls Head Park is Bay Ridge’s largest public park,stretching between the Belt Parkway, Colonial Road and 68th Street, and its high hill provides a prime viewing spot during Brooklyn’s occasional tall ship parades. The park was created from the estate of Eliphalet Bliss (1836-1903). In 1867 he founded the machine shops that became the E. W. Bliss Company and the United States Projectile Company.
His estate, Owls Head, featured an observatory known as the Bayard Tower. He willed the estate to New York City, provided it be used for parkland. The park, still known by old-timers as Bliss Park, has been in use by local residents since the 1920s; Robert Moses redesigned it in the 1930s. The mansion and tower were razed in 1940.
You would not believe the little jewelbox house gems I discovered on this walk. Here are a pair on Bay Ridge Avenue between Colonial Road and Narrows Avenue. Near perfection in late 19th or early 20th residential design and construction. And their owners care about them, too.
The above photo shows Bay Ridge’s 9/11 memorial, dedicated in 2005. The unusual, 25-foot tall bronze design by sculptor Robert Ressler depicts a fireman’s trumpet – used by firefighters to communicate over the usual din at conflagrations in the days before walkie-talkies. You often see such trumpets depicted on memorials and gravesites.
The setting is the Bay Ridge Memorial Pier, first known as the 69th Street Pier located where Bay Ridge Avenue meets the Narrows, though Bay Ridgeites one and all call Bay Ridge Avenue and Bay Ridge Parkway 69th Street and 75th Street, respectively. It’s been home to ferry service intermittently over the past few decades, most famously the ferry to St. George, Staten Island, that closed the day after the Verrazano Bridge opened in November 1964. Views of Manhattan, the Statue of Liberty, and the bridge are all available from the pier.
Bay Ridgeites one and all call Bay Ridge Avenue and Bay Ridge Parkway 69th Street and 75th Street, respectively–it’s a mark of recognition as a Bay Ridgeite. The Department of Transportation refuses to acknowledge this, and thus, this informal sign is the only one in the neighborhood that calls the street what everyone else calls it.
This unusual pencil-shaped marker has been at Shore Road and Bay Ridge Avenue since the 1980s at least — I remember it before I moved away in 1993. I don’t know of any others around the city like it. Rust is beginning to take a toll.
This mural depicting sea life under the Belt Parkway overpass on 69th Street is relatively new.
The Owls Head Water Pollution Control Plant, and its stench on hot days, has been a Bay Ridge fixture for over 40 years. I was fascinated with the place when I bicycled here using the Belt Parkway bike path. Why? The reason is simple. I never got into the plant, but the approach road past the gate had some very unusual streetlamps resembling those on the Golden Gate Bridge in California until they were replaced in the 1980s.
I did not attend Xaverian High School (named for St. Francis Xavier) on Shore Road and Mackay Place, but I liked their sports letter, which was, of course, a big X — one of my favorite letters. The school was founded in 1957, the same year I was founded. Alumni include MLB’s Rich Aurelia, Hollywood’s Scott Baio, and St. John’s University’s and the NBA’s Chris Mullin. The school became co-educational in 2016 after most of its existence as an all-boys’ school.
I can’t rummage through these parts without mentioning the Barkaloo (“Revolutionary”) Cemetery at Narrows Avenue and Mackay Place.
This smallest cemetery in Brooklyn was founded in 1725 by Dutch immigrant William Harmans Barkaloo and likely served as a family farm graveyard. At the time, the nearest road was the Road from Gowanus, which evolved into the present 3rd Ave.
The “revolutionary” appellation comes from a plaque erected in 1962 on the protective gate, which indicates that several Revolutionary War veterans are buried here; though some historians dismiss the claim as spurious, others say that William Barkaloo’s sons, Harmans and Jacques, fought in the Battle of Brooklyn, which raged in Bay Ridge and throughout the towns of New Utrecht and Brooklyn. The last burial took place in 1848.
The Barkaloo Cemetery is still historic since it’s the only family plot in Brooklyn not part of a larger cemetery. A number of them remain in the Bronx and Queens (Lawrence Cemeteries in Astoria and Bayside and Pullis Cemetery, as well as the Alsop plot in Calvary Cemetery). The Barkaloos lived in Bay Ridge well into the 20th Century.
Mackay Place has its own story, too. It remembers a local resident, John W. Mackay (1831-1902) a prominent 19th Century area landowner: after making a fortune discovering tons of silver as part of the Bonanza Group at the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1873, he entered the real estate, mining and telegraph businesses. His granddaughter Ellin married Irving Berlin in 1926, against the family’s wishes; his wedding gift was “Always,” one of your webmaster’s Berlin favorites, especially when Frank sings it.
Lined on both sides by handsome Tudor-style houses, Louise Terrace is another of Bay Ridge’s set of short streets, this one between Mackay Place and 70th Street near Colonial Road. John Mackay’s wife’s maiden name was Marie Louise Antionette Hungerford and it is likely the short street was named for her.
In its early days Louise Terrace was called Elvira Terrace, but none of that has anything to do with Cassandra Peterson, TV’s Elvira.
When I was a kid in Bay Ridge, I originally had three excellent libraries to choose from, none especially close to where I lived at 6th avenue and 83rd, but close enough: the Carnegie-funded library at 4th Avenue and 95th Street; Fort Hamilton Parkway and 68th Street, across from the old Fortway Theater; here, in a modern building completed in 1959 at Ridge Boulevard and 73rd Street — great midcentury design; and a fourth, built in the 1970s at 13th Avenue and 83rd Street in Dyker Heights.
Bad time for “parading” in Bay Ridge since everything had a sidewalk canopy as repairs were effected. Flagg Court, 7200 Ridge Boulevard in Bay Ridge. Currently FNY headquarters is in Westmoreland Gardens in Little Neck, a complex I had my eye on beginning in the 1990s when I lived in Flushing. I finally got my opportunity to buy a co-op there in 2007. Before that, when I lived in Bay Ridge, I eyed Flagg Court for years but didn’t get in. It was designed by Ernest Flagg and constructed between 1933-1936.
This 422-unit, six-building complex contained architectural features that were avant-garde for its time, including reversible fans below the windows and exterior window shades, both now removed, as well as innovative uses of concrete as finished ceilings and for a vaulted auditorium. Its most pronounced exterior feature is the pendant Carpenter Gothic cornice at the eighth floor. The complex was socially innovative, as well, as it included a tea room, auditorium, swimming pool, bowling alley, tennis and handball courts, and a nursery school to allow the building’s mothers three hours of daily free time. [Historic Districts Council]
Christ Church of Bay Ridge, Ridge Boulevard between 73rd and 74th Streets, still looks like the same country church it was when the congregation arrived in 1853. Founder Joseph Perry (that name again) is remembered by Perry Terrace and Perry Arms. The present church was constructed here in 1910 and designed by architects Ralph Adams Cram and Charles Goodhue; Christ Church’s original building still stands, as Good Shepherd Church, at 4th Avenue and 75th Street.
Many apartment buildings around the city are named (matching Britain’s fondness for naming houses; John Lennon’s childhood home was called Mendips) but few in the States actually use them. For example, I grew up in Tilden Court, but it was known to one and all as 8302 6th Avenue.
This apartment on Bay Ridge Parkway (sorry, 75th Street) has an unusual moniker. A spot of internet research indicated that “Tokeneke” is a district in Darien, Connecticut, as well as a country club in the vicinity. It took its name from a local Native American chief in the pre-colonial era. I’d imagine the architect or developer of this building also had interests in Connecticut.
The presence of many gorgeous churches in Bay Ridge serves to alleviate — somewhat — the sting that the loss of the Bay Ridge Methodist (“Green”) Church at 4th and Ovington Avenues in 2008 produced. As the cornerstone indicates, the Union Church of Bay Ridge was built at Ridge Boulevard and 80th Street as the Bay Ridge Dutch Reformed Church in 1896. The corner once held a conical turret, brought down in 1937 by a storm. I didn’t get a good picture of it, but the large picture stained glass window facing Ridge Boulevard was installed and designed by Tiffany Glass. The church has been known as Union Church since it merged with a Presbyterian church a block away in 1918.
The Antiochian Greek Christians, also known as Rûm, are an Arabic-speaking Christian group from the Middle East. The designation “Greek” mostly refers to the use of Koine Greek in liturgy. The parish of St. Mary’s, Ridge Boulevard and 81st Street, recently celebrated its centennial.
I lived in Bay Ridge 35 years and never noticed this pair of gems on opposite sides of Ridge Boulevard on each side of 82nd Street by what was likely the same architect.
I wish I knew the architectural origins of this grand mansion at 8311 Ridge Boulevard, but its personal story is also engaging. Its owners were arrested for welfare fraud in 2009, a decade after their 21-year old son disappeared and was believed killed by the Columbo crime family.
Angela Piccini Canadé is remembered at 3rd Avenue and 84th Street. She was a columnist for 40 years at Bay Ridge’s Home Reporter newspaper, now known as the Brooklyn Reporter.
Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Church, at Ridge Boulevard and 84th Street, was dedicated in 1964. The congregation was founded at a 5th Avenue, Brooklyn, fur business in 1956.
Bay Ridge’s Adelphi Academy was founded in 1863 by two teachers from the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, Aaron Chadwick and Dr. Edward S. Bunker, and opened on Fort Greene’s Adelphi Street, a name that comes from the Greek term for “brotherhood” (cf. “Philadelphia,” or “brotherly love”). Brooklyn’s Adelphi Street in turn had been named for London’s Adelphi Terrace, an early housing development in London, England that lasted from 1774 to 1938.
In 1965 Adelphi moved to a large brick mansion at Ridge Boulevard that was previously the Kallman Home for Children at Ridge Boulevard and 86th Street. The school expanded with a new gym in 1978 and an adjoining five-story classroom building in 1990.
In a neighborhood featuring large apartment complexes, the Bay Ridge Apartments fill an entire block between 86th and 87th Street on the west side of Ridge Boulevard.
Another Citadel of Living at Ridge Boulevard and 87th Street.
Colonial Hall at Colonial Road and 92nd Street. In the late 80s I was testing the waters for a different apartment and took a look at a 1-BR here. The price was too rich for me at the time, $660 per month. At the time, I was paying $475 on 73rd Street! I would up moving to Flushing in 1993 and remained till 2007, with a final rent of $775.
The Belt Parkway, officially known as Shore Parkway between the Gowanus Expressway and Laurelton Parkway in Queens, was originally called the Circumferential Parkway and was built on landfill mostly along the shores of Brooklyn and Queens from 1938-1940. Three or four handsomely designed pedestrian overpasses featuring iron scrollwork connecting the north side of the parkway with the pedestrian/bike path along the shoreline are still in operation, including this one, at 92nd Street and Shore Road.
The tugboat Amy Moran plying the Narrows on the way to an assignment no doubt. Information on the vessel is easily obtainable from tugboatinformation:
Built in 1973, by McDermott Shipyard of Morgan City, Louisiana (hull #179) as the Amy Moran for the Moran Towing Corporation of New York, New York.
Powered by two, twelve cylinder, EMD 12-645-E2 diesel engines. Turning two, bronze, fixed pitch propellers. She is a twin screw tug, rated at 3,000 horsepower.
Her electrical service is provided by two 75kW generator sets. The tug is fitted with an elevating wheelhouse. Her capacities are 44,909 gallons of fuel.
I am sitting near the Brooklyn tower of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, completed in 1964; I saw it built. When I was a small boy, my grandmother and I would often sit in this spot and watch the suspension cables getting spun, in the years 1961-1963. I was on the first bus that crossed the bridge when it opened in November 1964.
It was also in this spot that Tony Manero told Stephanie in Saturday Night Fever that a man had fallen into unset concrete at the Brooklyn anchorage. That story is untrue, but some workers did lose their lives in falls during construction.
These tract houses were built on Shore Road, wrapping around to 3rd and 4th Avenues, sometime in the mid-to-late 1970s, replacing what I think was an athletic field. The buildings resemble those at the Sunny Hill Resort in the Catskills, where my parents liked to vacation.
The building on the right boasts the only 9999 house number in Brooklyn.
I left the waterfront at this point, but I have walked it before.
John Paul Jones Park, facing 101st Street between 4th Avenue and Fort Hamilton Parkway, is named for American patriot and naval hero (not the Led Zeppelin bassist), John Paul Jones (1747-1792), who, through victorious leadership in the American Revolution, became known as “the father of the Navy.”
The park is named “Cannonball Park” for the longtime presence of a 20″ Rodman gun and several cannonballs on the 4th Avenue side, one of two tested at Fort Hamilton but found unsuitable for combat. Streets surrounding Fort Hamilton, such as Dahlgren, Parrott and Gatling Places, are named for inventors of military ordinance.
A trio of attached brick houses with semicircular bays, 100th Street between 4th Avenue and Fort Hamilton Parkway.
John Carty Park was built beneath the connecting ramp between the Verrazano Bridge and the Belt Parkway in 1964 and later named for a local 32-year civil servant who died in 1970. Not much of a park, really, but there was playground space for kids, and it became a default playground for me in the late 60s. The basketball court figured in a scene in 1978’s Saturday Night Fever. This was also a favored spot for me to ride my bicycle, no crosswalks between 92nd Street and JP Jones Park.
In the 1980s I was able to ride my bike into and through Fort Hamilton. Then we started invading people and were at war constantly, and the fort buttoned up the policy.
Virginians Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson are not names you would immediately associate with Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, but the famed Confederate generals do play a minor part in neighborhood history, both at Fort Hamilton and at St. John’s Episcopal Church on 99th Street and Fort Hamilton Parkway.
Though the present structure dates to 1890, there has been a St. John’s Church on this location since 1834, when soldiers garrisoned at Fort Hamilton built the first St. John’s. The nearby Roman Catholic parish, St. Patrick’s, originated the same year. Fort Hamilton had been nicknamed Irishtown since 1825, when Irish escaping from British oppression started arriving here.
Both Lee and Jackson worshipped at the original St. John’s while stationed at Fort Hamilton. A tree planted by Lee was replaced in 1912 complete with a new tablet commemorating the event, and another plaque cited Jackson. Both were removed (as well as other artifacts alluding to the Confederacy around the USA) in 2017 because political correctness defeats historical accuracy nowadays.
The property is for sale, and the non-landmarked church may soon meet the wrecker’s ball.
Fort Hamilton/Irishtown was once a separate community in southern Bay Ridge adjoining Fort Hamilton, and these small houses, Fort Hamilton Parkway and 97th Street, may be from the same mid-1850s era that saw the parish of St. Patrick’s established.
This one-story porched house, Fort Hamilton Parkway and 92nd Street, was in place when I traveled this spot as a kid in the 1960s. It may have been a farmhouse and likely goes back to the Irishtown days.
Looks like we have an outdated ad here for “We Buy Gold” unless we can buy gold at that physical therapy office.
Sampler of houses along Battery Avenue between 90th and 92nd Streets
When I’m in the area, I’m always drawn like a magnet to the Kenruby Apartments, 90th Street just east of Dahlgren. It’s a wild Tudor with great detailing like stucco, black and white checkerboard linoleum and even a small shelf both sides of the entrance to put a planter.
Once again, I lived nearby for 35 years but I don’t know if I ever noted the plastic-lettered, old school Weber Plumbing sign on 7th Avenue and 82nd Street.
When the Gowanus Expressway was constructed from 1959-1964, Fort Hamilton Parkway was moved and bridged across the open-cut trench, forming a triangle with 7th Avenue and 81st Street. The triangle was named for one of my relatives, Lieutenant William E. Coffey. He was one of my uncles, but I never knew him as he died quite young at World War II’s Battle of the Bulge, two days before his daughter, one of my cousins, was born. There was also a long-vanished American Legion outpost on 7th Avenue that was named for him.
McKinley Park was dedicated in 1903 and named for the recently killed President William McKinley. He was elected in 1900 as the 25th President of the USA and first one in the 20th Century; the Spanish-American War was waged under his presidency and as the spoils of the victory over Spain, the USA had annexed Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa and the Philippines. McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist in September 1901 and was succeeded by Theodore Roosevelt.
Because of the street layout in Bay Ridge, thee are two points where a pair of numbered avenues come together at a V. There’s one at 4th Avenue, 5th Avenue and 95th Street, and here again at 7th and 8th Avenues and 73rd Street. In both cases, the lower-numbered Avenue “wins” and gets to proceed south.
This triangle features a war memorial dedicated to a local soldier, Anthony Mondello. It’s also home to a clutch of Brooklyn parrots, though I didn’t see or hear any the day I was there.
The restaurant across the street, New Corner, is one of Brooklyn’s more venerable and admired, though I admit I’ve never been in. I was always in Zeke’s Roast Beef on 8th and 66th.
The corner of 8th Avenues and 64th Street is the former location of two long-vanished touchstones: the 3-story mixed-use building replaced the 2001 Odyssey disco, used for exteriors and interiors for Saturday Night Fever; and the market building replaced Bay Ridge Lanes, which was a smoky, down-at-heel bowling alley the first time I was in there in 1984 (I usually bowled at the equally vanished Leemark Lanes on 88th Street.
Well, I think that hits it in the head for the day. Time for the N train at 8th Avenue, which like most Sea Beach Line stations has been under repair since 2015.
Please help contribute to a new Forgotten NY website
Check out the ForgottenBook, take a look at the gift shop, and as always, “comment…as you see fit.”
8/6/18
50 comments
The Belt Parkway Had 5 Names when complete in 1940: Gowanus Parkway (Now Guwanus Expressway (Interstate 278)), Shore Parkway, Southern Parkway, Laurelton Parkway & Cross Island Parkway
My guess is that the Neosho in the old fire company’s name commemorates the Union ironclad ship of that name which served on the Mississippi River during the Civil War.
I was born in 1953. We lived in the house at 8401 Ridge Blvd which was torn down and replaced by the Greek church pictured in this story.
I also was born in 1956 at 7501 Ridge Blvd down the block where my aunt and uncle lived in Flagg Court where my brother and I swam in the pool in the middle of the bldgs. Began my education at the PS on Ridge and 73rd at kindergarten followed by Our Lady of Angels On 3rd and 74th. Wonderful memories visit almost every year.
I lived at 8310 7th avenue. bay ridge. my grandfather had it built in1912. he lived in till 1959 as did his wife sister his 2 daughters sister and his granddaughter. When he died his youngest daughter Helen who was not a nice person. Made her sister sell it for the money. some people are greedy and unspurious, as his youngest daughter. fond memories wish I had a photo of house. a quick history of 8320 7th avenue
I lived at 316-61st Street from when I was born on Oct. 1,1944. the apartment house was the first building about 100 feet from the corner of 3 rd Ave. The house was torn down to make room when the third lane was added to the Belt Parkway and approach to the Varrazano Narrows Bridge. We then moved up to 4 Ave. between 60 th. and 61 street next to Sams Candy Store. Bay Ridge was a beautiful place to grow up and it was also a great era to grow up.
I couldn’t remember the name of that candy store. I was on 61st between 2nd and 3rd and started my comic collection at Sam’s. Became a cleaners later so I bought across the street at Charlie’s near the subway entrance.
I watched the east tower of the Verrazano Bridge go up from the vantage point of homeroom class at New Utrecht HS in the early 60’s. The sunrise would highlight it beautifully. When it opened, it cut about an hour each way off my commute to Wagner College. No more having to catch the 69th Street ferry!
My folks would take us to the park at Fort Hamilton, and somewhere I have a picture of me sticking out of the mouth of that cannon (before it was sealed off).
Volunteer firemen could qualify for exemption from jury duty as a perk for volunteering. Hence the term “Exempt Fireman”.
Thanks for keeping the memories alive Kevin!
Before Nathans it was Mitchell’s Drive in and the houses that replaced a ball field was St. Patricks ball field. FYI Cannon Ball Park had the cannon relocated to the front of the park along with the monument when the Verazzano bridge was built Please note with the correct spelling of Verazzano with 2 zz Al;l signs through the state have incorrect spelling and NYS refuses to have them corrected.
I remember Nathan’s when it was Wetsons Burgers
Me too and Robert Hall’s clothing store next door.
Long Live Bay Ridge!
Loved this tour
Great memories. Born in CA in 1940. Grew up at 96th and Third. 1942 to 1960. Attended St Patrick’s and Fontbonne Hall. Watched Verazzano Bridge being built. Library at 95th and 4th. Harbor movie theater. Pigeon Park. Movies at Fort Hamilton for 25 cents. Fort Hamilton restaurant for special occasions and Hinsch’s every day. Married and lived on Oliver Street and then bought house in SI. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
Thank you for sharing your story. I lived on 69th street off Colonial Road.
Terry. We were in same class at fontbonne. Also went to hinsch’s. Then graduated to ‘The tea (green) room! Great memories. Connie sorrentino
Art:
Terry: I was born in 1940 and graduated St. Michael’s DHS in 1958. The reason In am writing is because St. Mike’s closed in 1957 so I actually spent my last year at Xaverian. Xaverian had Sunday afternoon dances which some Fontbonne Hall coeds attended, maybe you were one of them? I went to OLPH Grade School and one of my neighbors was Carol Kronen who went to Fontbonne Hall. Did you know her?
Wonderful! I spend my early life (late 40’s/early 50’s) on 95th between 3rd & 4th. Then we moved to Shore Road (94th/95th). Great memories of a great neighborhood.
It will always be 69street that where the Staten Island Ferry was located the only way from Brooklyn to Staten Island Before the bridge. Was born on 54 street back in the day it was Bay Ridge. Biggest church in Brooklyn was our Lady of Perpetual Help RC was also bay Ridge in the day. Great memories lived there from 1935 to 1963
You should come down for the 30th Hoban Run – Walk through Bay Ridge..Google it Sun middle of Sept.. great people great time @ Xavarien. HS…
I grew up in dyker heights. It is so pretty. I remember the Christmas lights on the homes on 11 & 12 ave. There was no where better to grow up. I lived there for 18 years.
Love this sight. I watched the Verrazano bridge being built.
Gee,how many people in NY and elsewhere can no longer afford to live where they grew up.
And the people moving in to these places dont seem to respect or care for what went before.
My aunt owned a rooming house in Park Slope in the 1950s.The Slope was an early victim of gentrification.
My aunt said that the new families moving in from elsewhere seemed to have nothing but comtempt
for the locals,felt they were slow and stupid and had no ambition.Their Brooklyn accents were an
especially favorite subject for ridicule and jokes.
I know what you mean. Recently I saw Realtor.com had an estimated selling price for our former house in Flushing. It was estimated to be slightly over a million dollars! Queensboro Hill was a solid middle class neighborhood when we moved west in 2005. I guess the new NYC has no plans for working or middle class types anymore.
In reply to Chris; Yes, the contempt shown by the folks from Iowa, Kansas, Conn., etc always gets my goat. Plus they manage to add nothing of worth.
This was great! I lived on 88th Street between 3rd and Ridge. Went to St. Patrick’s and St. John Villa Academy in Staten Island. Easy bus ride!
Hi Rosanne,
We also lived on the same block. 255 88th to be exact. That’s where my grandparents lived for 40 years. They were the only Asians on the block.
Thank you for the walk down memory lane. And such interesting history, some I knew, a lot I did not. My family lived on 69th street, right above colonial road. The first house after the stores.
Great site. Thanks for the memories. I lived on Ridge Court located off 72 St between 3 and 4 Ave. Beautiful dead end street with a red brick roadbed. Last time I visited, part of it was paved over. Bennett Court is another nice dead end also on 72 St. Both are worth a look.
The athletic fields you mention on 99th Street used to belong to St. Patrick’s. The little league played there, and St. Patrick’s School used them for a school year-end field day before the property was sold in the early 70’s, if I recall right.
Just saying, the old A St Pats field had been sold by the mnsgr of St Pats and then sat as a sunken mess of an empty lot for years before finally being developed. And Bay Ridge was never Old New Utrecht but Yellow Hook. Still the greatest place on the planet.
I live in the Kenruby. It’s a beautiful building and the apartment has its original wood and glass doors with etched designs and glass door knobs. Everyone refers to the building as the “Ska Building” because of the black and white design.
I lived in the Kallman Home for Children from 1952, to 1962. Attended PS 185 across the street, and then McKinley JHS. Lots of memories.
Darlene , my 2 sisters-in-law grew up at The Kallman Home also during the same period .
Helen Norma Simonsen married my brother
Richard Meade in 1958. (Helen Norma’s older sister, Marie also a resident)
Elvi Modig married my brother John Meade.
Richard & Helen Norma now live in Texas & wen they fly up to see family we tour the old neighborhood & found the Kallman Home is now a NYC Public School!
Elvi Modig & John Meade have passed away
in recent years.
Marie Simonsen lives in Texas also.
My grandfather, E.J. Pond, was a contractor who did remodeling on houses all over Bay Ridge. Had his office just off 3rd ave on 86th st. Lived across from Flagg Court on 73rd St. These photos bring back many memories of accompanying him to various jobs when I was a kid.
I like to look at maps of Brooklyn and reminisce of my childhood there.
I grew up in an 3 story apartment building at 506-72 St, 1951-1962. Then we moved all the way to a semi-attached house at 8420-7 Ave, 1962-1969. Both places close to where you grew up. In 1969 I went college in upstate NY and never moved back to Brooklyn but have visited numerous times.
I have some questions about the layout of Bay Ridge streets and thought you might be able to answer them.
The apartment building on 72 St seems pretty old to me and was wondering when it was built. Do you know where I could research that?
I always wondered why the angle of the streets change in Bay Ridge
From East: From Shore Rd to 4 Ave (due East/West)
To Southeast: From 4 Ave to (NW/SE)
Bay Pkwy in Bensonhurst and Stillwell Ave in Gravesend.
Why did 4 Ave & 5 Ave merge at 95 St and not remain parallel?
Why did 8 Ave & 9 Ave disappear?
In Dyker Heights why does it go from 7 Ave to 10 Ave?
I was curious if there was anything written about the streets in the Bay Ridge Historical Society or other source?
Thank you,
Gino Romeo
Most street angles have to do with topography, or the lay of the land.
U missed pics of Ovington Ave Bet 3rd//ridge great brownstones
Hello! Are perhaps related to Claire McBride?
Lee Nilesn hi Gino I lived next door at8418 7 Ave from 1958 till I went into the army in 65 . I remember your parents and you kids.My parents moved to NJ in 79 Iused to send Christmas cards to your mom in FLA I lived on Gatling PL before 7 Ave .In NJ now many years.Imet your uncle Vic in Viet Nam.L lots of memories
My mother was born in 1919 in bay ridge. I would love to know more about her family. Francis and mary Duffy.
Thank you for this excellent piece! I grew up in mid 1950: to mid 60s in an apartment in the “Wynshore” – I just found a reference to “Wynshore on the Narrows” on 74th street. It was right on Shore Rd and had the cool house number of 1. Great place to grow up and go to public schools (102 and McKinley until we moved to Midwood). I live in Cleveland now and totally freaked out when we bought a house because never envisioned being a homeowner. Love I here but miss Brooklyn.
Thanks for sharing your memories of old Fort Hamilton & Bay
Ridge. I grew up with Philip Black along w his brother Zbill & my brother Ray. I lived at 361-95th St from 1944-1982. I live on the Upper Eastside but still drive to Bay Ridge once a month. I really miss living there. Lots of wonderful memories. I remember the mansions that were along Shore Rd in the 90St to Fontaine Hall HS
Lived in BR on Gatling Pl from 1961 to 1975. Went to PS 104; class of 64 and then commuted to McKee HS on Staten Island via the 69 st ferry until the bridge was finished. After that I rode the bus. I married the former Vikki Loughran who lived on Ridge Blvd. I owned Dyker Bicycle store on 86 st & Ft Ham Pkwy for 5 years. This website and photo’s bring back fond memories.
The Neosho volunteer fire brigade was one of seven that existed in New Utrecht, prior to the formation of a paid fire department. Organized in 1860, many of the members were among the richest men in the area – a curious thing to us today, but at the time, the rich had a lot to lose if their mansions were to go up in flames.
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/8446201/member-of-neosho-voluteer-fire/
The beautiful green church is gone. It was sold to developers who knocked it down, and an ugly school building is now in its place. I lived in Bay Ridge for forty years and seen many changes, but some still remain like the Ragamuffin and Norwegian Day parades. I lived on the corner of 69 & 7, by the parkway.
Grew up in Flagg Court. Many great memories. They also had a Chinese laundry in the inner courtyard. Went to OLA and Xaverian.
I wasn’t born in Bay Ridge but here lived here for over 40 years. Really enjoyed reading about the history. Thank you for sharing
To destroy the Church of the Generals would truly be a sin.
I was born at Sister Elizabeth’s 7/3/1948. My mother who was born at home in 1919 on Ovington Ave was disappointed because her birthday was 7/4/19. Had wanted me born on her day. They took me home to 319-88th street. My older brother Frank was born at sister Elizabeth’s on 10/4/1944 also. My grandmother Mary Masci bought 319 in April of 1929 for $9000. She had 4 boys and a disabled husband, a cobbler who eventually had a Shoe Repair store at 8301-3rd Ave. My father Frank (Francesco) had his drug store 8201-3rd Ave until the very early 80’s. I went to PS185 where my maternal grandmother taught until her death in 1935. When I went there Mrs.Shindele was the Principal, a best friend of my grandmother-at least that’s what she told me every time I was sent to the Principal’s Office. My mother and her brother Jack went there as well, as did my brother. Hell of a way to raise kids-everyone knew everyone else! My Dad went to PS 104 because before 1929 they had lived on 90th street between 3rd and Fourth. He went to Manual Training and my mother to Bay Ridge HS. I went to Stuyvesant for one year after McKinley JHS, then on to Fort Hamilton HS from where I graduated in 1965. My brother graduated in 1961. My first cousins (from my father’s youngest brother Vinnie [or Junior as he was called] ) grew up at 319 from the very earliest 60’s until they sold it in 2018 for $1.3 M dollars. quite a change from what my Grandmother paid. The family has scattered all over-Florida, DC Metro area, Los Angeles Basin, Arizona, and me in Washington State. Been back to BR a few times over the years (I left in 1965 to go to college), I’m surprised at how little it seems to have changed. It seems so small however. I suppose that’s the effect of the passage of time. Caio !