Though they show up on maps as early as the 1940s, it wasn’t till the last couple of decades that a group of streets off St. Johns Avenue west of Tompkins Avenue in Rosebank named for classical composers (Ludwig van Beethoven, Richard Wagner, Franz Schubert, Anton Rubenstein, Richard Strauss, and Felix Mendelssohn — misspelled on his street sign) were developed.
Other clusters of streets in Staten Island are named for European rivers and regions Mosel(le), Elbe, Weser, Neckar, Oder, Rhine (Grasmere); Prohibition Party Presidential candidates —Neal Dow and Clinton B. Fisk — and “dry” 19th Century states (Westerleigh); and in Heartland Village in the island’s southwest, the street naming system using the names of astronauts from the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space programs of the 1960s. The theme includes James McDivitt, James Lovell (the commander of the Apollo 13 mission that broke down en route to the moon), Wally Schirra, Frank Borman, Deke Slayton, Pete Conrad (the third man on the moon), John Glenn (the first American to orbit the Earth in space), Scott Carpenter, Alan Shepard (the fifth man on the moon and the only golfer there to date), Gordon Cooper, and Gus Grissom.
Lastly, along Arthur Kill Road west of Abingdon Avenue in northern Great Kills are two tiny lanes named Abbey Road and Lennon Court. Built in the 1980s, they are the only two Beatles-related street names in New York City, at least to date.
Check out the ForgottenBook, take a look at the gift shop, and as always, “comment…as you see fit.”
2/14/19
7 comments
Kevin, as a sometime professional musician myself, I thank you for pointing these streets out and am happy to see that you caught the single-S Mendelssohn gaffe. Now, I feel bad to pick a tiny nit after complimenting your spelling, but it was Wally Schirra that spent time in space (and the wiki link confirms this). Please excuse my pedantry on this, but my last name, Hirsch, is so often written C-less by others, that I am a bit more sensitive to getting the proper Germanic twist that the extra letter endows on names like mine .
Thanks again.
Done
Umm…you kind of missed a huge mention with Shepard: Alan Shepard was the first American in space.
Kevin;
For Alan Shepard, in addition to golfing, you should give him credit as the first American astronaut Before Glenn orbited, Shepard went into space and returned. Given that no American had been there yet, it took a lot of courage.
I wonder how Anton Rubinstein ended up in the composer streets. He’s quite a bit behind the others in fame terms.
Just came across this post, I remember having met you and your wife. Thank you for documenting and sharing this.
Naming of these streets after musicians was due to the area being a bird sanctuary, before developing homes. It was
referred to as musical hill.
You got the wrong guy, I’m unmarried.