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MORE than most other Brooklyn neighborhoods, Gravesend features short, one block streets known as Courts and Places. While a couple of them are “legacy roads” that existed in the colonial era before the region was developed with a street grid, most are simply the product of developers wishing to add plots once all lots from the numbered and lettered streets in the area had already been laid out. Wolf Place is one of these short blocks, running between West 6th and Van Sicklen Streets between Avenues V and W.
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At West 5th, you find a sign identfying it as Ken Siegelman Way. While most street subnamings honor area soldiers, firefighters or police officers, the honoree here taught at Lincoln High School for over three decades and was named Brooklyn’s poet laureate and hosted Brooklyn Poetry Outreach, a collaboration with former borough president Marty Markowitz and the Park Slope Barnes & Noble that featured readings and discussion by some of Brooklyn’s best and aspiring poets. In addition, Siegelman was the subject of the feature documentary “Fading to Zero,” directed by Silvana Gallardo.
Siegelman passed away from kidney disease at age 63 in 2009 and Wolf Place was subnamed for him a few months later. (Why streets are not named for their honorees during their lifetimes when they can bask in the glory is an exercise for the reader.)
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5/2/22