THERE’S a curious diagonal road, in two separate pieces, in Borough Park called Old New Utrecht Road. Shown above is the two-block piece between 14th Avenue and 36th Street that cuts across Church Avenue, and further south is a four-block piece between 48th and 52nd Streets between 17th and 18th Avenue. This was once a main farm road in Kings County from a long time before the existing street grid was laid out in the late 19th Century called the Old Road from New Utrecht to Flatbush.
Somewhere along the way, the Old Road From New Utrecht To Flatbush became known as simply New Utrecht Road and then Old New Utrecht Road, becoming one of the few streets to have both the seemingly mutually exclusive “Old” and “New” in its name. The “Old” was probably added to differentiate it from New Utrecht Avenue, which ran along the then-surface line Brooklyn, Bath and Coney Island Railroad.
Old New Utrecht Road served two purposes. It enabled local farmers to get their goods to market, and it also served as a dividing line between the farms themselves. But, after the Blythebourne and Borough Park developments got under way, the old farms were sold and then divided into lots; streets that had existed on surveyors’ charts for years were cut through in a rigid grid pattern; and our old farm roads pretty much ceased to exist as major players in the area.
And they disappeared. But wait…Old New Utrecht Road refused to go quietly. It gradually disappeared as the decades rolled on, but originally, homes were built around it, not on it. Some of those houses are still there today.
Much more on Old New Utrecht Road on this FNY page.
As always, “comment…as you see fit.” I earn a small payment when you click on any ad on the site.
1/3/23