NEW York City has weeded out most of its more colorful names over the decades, such as the Bronx’ Bear Swamp Road, Staten Island’s Skunks Misery and Gun Factory Roads and Queens’ Black Stump Road and Quarrelsome Lane, so I’m glad the Bronx still has Featherbed Lane, which runs in two pieces in Morris Heights from Jerome Avenue west to Macomb’s Road and from Macomb’s Road and Grand Avenue west to University Avenue. It runs where West 173rd Street would normally be.
Oddly the name does not seem to be a colonial-era relic since it begins appearing on maps as late as 1890. The late Bronx historian John McNamara has floated several ideas about how the road got its name, such as Loyalists laying featherbeds on local lanes to muffle the British army’s hoofbeats; farmers upholstering their wagons with featherbeds on the rutted roads; or, during the construction of the Croton Aqueduct in the 1840s, prostitutes had a bangup business from the local workers, on, you guessed it, featherbeds. The name was likely used informally for several decades and when the streets were laid out and built, Featherbed Lane was included.
A NYS historical marker was once located at the traffic triangle at Featherbed Lane and University Avenue. The plaque explained the origin of this unusually-named street: So called from story that farmers’ wives, in 1776, aided Americans to escape British by spreading featherbeds on the lane.
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8/22/23
11 comments
Or it’s possible that some local politician put some of his cronies in no-show jobs on the payroll of the paving company that paved the street, a practice called “featherbedding,” i.e, more workers getting paid than there is actual work for.
I dont know why this country has to have such boring street names.Elm,Maple and
Oak streets are about as wild as it gets.
New Orleans used to be the exception with street names like “Fool” “Whisky” and
my favorite, “Good Children” but I guess they were just a bit too wild and colorful.
People get upset when things are not bland and predictable
Chris – in the Sweet Hollow area of Suffolk County, there is a street called Mount Misery Road, as there is a supposedly haunted house there.
Maybe it took more people than usual to build the road, e.g., featherbedding.
Worked nearby for many years. The locals all favored the prostitute origin of the street name.
The nearby Edwin L. Grant Highway, which goes from the intersection of Jerome Avenue and 167th Street up to University Avenue was renamed for a now-forgotten WW One soldier. It was original Boscobel Road, a much more historic name. I always loved the name Featherbed Lane. Also, Shakespeare Avenue.
Isn’t that area actually the “Highbridge” section of the Bronx?
Here we go
Don’t all hookers have a “bang-up” business? 😀
Visited my grandma on Nelson Ave every Friday with my mom and sister, walking down University to Featherbed Lane, then straight on to Nelson. Used to be a Buster Brown children’s shoe store right on the corner of Featherbed Lane – oh my lord-what memories!
Perhaps, back in the day, it war so rutted and rough that some teamster sarcastically christened it with its current name?