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