I’ve been aware of Dennet Place, between Luquer and Nelson Streets just west of the IND elevated and Smith Street, since I first started perusing Hagstrom maps, specifically September 1968 (age 11) when I acquired my first one, at Gertz on Jamaica Avenue, in precincts far from my parents’ Bay Ridge base. We were on a mission to get a wall unit for the old man to put all his reel to reel tape recorders, cassette decks and stereos; he was as much an audiophile as I am an urbano-forgotteno-phile. We went to a nearby restaurant and he sent the steak back twice because it was pink in the middle.
Older, hand-drawn Hagstroms always rendered this tiny alley, betwen Nelson and Luquer Streets just west of Smith and the IND concrete trestle in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, as Bennett and later, Dennett. It wasn’t till I flashed past on a bike in the Super Seventies that I ascertained that yes, there was indeed an alley here and it was spelled Dennet as that’s what the street signs had.
…until the latest set of street signs were unveiled, and an extra “T’ was added at the end. Even Google Maps, infallible as the pope, maybe, has the spelling wrong with the extra T. To those who are not Carroll Gardensites or are otherwise unaware of the area, coming upon this narrow lane is a revelation. They just don’t make them like this in alley-poor New York City. I can’t account for its origins, or the derivation of its name; perhaps it’s as simple as a guy named Dennet lived here. It’s been here a long time, though — Dennet Place, with one T, turns up in this city directory published in 1876.
Dennet Place is easily spotted from the right side of the F train as it rumbles southbound over the Smith Street trestle. Perhaps, that’s where the art directors for Spider-Man III saw it and used it in a scene.
Dennet Place is lined with small, two and three-story attached houses, some with dormers, some without. They are arranged in groups of two, with a double staircase in the middle serving each. Below the stairs, each house has a miniature door, most about 4 feet in height. I don’t know anyone on Dennet Place, so my guess is that they lead to basement apartments and the short doors accommodate steps going down.
Most of the houses have long ago been covered with siding, some more esthetically challenged than others. (Some, though, have kept their original brick cladding and have even had it repointed, and the staircase in front given a complementary makeover.)
Just as the spelling of Dennet Place can’t be decided upon, the spelling and pronunciation of Luquer Street is also up for debate. Is it Luqueer or Luquer? Street signs have one E. Is it LU-ker or lu-QUEER? Many area oldtimers go for the latter. That’s Brooklyn!
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10/5/23
7 comments
There is a Luquer Road in Port Washington, New York. Old maps show that family name as owners of the land where the road now exists. It is spelled with one “e”, but I remember it being pronounced Luqueer locally.
Those plant tubs were a mistake
I don’ think Cobble Hill extends that far. It used to be called Carrol Gardens, but I think real Estate Agents in their quest to fancy everything up referred to is as Gowanus. When I was in the neighborhood it was referred to as lu-QUEER
Remembering video of the street flooding around the Smith and Ninth Street station, and seeing your photos of what might be basement apartments on nearby Dennet Place, I sure hope the locals have a second means of egress just in case!
I want to live here
so safe and friendly, and homey Deep sigh I know that place I remember it Thanks so much for the memory
Looks like someone built a penthouse on the yellow building on the left or
is that simply an extension?