On the very same foray in the spring of 2016 in Prospect Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant in which I snapped the old Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks of the World building before it was torn down, I found a former Brooklyn street name that has now had all trace destroyed. I had my eagle eye working that day it seems.
I smell another Forgotten NY series coming. On the (so far) undefended border of Crown Heights and Bedford Stuyvesant, there’s a plethora of short, one or two-block “Places” between Fulton and Herkimer Streets and Atlantic Avenue. One of them is Claver Place. However, when I found this brick corner building at Claver and Fulton (captured here on Street View in 2016), I found a chiseled sign that didn’t have Claver Place, but Ormond Place instead. Thus, at some time in the past, Ormond became Claver.
By the following year the building had gotten a complete makeover, as gone were the red bricks to be replaced by gun metal gray ones. Happily, the original cornice was permitted to remain as it was. Unhappily, though, a tall gray monstrosity has wrapped itself around the corner building and the Ormond Place sign has been obscured and is now difficult to make out.
Ormond was renamed Claver Place at some time in the past (I haven’t time to research when, but a 1949 Hagstrom I have access to has it as Claver.) It was renamed for St. Peter Claver Church up the block, which was founded in 1921 as the first Black Roman Catholic parish in the diocese of Brooklyn. However the church building is apparently older than that, as it formerly hosted Congregational, Episcopalian, and Baptist congregations.
Peter Claver (1580-1654) was a Spanish Jesuit priest and missionary who worked to assuage the suffering of enslaved people in the New World. He was canonized in 1888 by Pope Leo XIII, who declared Claver the patron of missionary work among all African people.
As always, “comment…as you see fit.” I earn a small payment when you click on any ad on the site. Take a look at the new JOBS link in the red toolbar at the top of the page on the desktop version, as I also get a small payment when you view a job via that link.
12/20/23