ONE day, I’ll do a thorough look at the streets in northern Tribeca as I haven’t written about that area much. Unlike other parts of Tribeca and neighboring Soho, these streets haven’t attracted a lot of commercial businesses…yet…and retain Belgian blocked streets and brick architecture that I greatly admire and enjoy.
Nah. Today, if you’re a Tribecker, or Tribeçois, or whatever they call you over there, I need your help. There are still streets in NYC whose names I have never heard pronounced and utterly stump me. Like this one, Desbrosses Street, which runs for only three blocks between Hudson and West Streets two streets south of Canal. It takes its name from a Huguenot Frenchman, Elias Desbrosses (1718-1778), an early NYC Chamber of Commerce president in the Revolutionary War era, who owned a distillery and became one of New York’s leading import-export merchants, and eventually rivaled names ike DeLancey, Lispenard and Rutgers in terms of how much acreage he controlled.
Now, if I remember my high school French (I could also consult my pal with the Greater Astoria Historical Society and co-tour guide DeeAnne Gorman, who sings in French, lived in France, and once married a Frenchman) in France the name is pronounced something like Day-BROSS. I suspect, though, that down in Tribeca it could be pronounced as spelled. Dez-BROSS-ez. Or maybe something in between, like DAY-bross. Anyway, I have no idea. Enlighten me…Comments are open.
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1/10/24
13 comments
Huguenots often pronounced their names as if they were Dutch rather than French, or more to the point, they answered to a Dutch pronunciation (South Afriicans are an example of this). So the most likely pronunciation would be “dess-braw-sess.” But locals often have, well, an idiosyncratic pronunciation. For example, “Scholes Street” in Brooklyn should be the plural of “Skoal!” but I think the locals have historically called it “Scoolees”. Many other such examples exist, notably Van Wyck– the Dutch is “Vahn Wayck,” the “w” pronounced almost as a “v”, but about half the people of Queens think it’s “Wick” and half think it’s “Wike.” I believe the family prefers the latter.
Lived in a loft on Desbrosses for ten years in the nineties and we all called it closest to what THEREALGUYFAUX said , though the middle syllable was a little closer to dess-BROE-sess Accent on the Bro
Day-BROSS would be the pronunciation in French, but of course, over time, pronunciations mutate depending on who lives there.
I worked on Greenwich St between Vestry & Desbrosses for 6 years. We all always pronounced it phonetically as Dess-Bross-Ess and I’m pretty sure that’s what most other NYers do.
I worked on Greenwich Street between Desbrosses & Vestry for 6 years. We all always pronounced it phonetically as Dess-Bross-Ess, and I’m pretty sure that’s how other NYers say it too.
Why does the thumbnail say 5 comments but there are still only two comments displayed once you click on the thumbnail and get to the article? This happens all the time; sometimes the discrepancy between the number of comments on the thumbnail and the number of actual comments lasts for like 12 hours, half a day. Normally I don’t care that much, but here the Desbrosses pronunciation is important and I want to read the three new comments. It really is a tease, and doesn’t seem like something that should be happening. I don’t blame you, of course, just the software developers, programmers, etc.
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My office was on Desbrosses Street for years. I live in Tribeca since 1975. I read that Lincoln’s body was placed on a horse carriage at the dock that was at the foot of Desbrosses Street.
Back in the 1980’s I edited a local TV commercial for a business on Desbrosses street. The business owner had the VO person pronounce it “Des-Bros-sez”. I also knew an artist who lived there in 1980’s who pronounced it “Des-Bross-ezz”. Similar but not French sounding for either.
I have never been able to properly pronounce Spuyten Duyvil either.
My father’s print shop was in 480 Canal, Debrosses was the next block and on occasion he would need to have a place on it do some of his film work done there, This is when that area was the printing district.
Desbrosses Street had an elevated station before 1940, so there was a time when more New Yorkers knew this name.
I’ve gotten into arguments with people about the proper pronunciation of “Schermerhorn”…