PUGSLEY Creek, an inlet of the East River, forms a fork with the much longer and deeper Westchester Creek in Clason Point, Bronx, with Castle Hill Park at the foot of Castle Hill Avenue in the middle. It’s relatively short, with the surface waters penetrating only to Lacombe Avenue at Stickball Boulevarrd (Newman Avenue); north of that, it was diverted into the sewer system several decades ago. On either side of the creek is a marshy area that in 1989 was formalized as Pugsley Creek Park, with walking trails added. You can see it on this 1901 Bronx map, where it’s called Barrett’s Creek; according to the late Bronx historian John McNamara in History in Asphalt, it’s also been called Cromwell’s Creek, Wilkins Creek, Clason’s Creek and West Creek. The Pugsley family was prominent in the Unionport area in the 19th Century. NYC water master Sergey Kadonsky has the full Pugsley Creek story over at Hidden Waters.
The creek has lent its name to Pugsley Avenue, which runs from the East River at Clason Point with an interruption by the creek to McGraw Avenue at the eastern end of Parkchester. Additionally, Pugsley Pizza, on East 191st Street in Fordham, just south of the campus, one of my favorite pizza joints seen on this FNY page, was founded by Sicilian immigrant Salvatore Natale in the early 1980s, a former jazz saxophone who had arrived in the States in 1967. It was originally located on Pugsley Avenue in Castle Hill but moved when Natale purchased a junkyard on East 191st and moved the pizzeria there.
For years, I had thought the street and the creek had nothing to do with Pugsley Addams, the cherubic, good-natured striped-shirted scion of the Addams Family, played by the late Ken Weatherwax in the 60s TV show. But I was wrong. When cartoonist Charles Addams, who helped develop the show, was looking for appropriate names for the characters, he happened on a Bronx map, saw the name and made up his mind then. That’s the story MeTV is providing.
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5/14/24