CANARSIE is named for the indigenous Canarsee Indians the Dutch found in residence when they arrived in the 1640s. The name “Canarsee”’s etymology is in dispute, but it some scholars of Native American tongues say it means “fenced land” or “fenced place.” Years of warring with the invading Dutch took their toll on the Indians in western Long Island; most of the Canarsees repaired east and today most of the descendants of the Canarsees can be found at the Poospatuck Reservation, near Patchogue in eastern Long Island. The reservation numbered but 271 in the 2000 Census.
Canarsie was the remotest of Brooklyn neighborhoods for many years; it was cut off by Paerdegat Basin and Jamaica Bay from wagon and foot traffic, and few roads reached it from the north. It was not truly developed into a full-fledged community between Paerdegat Basin and Fresh Creek until postwar construction in the 1950s: until then, it was a sleepy small town centering around roads that became Rockaway Parkway, East 92nd Street and the Road to (Abraham) Lott’s House, a road leading to the old Lott farm that stood approximately where Avenue K and East 83rd Street are now. Canarsie is still rife with old farm roads.
One of those old farm roads is Bedell Lane. In 1978, NYC’s Lamppost King Robert Mulero fired off this shot of an abandoned building on East 92nd Street where it meets Bedell Lane. More important is what’s in front of the building: an abandoned gas pump, and two old lampposts; this was once a gas station! There’s also a sports car parked in front of the building; Comments are open if you can identify it.
From 1940s NYC I obtained this tax photo of what the gas station and house looked like in 1940. As you can see there were once five gas pumps. The house is well kept and a pair of lamps that still remained in 1978 illuminated the station. What a find. By 1978 I was bicycling all over Brooklyn and Queens, and if I ever passed this location that year or any year before 1993 when I moved to Flushing, I took no note.
What’s a gas station doing in front of a house? Remember, in 1940 Canarsie, along with other southern Brooklyn spots like Bergen Beach and Gravesend, still had rural elements hanging on. There were still some mom and pop gas stations; this one was a Sinclair franchisee, before Sinclair adopted the brontosaurus as its mascot (gasoline is supposedly derived from congealed oleaginous remains of creatures such as dinosaurs that strode the earth over 60 million years ago).
By 1978, the gas station had been long abandoned and the decrepit house had reached the end and had a for sale sign.
Today’s Street View photos show a ranch house occupying the space. The house to the gas station’s left remains in place. I estimate the ranch house was built in the 1980s. It’s likely the occupants have no idea they are living over a former gas station; the underground tanks have likely been removed.
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