YOU don’t hear much about Founding Father Button Gwinnett (1737-1777), though his was the first signature under the Declaration of Independence, if you’re reading the signatures from the left. In 1776, Gwinnett was a representative of Georgia to the Continental Congress and was briefly the provisional president (today we would call him governor) of Georgia in 1777. He is remembered by Gwinnett County in Georgia and at one time, a street in Brooklyn. His unusual first name comes from his mother’s beloved cousin, Barbara Button. Gwinnett was killed in a duel by Lachlan McIntosh who was given a plum command in the Georgia militia that Gwinnett had desired, and challenged McIntosh. When he signed the Declaration, he had no idea he would be dead in a few months, though all the signers knew, as Benjamin Franklin (unattributed) put it, “if we do not hang together we shall certainly hang separately.”
Throughout New York City, entire neighborhoods have streets named from one theme. In Baychester in the Bronx, all the streets are named for former NYC mayors. Rosebank, Staten Island, has a small posse of streets named for classical composers. A relatively new neighborhood in Staten Island developed in the 1970s features 1960s astronauts’ names, with lanes named for Gus Grissom, Deke Slayton, Alan Shepard, Wally Schirra and others; strangely enough there’s no Glenn, but a Glen Road.
Williamsburg’s in the club as well: most of the streets are named for signers of the Declaration of Independence. Not every signer is represented, but most are. Ben Franklin, George Clymer, George Taylor, James Wilson, John Morton, and George Ross of Pennsylvania; Caesar Rodney of Delaware; William Hooper, George Hewes and John Penn of North Carolina; Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward Jr., Thomas Lynch Jr., and Arthur Middleton of South Carolina; George Walton of Georgia; Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts; Josiah Bartlett, Matthew Thornton and William Whipple of New Hampshire; Stephen Hopkins and William Ellery of Rhode Island; Richard Stockton and John Hart of New Jersey; George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee (or Francis Lightfoot Lee), and Benjamin Harrison of Virginia… all have named streets in Williamsburg or Bedford-Stuyvesant named for them. John Adams, John Hancock, Francis Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and Charles Carroll have named streets in other Brooklyn neighborhoods.
Button Gwinnett was originally included. However, sometime between 1916 and 1929 (I can’t pinpoint the year) the decision was named by the Department of Traffic (the precursor to the DO Transportation) to make Gwinnett Street an eastern extension of Wallabout Lorimer Street. Why this was done is a mystery, like the switch of Harway and Cropsey Avenues in Gravesend in the same era.
Gwinnett was also remembered by the now-closed Gwinnett Street, a restaurant further east at #312 Graham Avenue. Interestingly it was succeeded by The Lachlan (same owners, maybe)? In any case…both are gone.
While I’m here, I can’t help but mention Keap Street, named for Thomas McKean of Pennsylvania. A long-ago administrator or mapmaker mistook McKean’s shaky signature as “Tho. M. Keap” and that’s how it stayed. A bit of research would have helped.
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9/24/25
8 comments
I did some digging into this last time it came up. Streets named for Thomas Nelson, Samuel Huntington, and Oliver Wolcott are in Red Hook. Roger Sherman and Carter Braxton are in Windsor Terrace. Braxton Street is now Windsor Place. In East New York there were Francis Hopkinson (now Thomas Boyland), William Paca (now Rockaway Ave), Thomas Stone (now Mother Gaston), and William Williams. I think the only streets I was not able to find were Chase, Morris, and Paine.
The remaining piece of Floyd St. was renamed for Dr. Martin Luther King shortly after his death.
The street named for Benjamin Rush was in the S. W’Burg sequence, but no longer exists. John Witherspoon’s street has become Vernon Avenue in Bed-Stuy. My guess is that George Read was represented by Reid Avenue, now the north end of Utica Ave… or Reed St in Red Hook?
Chase Avenue is now part of Kent Avenue, between Flushing Avenue and Division Avenue. Paine Street became part of Wallabout Street. (I believe Gwinnett became part of Lorimer, not Wallabout Street.) There was also a Morris Street, which would have been one block north of and parallel to Rush Street. Morris Street was gone by 1850.
Reid Avenue was named for a local landowner in Bed-Stuy; it replaced Reid Road. Not sure about Reed Street in Red Hook.
Nice. That would seem to be all of them.
That is one ugly street..
The buildings are all very new, so they mostly suck, but I do like those staggered balconies facing each other across the street. It reminds me of the Brooklyn Army Terminal interior with its staggered balconies inside, where they have tracks and railcars parked.
The staggered balconies may be a sign that this is an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood. That allows for the construction of sukkahs (little temporary huts) during the holiday of Sukkot, with roofs often made of branches, that allow the sky to be seen (as required). This would not be possible if the balconies were directly in line with each other. These particular balconies don’t look very staggered, but there are other buildings in Williamsburg where they are.