Signposts

You may have noticed that in some neighborhoods there are towers or stanchions made of concrete or concrete mixed with stone that stand on the sidewalk that have the name of the street carved into them. Most people pass them by without giving them a second look. But next time you pass one, look again.

Many of these stone guardians were installed there when the street they are located on had a different name. So, many of them carry long-forgotten names that the streets carried when their neighborhoods were young. For example...

Hyatt Avenue, on the signpost above, is shown in this 1900-vintage Brooklyn Eagle map to its right.

Hyatt Avenue is today's 65th Place. The signpost is at the corner of 65th Place and Jay Avenue. The map shows Hyatt Avenue at a location somewhat to the north of where the signpost is. A close look at the map will reveal that Calamus Avenue still bears that name. Thompson Avenue is now the very wide Queens Boulevard (a section of Thompson Avenue has kept its old name, while dropping the "p", in Sunnyside). Shell Road, named because it was originally paved with oyster shells) is presently the location of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, along with its service road, Laurel Hill Boulevard. Fisk Avenue kept its name...but only on the signs of the IRT elevated station at 69th Street. The red lines in the map indicate the Long Island Rail Road, which wound, then as now, through the area.

The above signpost is at Bell Boulevard and 36th Avenue in Bayside; 36th Avenue was known as Lamartine Avenue in the 19th Century. A close look (very close) at the map of Queens from the early 1900s on the right will show Lamartine Avenue (circled in green) just to the east of Crocheron Avenue (today's 35th Avenue). Crocheron Avenue has kept its old name in the section between Northern and Francis Lewis Boulevards. Bell Avenue, on the map, is now Bell Boulevard. The Long Island Rail Road served Bayside now as it did then, but with a difference: before 1913, the railroad operated at grade. After 1913, it was submerged in a railroad cut. Oakland Lake, at right, is still there. The outline of Rocky Hill Road, at right, can still be seen in the street patterns of today's Bell Boulevard and Luke Place. A small piece of Rocky Hill Road still exists between the Clearview Expressway and Francis Lewis Boulevard.

At the time the map was made, Bayside was a small village in the borough of Queens, but already an important one. Early in the 20th Century, it served as the home base for a number of actors and actresses when Astoria was a mecca of moviemaking. Then, the mecca moved to Hollywood, and so did the actors.

Hollis Park Boulevard doesn't exist any more, but it did in the 1920s, when the Hollis Park development first appeared. It's now 193rd Street.

Brooklyn simplified its street naming scheme decades ago by naming most of the streets from Flatbush on south after letters or numbers. Occasionally, though, there's an exception to the rule, such as Farragut and Glenwood Roads, which replace Avenues F and G.

Glenwood Road, though, was named Avenue G at one time, as this signpost at Ocean Avenue and Glenwood attests.

When Hollis Park was first built, the stretch of Jamaica Avenue it faces was still called Fulton Street.

Waldheim, Queens. This sign was repaired after years of decay in 2005.

Great care was given to small details in the early 20th Century. Here is a look at the intricate stonecutting on a pillar marking the Hollis Park entrance.

Got any complaints? Suggestions? Additions? Let me have them at erpietri@earthlink.net.

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