tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5206380617235471991.post8819869627949213872..comments2023-10-26T09:58:01.275-04:00Comments on The Bowery Boys: New York City History: Why are there so many Henry Streets in New York City?The Bowery Boys - Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15973633888975286268noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5206380617235471991.post-45899896833666037832013-09-12T17:09:09.151-04:002013-09-12T17:09:09.151-04:00Interesting explanations, both. Might the Hicks b...Interesting explanations, both. Might the Hicks brothers be from the same family as the one that settled in Long Island, and the ancestors of the Hicks Nursery clan?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5206380617235471991.post-91395379853520553972013-06-21T02:01:48.584-04:002013-06-21T02:01:48.584-04:00Henry Street in Brooklyn might very well have been...Henry Street in Brooklyn might very well have been named after Dr. Henry but if so you probably have the back-story mixed up. According to a letter published in the Eagle in 1895 and citing a Middagh descendant then still living, when the street was opened up through the family farm in the 1820s, the widowed Mrs. Middagh actually named it "John" after her late husband. But mysteriously, someone kept taking the signs down and replacing them with ones that said "Henry." Mrs. Middagh suspected a certain "Yankee doctor on Washington Street" (remember, the Middaghs were old-time Dutch Brooklynites). I've ID'ed the doctor as Dr. Charles Ball, who earlier lived on Washington and around that time moved up to the Heights (his house is pictured in the background of the famous Francis Guy painting). Did Mrs. Middagh eventually acquiesce to the new street-signs honoring Ball's colleague Dr. Henry? Perhaps, but if so, it certainly wasn't because he was beloved.<br /><br />This story is probably the kernel of the tale (even if backwards) about "Lady" Middagh replacing the signs for streets named after people, with her fruit-street signs. It's certainly a colorful fiction (and has made its way into the official explanation of the "Fruit Street Sitting Area" of the NYC Dep't of Parks) but sadly almost completely invented. She was no "Lady" just the widow of a gentleman farmer, and all of the fruit streets were named by her husband's cousins the Hicks brothers 20 years earlier when they mapped out the earliest Brooklyn Heights streets, even before the farmland was sold off and the streets opened, let alone adorned with signage.Jeremyhttp://oldbrooklynheights.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.com