Street Names Get Longer, Neighborhoods Shorter

ONE STREET, TWO NAMES: Punk rocker Joey Ramone was honored in 2003 when Second Street on the Lower East Side was co-named for him. As of last week, 56 more streets across the city are named for outstanding New Yorkers. Teresa Lee/Getty Images

NEW YORK—The City Council voted in favor of the street co-naming omnibus bill last week. Across the five boroughs, 56 thoroughfares and public places will now bear the names of exemplary New Yorkers who have passed away.

“Each of these street signs will now serve as a reminder of the contributions that these individuals and organizations have made to our city,” stated Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito in a press release.

Co-naming is already a tradition in the city, as exemplified in Harlem where Lenox Avenue is also Malcolm X Boulevard, Eighth Avenue is also Frederick Douglass Boulevard, and Seventh Avenue is also Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard. Now added to their ranks are many heroes from the 9/11 terrorist attacks and soldiers from wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Dominick Berardi, who worked on the 101st floor of the WTC, will be remembered by his namesake Dominick Berardi Way, or 149th Street. Prospect Park West will now share its street sign with Lance Corporal Julian T. Brennan, one of the city’s soldiers killed on a combat mission in Afghanistan.

In the meantime, realtors are working to shorten neighborhood names, giving them a hipper appeal to prospective buyers. Many have noticed ProCro (PROspect Heights and CROwn Heights), which is the most recent addition to the ranks of BoCoCa (BOerum Hill, CObble Hill, and CArroll Gardens), DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass), TriBeCa (TRIangle BElow CAnal Street), and the age-old Soho (SOuth of HOuston).

A Wall Street Journal article published in February dubbed the new neighborhood an attempt at bringing some of the suave of Prospect Heights to the less lucrative neighborhood of Crown Heights.