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My Neighborhood: Kings Highway, Brooklyn, NY

By
Managing Real Estate Broker with Brooklyn/Manhattan Real Estate

Kings Highway runs through the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The street has over 100 stores and shops. The road begins at Bay Parkway. After intersecting with Ocean Avenue the street becomes mostly residential, snaking through Brooklyn and ending at East 98th Street. At that point, it connects with Howard Avenue to provide seamless access to Eastern Parkway, another major road in Brooklyn with side medians and service roads.A Business Improvement District serves the road's stores, restaurants and businesses.

Kings Highway is entering the Flatlands section of Brooklyn Originally; Kings Highway was much longer than it is now. It originally began at Fulton Ferry, where Old Fulton and Furman Streets are now, and ran southeast all the way to the small Dutch town of New Amersfort, now known as Flatlands. It took a sharp westward turn at that point and swept into another of Brooklyn's original six towns, New Utrecht, and on into Yellow Hook (Bay Ridge), ending at Denyse's Ferry, operated by a colonial-era landowner, about where Shore Road and 79th Street are now.

The British General Lord Cornwallis traveled along it with his troops on August 26, 1776, to the Battle of Brooklyn, a major defeat for the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War. When President George Washington came to survey the agricultural abilities of Kings, Queens, and Suffolk Counties in 1792, he traveled down this rural road. Gradually, homesteads started to line the road as farmers moved into the area.

(Kings Highway and East 16th Street)

Though the road was the major highway running through the towns of Brooklyn, Flatbush, Flatlands, Gravesend and New Utrecht, it did not have a commonly used name until the nineteenth century. It was often referred to simply as "lane" or "road," followed by a short description. Thus it would be described as "the lane between Gravesend and New Utrecht." It also took on local names in each town, such as "Gravesend Lane" and "Ferry Road." The name "Kings Highway" was a common reference to public highways during colonial times, and has been employed for other roads around New York in no way connected with the present Kings Highway.

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Luke Constantino
Commercial
| Residential
RE
/MAX at THE SLOPE
Direct: (212) 300-3919 | Fax: (360) 368-0098
http://LukeConstantino.com

Posted by

Luke Constantino
Realtor
Commercial/Residential
Remax At The Slope
261 4th Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11215
Office: (718) 532-2000
Direct: (212) 300-3919
lukeconstantino@gmail.com

 

JEROME G
White Plains, NY
I enjoyed reading your post. I love New York history! True blue New Yorker here! Any suggestion for a good New York history book.
Apr 22, 2007 12:49 PM