Disputed Territory

When I first came to NYC, back in 2003, it was my dream to get an apartment right in the middle of things.  I idolized, as so many transplants do, the Village.  Little did I know what geographic trouble I was getting myself into.  The original Village, Greenwich Village, was centered in what is today known as the West Village.  To the east, appropriately, is the East Village--which was originally part of the Lower East Side but renamed for real estate appeal long ago.

I settled in a little studio on Waverly Place and Mercer St.  When people asked me where I lived, I said "the Village," marveling at how incredibly cool that sounded.  But then they'd say, "East or West?" and I was stumped.  Some people insist the dividing line between East and West is Broadway.  Others swear that it's Fifth Avenue.  Maps, even official-looking city maps, are just as fickle, saying one, the other, or sometimes referencing both.  Mercer Street, were I lived, is right in between Broadway and Fifth Avenue.  Thus, each time I tried to describe where my little apartment was to anyone who lived in the city, it generally sparked a long--and often heated--debate on the boundaries of the Village.

Never one to shy away from cartographic controversy, I now find myself in a similar neighborhood border situation.  Our new apartment in Brooklyn sits between two prominent north-south streets, Court Street and Smith Street.  These streets are both labeled by several sources, maps, neighborhood guides, and city resources as the dividing boundary between the neighborhoods of Cobble Hill to the west and Boerum Hill to the east.

Cobble Hill was originally known as Ponkiesbergh, and was settled in the 1640's by the Dutch farmers in the area.  It gained its current name from being a small hill (the highest point is at today's intersection of Atlantic Avenue and Court Street) where cobble stones were disposed.  These stones were used as ballast in the trade ships coming from Europe, and were not needed when the ships left New York laden with American goods, so they were dumped in what was then just outside of the town of Brooklyn.  Althought grouped into the generic "South Brooklyn" designation with everything else south of Atlantic Avenue for many decades, the name Cobble Hill has been in city documents since as early as the 1840s.  The high point itself was even used as a fort during the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, though nothing remains of either today.

Boerum Hill, meanwhile, has a slightly more quiet history.  The area was named after the Boerum family whose farm covered most of the area in colonial times.  Its development followed closely along with Cobble Hill.  Some folks will tell you the name "Boerum Hill" is a product of gentrification in the area, like DUMBO or calling Hell's Kitchen "Clinton."  This is because, like Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill was lumped into the "South Brooklyn" designation well into the 1950s.  However, there are plenty of records showing the name "Boerum Hill" going back as far as the colonial farm itself.  So while the name may have been resurrected after South Brooklyn lost its appeal, Boerum Hill was the original name given to what is now the neighborhood.

Interestingly, in the early 1920s a large group of Mohawk families moved to Boerum Hill from a reservation in Quebec.  They came to NYC as ironworkers to build the new skyscrapers as, unlike their European-American neighbors, they were comfortable working at the dizzying heights of the tallest buildings in the world.  But as crane and building technology improved, the Mohawks eventually left as well, heading west where there was more work available.

So which neighborhood should it be?  I see one strong argument for each.  Historically, the actual hill that Cobble Hill refers to was centered on what is today an intersection of two streets one block away.  That puts our building literally "on" Cobble Hill, so it would make sense to call it "in" Cobble Hill as well.  On the other hand, the city government draws the line between Community Board 2, which includes Boerum Hill, and Community Board 6, which includes Cobble Hill, along Court Street.  This means that, as far as our representation in the city government is concerned, we're in Boerum Hill.

Though I suppose I could avoid the issue entirely, since nearly everyone in Brooklyn knows exactly what I mean when I say I live "around the corner from Trader Joe's."  As for the Manhattan dwellers, all I have do is say "Brooklyn" and watch their eyes glaze over.