Rediscovering the Beaten Path - Part I

I’ll admit I’m a bit of a misguided romantic when it comes to travel. Any place that doesn’t look like New York City tends to get identified by my overactive and misinformed mind as exotic. After all, exoticism is subjective; it’s definition changing by individual and location. Yet for me, the exoticism I refer to comes from looking at new surroundings and realizing that what I am in fact seeing is a reflection of the past; cultures and people that came and went yet managed to leave an indelible impression there; one that may be not even be consciously known to those who inhabit the area now but remains ever present.

In an attempt to rid myself of my romantic, yet erroneous travel idealisms, I decided to remind myself of New York City’s own rich history by taking a closer look at my own neighborhood, Ridgewood. Having lived here for over 15 years, there isn’t much about the neighborhood that I’m not familiar with. I have tread the streets of this area so often, memorized every store, park, lane, and bench that it has all become nothing more than background as I go on my way. It takes only a bit of curiosity and a little digging to realize just how much history can be found locally.

I was delighted to discover just how rich and far back the history of Ridgewood goes, but to give you a thorough run-through would require several pages of data, maps, countless facts, and chronologically placed historical events that would be A.) horrifying to write and B.) tedious to read. Instead, out of admittedly shameless laziness, I decided to focus on the origins of the neighborhood in this post and the historical landmarks in a later one. The articles stay more tightly focused this way. Or at least that’s the justification I’m using. 

The Ridgewood Dispute

Let’s begin with a bit of the history. Ridgewood is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens but there has always been a debate as to whether or not part of it belongs to Brooklyn as well. I’ve always lived on the Brooklyn side of the border, with my zip code belonging to the neighborhood of Bushwich, yet whenever I receive mail, both State and Federal, my neighborhood is addressed as Ridgewood. The boundary issue is tricky and the reason for the confusion, which persists to this day, dates back to Dutch colonization the Americas in the 17^th century.

Map-Novi Belgii Novæque Angliæ (Amsterdam, 1685).  A 1685 reprint

 of a 1656 map of Dutch North America, Library of Congress

The Dutch first founded the town of Breuckelen - modern day Brooklyn - in 1646 and Ridgewood was originally part of the Dutch settlement of Boswijk – today known as Bushwick. When the English arrived, they took over several Dutch settlements north of Boswijk, and renamed it Newtown and Ridgewood, respectively. The bitter dispute over the boundary lines between Boswijk and Newtown, which reflected the animosity between the Dutch and the English, was so strong that a boundary

Arbitration Rock

marker was placed in 1769 to mark the dividing line between the two townships. Known as the Arbitration Rock, it became the official marker for property disputes until the two towns were integrated into the City of New York and the borders later redrawn. However, confusion still remains among residents today (myself included) because the residential addresses, which are supposed to change by borough, do not, so one crosses from Brooklyn to Queens with no change in the address numbering system.

Cultural Identity

Until about the mid-nineteenth century, Ridgewood remained much the same - lush farmland where fruits and produce were cultivated for markets in the Brooklyn and Manhattan settlements. Many of the wagon roads settlers followed were old Native American trails. Myrtle and Metropolitan Avenues, along with Fresh Pond Road were a few,and farmers could use these trails to take their merchandise from the area all the way to the waterfronts. Unrest and wars in the European German states brought a wave of German immigrants to the US from the 1850’s till the beginning of the 20^th century. These immigrants were not just farmers and peasants, but educated men, businessmen, craftsmen and artisans who replaced the farms with streets and homes and established businesses, banks, houses of worship, and cultural institutions.

Terraced Houses designed for
 German workers, google map

While a keen eye can spot Ridgewood’s English and Dutch roots by the street names, its Germanic history, although in plain sight, is harder to notice. Many of the town and terrace houses, office buildings and breweries that the German immigrants originally built are still occupied today. What changed are the demographics. The first half of the 20^th century brought a surge of Eastern European, Irish, Puerto Rican, and Italian immigrants into Ridgewood, followed by Dominican and Ecuadorian in the second half. These diverse cultures integrated themselves so well within the established community it’s become difficult to attribute the neighborhood’s heritage to single culture. Traces of Germanic influence are more noticeable in neighboring towns like Glendale and Middle Village where German influenced taverns and specialty shops can still be found.

I was always dimly aware of Ridgewood’s history but after reading about it all, I must admit that I gained a newfound appreciation for my neighborhood. Streets and buildings suddenly have an identity of their own and as I walk around my neighborhood, I can’t help but wonder just how many others have tread these streets before me.