Talk:Nostrand Avenue

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Article created. Someone who lives near Nostrand Avenue or has knowledge about the street can add information. Added "Nostrand Avenue" to the template: {{Brooklyn Streets}}

The Family Owning Slaves?

Latest comment: 1 month ago1 comment1 person in discussion

"It is named after Gerret Noorstrandt whose family was one of the first families that settled in New Utrecht, Brooklyn, when New York was still a Dutch colony. Between 1790 and 1820, the Nostrand family owned approximately 43 enslaved people.[1]"

A few comments here:

(1) New Utrecht wasn't part of Brooklyn until 1894; it was originally a separate community. Thus, the description of "New Utrecht, Brooklyn" should be changed.

(2) The sentence about the Nostrand family owning slaves seems to be an unnecessary tangent that feels very off-topic. It's sort of like saying "San Antonio is named after a Catholic Priest. Catholic priests have molested thousands of children." It reads like whoever wrote it was trying to shoehorn an insult into the article, or perhaps a political statement, e.g., things shouldn't be named after slaveowners. (I guess we're going to have to change the name of Washington D.C. then...)

(3) Furthermore, I have been unable to verify the historical fact that the Nostrand family owned slaves. In fact, I am barely able to verify any information about the Nostrand family. The 2006 book "Brooklyn By Name' by Bernardo and Weiss seems to mention the family, but I am not sure where those authors are getting their information from. The claim that the Nostrand family were slaveowners is posted on several websites but so far as I can tell it is apocryphal.

I think that the sentence about the Nostrand family owning slaves should be deleted for the two reasons stated above, and that the description of "New Utrecht, Brooklyn" should be removed. However, is anyone better at researching this than me? Does anyone have access to a source about the history of Kings County that I don't have?

- Update*

I changed this to read as follows:

"The street is named after the 17th century Dutch settler Gerret Noorstrandt."

I deleted the part about New Utrecht because I think Nostrand Avenue actually would've been part of the Dutch town of Flatbush, not New Utrecht. I think New Utrecht was where Bensonhurst is today. While I guess it's possible that the Nostrand family lived in New Utrecht and not in Flatbush where the street bearing their name is located, I think this would be confusing to readers.

I deleted the sentence about the Nostrand family owning slaves. I could not verify this historical fact and in any event I don't think it belongs. This is an article about a street in Brooklyn, in which we're including a sentence about who the street is named after. We don't need to go on an off-topic tangent about how this family allegedly owned slaves. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimmu1 (talk • contribs) 02:49, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

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