If There Is Any Way Properly Respect Our Nation’s First President, It’s Naming A 3-Acre Park In Brooklyn For Him

Well, I guess it’s better than a bus station, right? But Washington has a lot of stuff named for him. Just off the top of my head, there’s Washington Square Park, Washington, D.C., Washington State. But some cherry tree-cutting wooden-toothed sycophants want even more:

In a bid to rewrite a wrongly re-written history, a group of Park Slopers wants to change the name of J.J. Byrne Park so that it re-honors its original namesake — the one and only George Washington.

The park, which is bounded by Fourth and Fifth avenues and Third and Fourth streets, is currently named for an obscure Depression-era borough president.

The Beep vs. the Father of our Country? That’s about as fair a fight as Ron Paul vs. John McCain.

And J.J. Byrne is the loser in that metaphor, said Kim Maier, executive director of the Old Stone House, the recreated 17th-century Dutch farmhouse in the park.

“J.J. Byrne usurped the park,” Maier said, explaining that the current site had been Washington Park, the first professional baseball field in the country, since the 1800s. The site earned the name because it was near a pivotal moment in the Revolutionary War.

Thanks to the heroic efforts of a group of Maryland soldiers under the command of General William Alexander (don’t worry, he has a junior high school named after him nearby), Washington and the rest of the rag-tag American army was able to flee across Gowanus Creek and to safety in Manhattan.

“We’re merely changing the name of the park back to what it originally had,” said Maier.

Perhaps, but let us take a moment to praise J.J. Byrne before he’s buried forever.

Byrne was appointed to the borough presidency in 1926, after the death of legendary Beep Joseph Guilder. Byrne completed the term and was re-elected in 1929, but himself died in office the following year.

He’s credited with initiating or completing construction of the Municipal Building on Joralemon Street and the Central Court Building (now Brooklyn Criminal Court) on Schermerhorn Street.

His proclivity for grand construction was foreshadowed by his previous work as Brooklyn’s Commissioner of Public Works.

In that context, Maier’s support for the return of George Washington is particularly ironic, given that Byrne was the borough president who rebuilt the Old Stone House in 1930.

Now that I think about it, who is Nathanael Greene and why should we care?