{"id":2175,"date":"2007-03-06T09:52:43","date_gmt":"2007-03-06T17:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2007\/03\/its_probably_best_to_keep_denis_hamill_way_far_away_from_forest_hills.html"},"modified":"2008-01-24T13:46:16","modified_gmt":"2008-01-24T18:46:16","slug":"keep_denis_hami","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2007\/03\/keep_denis_hami.html","title":{"rendered":"It’s Probably Best To Keep Denis Hamill Way Far Away From Forest Hills*"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Being Denis Hamill: 1) pick the low-hanging fruit<\/a>; 2) cause a big stir with that fruit<\/a>; 3) bask in the smug self-righteousness said fruit bears<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The best part about the Corbin Place uproar is that there is uproar.<\/p>\n

On the evening of Feb. 26, I sat in the last row of an assembly room in Kingsborough Community College where Community Board 15 held a public hearing about changing the street name of Corbin Place. About 100 people showed up from the snowy streets, more than most City Council meetings.<\/p>\n

It was democracy at its best.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

In the middle of the meeting Leonard Benardo — who with his wife, Jennifer Weiss, wrote “Brooklyn by Name,” which gives the history of most street names in Brooklyn — asked me, “What are we gonna do, rename the 70 streets in Brooklyn named after slaveholders?”<\/p>\n

“Why not,” I asked.<\/p>\n

I said that because of his book, which inspired my column, a whole neighborhood was discussing and debating local history. And how could that ever be a bad thing? If Nostrand Ave., Vanderbilt Ave., and Lott St. are named for slaveholders, shouldn’t the citizens who live on those streets or in their surrounding neighborhoods have a chance to debate whether that’s a proper name to honor on a street sign?<\/p>\n

If history is revised, shouldn’t street signs also be revised? Even if people have to be mildly inconvenienced by having their addresses altered on house deeds, driver’s licenses, and stationery?<\/p>\n

Why not turn all the soil in a new century and see what we find?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

*Because you thought Austin Street was named for Stephen F.? Guess again<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Being Denis Hamill: 1) pick the low-hanging fruit; 2) cause a big stir with that fruit; 3) bask in the smug self-righteousness said fruit bears: The best part about the Corbin Place uproar is that there is uproar. On the evening of Feb. 26, I sat in the last row of an assembly room […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grandstanding","category-historical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}