WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES FEBRUARY 21, 2019 27
Bygone communities within the community
BY THE OLD TIMER
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD: THE WAY IT WAS
EDITORIAL@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
@RIDGEWOODTIMES
Our local communities and all
communities, wherever located,
have very localized names for
real estate subdivisions, ponds and
lakes, hills and valleys.
Over an extensive period of time,
the Greater Ridgewood Historical
Society — under the guise of one
of its longest serving members, the
late great George Miller — collected
information on many of these
names. We’re happy to share some
of that amazing information with
all of you.
Our readers will find some of
these names familiar, but other
names used by past generations for
specific locations within our Greater
Ridgewood area may contain new
information.
Here’s just a sample of some
of the former names of our
neighborhood...
Columbusville (Maspeth)
Columbusville in Maspeth was
mapped in 1854 and was centered along
Mazeau Street on the southerly side of
Grand Avenue.
The name initially applied to the
mapped area bounded approximately
by Grand Avenue on the north, Caldwell
Avenue on the south, Brown Place and
69th Street on the west and 75th Street
on the east. The name would soon refer
to the northerly side of Grand Avenue
from 68th Street to about 72nd Place.
Frank Monteverde, who operated
a picnic park and hotel here as early
as 1848, reportedly originated the
name. Very few printed references
to the Columbusville name have been
found in the fi nal two decades of the
19th century and it seems likely that
usage of the name completely died out
by 1900.
Cooper Heights (Glendale)
This name originally applied
only to the 1908 development of the
Markert Realty Company from the
east side of 73rd Place to the rear of
the lots along the westerly side of 75th
Street, and from 68th Avenue south to
Cook Avenue.
Within several years the name
was being applied to the land east of
the original subdivision and north
of Cooper Avenue. This area was
considered part of the Glendale
community during the 19th century
and until late 1904 because it was part
of the old Dry Harbor (now Glendale)
farm of Nicholas Wyckoff, and it
was included within the Glendale
school district when it was formed in
the 1880s.
Wyckoff lived in the large house
on the southeast corner of Cooper
Avenue and 74th Street which would
later become Hillen’s Glendale Hotel,
with a picnic park to the south of
the building.
For a number of years prior to its
demolition in 1970, it was Doty’s Tavern.
Doty, or Dorothy, was a part owner of
the tavern and was a member of the
Hillen family.
The Cooper Heights name died out
within a few years of its mapping. In
late 1904 the Brooklyn postmaster
assumed responsibility for city
delivery in Glendale, with the postal
district boundary set along the line of
the Long Island Rail Road west of 74th
Street and along the northerly side of
Cooper Avenue east of 74th Street.
This placed the site of the 1908
Cooper Heights subdivision within the
postal responsibility of the Flushing
postmaster, and the identity of
Cooper Heights as being within
Middle Village.
Crematory Hill (Middle Village)
This local and unoffi cial name is
given to the high ground in the vicinity
of the Fresh Pond Crematory at Mount
Olivet Crescent, a short distance south
of Eliot Avenue in Middle Village.
The name dates at least to the early
1900s, and was possibly in use by the
late 1880s shortly aft er the crematory
was opened.
Drumm Park (Glendale)
This large traffi c island and park
stands at the intersection of Cypress
Hills Street, Cooper Avenue and
65th Place.
The island was formed in the late
1920s when a diagonal roadway on
the southerly side of the park was
constructed at Mount Carmel Cemetery,
joining the two separate and off set
sections of Cooper Avenue.
The proceedings to acquire a
small piece of new cemetery land for
construction of the road began in
1925 and were completed relatively
quickly, as no graves were located in
that vicinity.
On May 31, 1932 the park and a rough
stone monument with a suitable plaque
was dedicated to the memory of J.
Wesley Drumm, who had died on June
8, 1930 at age 68.
The Alumni Association of P.S. 91
began the quest to memorialize Drumm
who had been Glendale’s foremost
educator, serving as principal of four
schools in that community.
Sources: The Jan. 21 and Feb. 4, 2010
issues of the Ridgewood Times.
* * *
If you have any remembrances or old
photographs of “Our Neighborhood: The
Way It Was” that you would like to share
with our readers, please write to the Old
Timer, c/o Ridgewood Times, 38-15 Bell
Blvd., Bayside, NY 11361, or send an email
to editorial@ridgewoodtimes.com. Any
print photographs mailed to us will be
carefully returned to you upon request.
An undated, early 20th century photo of the Fresh Pond Crematory located
on (fi ttingly) Crematory Hill in MIddle Village.
Ridgewood Times archives/Courtesy of Greater Ridgewood Historical Society
A 1970s picture of Drumm Park at the corner of Cooper Avenue and Cypress Hills Street in Glendale
Ridgewood Times archives/Courtesy of Greater Ridgewood Historical Society
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