rednoodlealien and I were commiserating on dreadful street names, in a conversation about the NYC Map Portal. I grew up on Dickie Avenue, named for Dr. Samuel Dickie, head of the National Prohibition Party for twelve years and a Prohibition candidate for Governor of Michigan. Along with John G. Wooley (Wooley Avenue is two blocks away from Dickie Avenue) he founded a national prohibition newspaper.

If you haven't figured it out already, the neighborhood I grew up (Westerleigh, on Staten Island) in was founded by a temperance group and was once known as Prohibition Park.

And speaking of the old neighborhood, one of the very very few people from my childhood I'm still in touch with pointed me to this page of photos and information about Palmer's Run, "the brook" of my childhood, complete with a photo of the bridge that we used to cross over to go to the candy store. I'd love to have photos of it all before it was filled in (not, I'm sure, that anyone misses the horrendous flooding that used to follow every rain).

Tags: nyc, staten island