It’s All in the Name: Fort Hamilton Parkway

By Y.M. Lowy

We pass these names every day, see them on street signs, buildings and businesses, and often never stop to think about where they came from. But behind many of the names we know is an interesting story. In this weekly series, we take a closer look at familiar names around Boro Park and beyond and uncover the people, places and stories that gave them their names.

Fort Hamilton Parkway is one of the streets that runs through Boro Park, crosses familiar avenues and continues south toward Bay Ridge. But what does a fort have to do with our neighborhood?

The answer lies along the Brooklyn waterfront, near the Narrows and the entrance to New York Harbor.

In the early 1800s, the United States was looking to strengthen its coastal defenses, and a permanent military fort was built at this strategic location. Construction began in 1825, and the fort was named Fort Hamilton in honor of Alexander Hamilton, one of the nation’s Founding Fathers and its first secretary of the treasury. The fort was intended to help protect the harbor and the waterways leading into New York.

The military installation still stands in Bay Ridge today, near the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. But its name traveled beyond the fort itself, becoming part of the everyday landscape of Brooklyn.

Fort Hamilton Parkway was originally known as Fort Hamilton Avenue. In 1892, the street was officially redesignated as a parkway, along with several other Brooklyn roadways. The change came during a period when Brooklyn was expanding and officials were developing and promoting new residential neighborhoods. The parkway designation also helped make the properties along the route more attractive to prospective residents.

During the late 1800s, Brooklyn was experimenting with a new kind of roadway: broad routes designed not only to carry traffic, but also to provide a more pleasant setting, with trees, landscaped areas and space for people to enjoy the outdoors.

One of the most ambitious examples was Ocean Parkway.

Fort Hamilton Parkway and Ocean Parkway have different origins, but both preserve a piece of Brooklyn’s transformation from a largely rural landscape into the developed borough we know today.

Next week, we’ll look more closely at Ocean Parkway and the story behind a roadway that was designed to bring Brooklynites from Prospect Park all the way to the ocean.