Further complicating matters, the northernmost part of the town on the Queens side was called ‘East Williamsburgh,’ as though it was an annex of the well-established Brooklyn neighborhood. This map shows that back in 1873, the border was drawn as a diagonal line without regard to the streets, so technically one’s house could be in both counties at the same time. The Kings-Queens border has been shifted several times over the years, and Ridgewood has always suffered somewhat of an identity crisis because of it. (This 1873 map of Ridgewood was taken from the larger map of Newtown found on the Brooklyn Genealogy Information Page. “Evergreen,” or “EV,” was the predominate alphanumeric telephone exchange in Ridgewood and can still be found on display at some of the older businesses in the area, such as the one pictured at left. The Evergreen Branch of the LIRR once passed through the area, and remains of it can still be found in Ridgewood if you look carefully.Įvergreen Avenue, once a part of ancient Bushwick Road (hence its slight twists and turns) leads right to Cemetery of the Evergreens. However, traces of the old Evergreen name still exist today. In 1910, the name Ridgewood was officially bestowed upon the entire area nestled between Glendale and Bushwick. When map printers applied the name ‘Ridgewood’ to an area larger than that of the town limits, the tight-knit community changed its name to ‘Evergreen,’ after the large nearby Cemetery of the Evergreens. Desiring a unique identity for their area, residents adopted the name of the reservoir for their town.

The land in the vicinity of the reservoir was officially called South Williamsburgh at this time.

The body of water became known as Ridgewood’s Reservoir, after its eastern source. The water flowed through a series of canals and aqueducts across Jamaica, originating at the Ridgewood Ponds, in what is today the town of Wantagh in Nassau County. In 1856, a reservoir was constructed on the Newtown-Bushwick border that supplied water to the City of Brooklyn. A somewhat temporary resolution was the placement of three giant rocks ( referenced on this FNY page) by a surveyor in 1769 – each labelled with a ‘B’ on one side and an ‘N’ on the other – to delineate what he determined to be the border between the two townships. More about this house can be found on FNY’s Flushing Avenue page.Ī border dispute between Newtown and Bushwick lasted over a hundred years, into the period when the English were ruling and settling Long Island. The restored farmhouse is located at the corner of what are today Flushing and Onderdonk Avenues the latter street was named after the house’s second owner, Adrian Onderdonk, who moved there in 1831.

One of these farmers, Paulus Van Der Ende, built a house in Newtown in 1710. DURING the 17th and 18th centuries, Dutch farmers settled Newtown and Bushwick on the western end of Long Island.

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