The View From Argyle Heights

  On February 15, 1910, Walter Barrett Brown stood to speak to a hundred home-owners in Manhattan Terrace, a quickly developing area north of Kings Highway, extending to what was then commonly known as Hiawatha Road. Today we call this area Midwood. Except for Hiawatha Road, which we now call Avenue H.  Therein lies a tale.  On this winter's night long ago, Brown was the community association's transportation guru and would later become President of the Flatbush Board of Trade. But tonight he addressed the group, gathered in their clubhouse erected in an open field along Ocean Avenue at Avenue L, on another matter: The renaming of the boring alphabetical avenues from H through Z that ran east-to-west through their area. Brown proposed that the humdrum names be replaced as follows: Ave H to Hiawatha Rd; Ave I to Ivanhoe Rd; Ave J to Jarvis Rd; Ave K to Kenwood Rd; Ave L to Lancaster Rd; Ave M to McKinley Rd; Ave N to Nottingham Rd; Ave O to Oglethorpe Rd; Ave P to Peary Rd...