Greenpoint, Brooklyn

Greenpoint is a charming, village-like neighborhood in Brooklyn, where Polish is heard on the streets and restaurants serve traditional Polish cuisine from bilingual menus.

The first families
Greenpoint was originally settled by Christine Vigne, from a French wine making family, and Dirck Volckerten. a Norseman. Because of Native American attacks, Dirck’s hot temper, which brought him to court many times, and the exile of his outspoken daughter Magdalena, the family abandoned Greenpoint for points north. The property was sold to Jacob Hay, and it was his daughter, Maria, her husband, Pieter Praa, and their descendants who farmed the land and kept the verdant quality from which the name Greenpoint derives. For almost two hundred years, Greenpoint remained isolated farmland.


Industrial transformation

Neziah Bliss, who married into the farm family, saw an opportunity. Bliss bought property, carved out streets, opened a public turnpike on what is now Franklin Street, and established a ferry service to Manhattan. With Greenpoint connected to the rest of the city by roads and ferries and miles of waterfront, Greenpoint was set for the influx of industry. Ship building was the primary industry. The first ironclad ship, the USS Monitor, which participated in the Civil War, was built here. Secondary industries such as printing and pottery factories followed, as did housing, churches and schools. Thus a small industrial village was formed.

A walk down Milton Street provides a glimpse of what it was like. The homes and churches are almost untouched on this landmarked block. At the head of the block stands St. Anthony of Padula, built in 1874 by the master church architect, PC Keely. In the center of the block are two churches, the Lutheran Church with its flying buttress and the Greenpoint Reformed Church, once the home of Thomas C. Smith who owned the Union Porcelain Works. Charming 19th century homes line both sides of the street, and at the end of the street is the waterfront with a factory building.



Enter the New York High Rise

The green pasture transformed into a small industrial village is now facing its next transformation. The high rise industry has arrived, attracted by the miles of waterfront that are prime real estate property. There will certainly be a big change from the apartment house built on Franklin Street by Pratt of Astral Oil Works for its workers and from the village as we have come to know it. However, the landmarked clock on Manhattan Street keeps ticking, a remnant and reminder of the industrial past. Greenpoint’s name is itself a remembrance, a tribute to the original farming community.

Cobble Hill: Jennie Jerome House

Winston Churchill’s Brooklyn roots

Winston Churchill's mother, Jennie Jerome, was an American born in a simple brownstone in the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn in 1854. Leonard Jerome, her father, was a financier and an avid horse racer. He built a race track in the Bronx and one of the main Bronx arteries, Jerome Avenue, bears his name. Jenny and her sisters were taken abroad where she met Lord Randolph Spencer-Churchill when the family was on holiday on the Isle of Wight. They were engaged three days later, which caused some controversy, as did Winston's birth some seven months after their marriage.


One birth, two houses

In 1953 Winston Churchill paid a visit to Cobble Hill to see the home where his mother was born. But did he see it? There are two houses claiming to be the birthplace of Jenny Jerome. Sir Winston visited 426 Henry Street, a plain brick brownstone building that displays a plaque claiming this distinction. However, the historian Francis Morrone and The New York Times state that the birthplace was at 197 Amity Street. Alas, it bears no plaque. But Sir Winston may have been misinformed. What is notable is his regard for his mother that motivated this visit to Cobble Hill.


Who was this short-hair beauty?

Pictures of Jenny Jerome show a shockingly beautiful woman with short dark hair, the darkness attributed by some to Native American blood on her mother's side. By all accounts she was a woman of great energy and determination, with a fine wit, strong opinions and zest for life. She is quoted as saying that "We owe something to extravagance, for thrift and adventure seldom go hand in hand." And extravagant she was, in her behavior most notably. After the death of her husband, Lord Randolph, she had several liaisons and two marriages, both with men who were twenty years her junior. Reportedly among her lovers were King Edward VII of England and King Milan of Serbia.

Her influence on her son, Winston, is of importance. She is thought to have advised him to enter politics and to have been there to lend an ear and helping hand throughout his career. She believed in having a purpose in life and in hard work. In her era, it was the men who had the careers, and her advice to the young men she loved and befriended was that, "…for a man life means work, and hard work if you mean to succeed." Happily for history, her son Winston Churchill both heard and heeded this advice.