What’s In A Name? Integrity Says Councilman Jeffries

Today, the Brooklyn Paper carried an editorial by City Councilman Hakeem Jeffries. Jeffries is sick of real estate agents re-branding neighborhoods, including some in his district, in order to make them appear more trendy and inflate real estate prices. He is planning to introduce a bill he calls the Neighborhood Integrity Act. According to the councilman it would “require the city to develop a community-oriented process before brokers  can rebrand a neighborhood or redefine its boundaries simply for  commercial purposes.”

Bensonhurst does get a mention along with some other traditional names of Brooklyn neighborhoods that begin with the letter “b”:

…neighborhood identity is important whether one lives in Bay Ridge,  Bensonhurst, Boerum Hill, Bedford-Stuyvesant or Brownsville. These  neighborhoods and many others throughout the borough are all unique and  are an important part of our history, culture and tradition.

I’m curious as to whether anyone except for a local history junkie like myself realizes that the name Bensonhurst is derived from the name ‘Bensonhurst-By-The-Sea’, a name created by real estate developers!