Wednesday, November 9, 2011
News In Greenpoint, Only Hipsters Say "McGolrick"
Posted by Henry Stewart on Wed, Nov 9, 2011 at 11:23 AM
If you're calling that Greenpoint greenspace between Russell and Monitor "McGolrick Park," you might as well pronounce that street in Manhattan in the style of a city in Texas. That's what Jennifer Galatioto discovered when she recently took over the Greenpointers blog: while the park may officially bear the name of St. Cecilia's one-time monsignor Edward J. McGolrick, long-time residents know it by its previous name: Winthrop Park (named after Colonel Winthrop Jones, whose nine-acres were purchased by the city to become the park, and pronounced without the p). The 1941 renaming didn't take among locals, who continued using the old moniker and passed it on to their children. Like so much else in North Brooklyn, this designational discrepancy has become a symbol of the strained relations between gentrifiers and old-timers, a mark of the newbie.
But when Ms. Galatioto was set straight and started calling it "Winthrop," she was met with blowback still.
Patricia: It is “Monsignor McGolrick Park” we worked very hard years ago to have the signs made and placed by the Parks Dept.
GP: I can’t win either way. If I call it McGolrick, I get in trouble. So I started to call it Winthrop!
Patricia: I was the founder of Friends of McGolrick Park and was able to get Landmark status for it. We had the Colonnade renovated, playground refurbished and lots of other activities to improve the park. This was in the 80′s.
So, probably the best thing to do is just start referring to it as "that park, over there, you know the one."
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