Big Apple Baby Names

Posted August 6th, 2012

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There are countless reasons to visit New York City.  Museums to visit and galleries to hop.  Great theater, opera and ballet. Sights to see, people to watch and fashion-forward stores to shop. But it turns out there’s another, less expected thing to shop for—and that’s a Manhattan-inspired baby name.

We’ve looked at some of the street names before–a Manhattan avenue, after all, was the inspiration for the extraordinary success of the name Madison– but a thread on our own forums, “Need a Big Apple Middle Name” a while back inspired us to us to look beyond the street signs of NYC for other places and people that are quintessentially Gotham.

PLACES—nabes, rivers, parks, etc

Ansonia hotel and then apartments

Apollo Theater

Bethesda Fountain, in Central Park

Bryant Park

Cedar Tavern—watering hole of Abstract Expressionist painters

Chelsea

Chumley’s– legendary writers’ hangout

Cleopatra’s Needle—obelisk in Central Park

Cooper Union

Dakota Apartments

Duffy Square

Finn Square

Grace Church

Gracie Square and Mansion

Harlem

Henry Street Settlement

Hudson River—and Street

Isham Park

Judson Memorial Church, scene of early art world ‘happenings’

Lenox Hill and Avenue

Lincoln Center

Nolita (acronym for North of Little Italy)

Sardi‘s–show biz restaurant

Sheridan Square

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Whitney Museum

…and a few of the best Manhattan street names

Astor Place

Baxter Street

Carmine Street

Christopher Street

Cornelia Street

Crosby Street

Delancey Street

Fletcher Street

Henry Street

Horatio Street

Hudson Street

Houston Street (pronounced HOW-ston)

Jane Street

Mercer Street

Milligan Place

Minetta Lane, Tavern

Oliver Street

Pearl Street

Sullivan Street

Sutton Place

Thayer Street

Varick Street

Waverly Place

PEOPLE—just a few of the countless notables who were born, lived, or are otherwise associated with the Big Apple

Althea Gibson– tennis champ, grew up in Harlem

Ambrose Kingsland, NYC mayor, 1851-53

Auden, W.H.– poet and long-time Village resident

Cass Gilbert–architect of the Woolworth Building

Clay Felker– founder of New York magazine

Cole Porter–composer of the song “I Happen to Like New York”

Dawn Powell– Prohibition-era New York novelist

Djuna Barnes–wrote Greenwich Village As It Is

Ebenezer Wilson, NYC mayor, 1707-10

Edna St. Vincent Millay– Pulitzer Prize-winning poet , Greenwich Village resident

Elisha Graves Otis– elevator inventor, responsible for the verticality of New York

Emma Lazarus, her poem is inscribed on the Statue of Liberty

Eustace Tilley—monocled cartoon symbol of The New Yorker

Fiorello La Guardia, three-term mayor in the 1930s and 40s

Gideon Lee, NYC mayor, 1833-34

Humphrey Bogart—grew up on West 103^rd Street

Jackson Pollock– painter who lived in Greenwich Village before moving to the Hamptons

Langston Hughes—key figure in the Harlem Renaissance

Lennon, John—lived and died in New York

Matthias Nicoll–NYC mayor, 1672-73

Nellie Bly– early bold investigative journalist in the New York World newspaper

Poe, Edgar Allan–in addition to his literary achievements, was editor of The Broadway Journal

Tallulah Bankhead–Broadway actress and sometime member of the “Algonquin Round Table”

Truman Capote–moved to New York at the age of 17

Zora Neale Hurston—writer, a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance