Prospect Heights Used To Be Part of Park Slope!

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Mental Floss recently published a post explaining how Brooklyn neighborhoods got their names. There are definitely some cool facts to be learned:

* Bay Ridge was called Yellow Hook until a yellow fever epidemic killed a bunch of people and they renamed it so people wouldn't be reminded of that awfulness. 

* Coney Island was called "Conyne Eylandt" by the Dutch, which means "Rabbit Island." 

* Gowanus was named after Gouwane, a chief of the Lenape (also known as Canarsee) tribe of Native Americans who lived in the area long before any Dutch or British people came and started calling it "Brooklyn" or "Breuckelen."

* Sheepshead Bay is named for the sheepshead fish, which was a popular catch in the 1800's in Brooklyn.

Most of the other neighborhoods got their names for pretty obvious reasons:

* Named for original Dutch settlers: Bergen Beach, Boerum Hill, Dyker Heights.

* No duh: Flatbush because the land is flat; Mill Basin because there were tidal mills; Greenpoint because there was a grassy area that came to a point; DUMBO.

* Egomaniacs named the land after themselves: Bensonhurst, Brownsville, and Lefferts Gardens.

The really fun fact here is that Prospect Heights used to be considered part of Park Slope: "The names were interchangeable when referring to the whole area for years until residents and real estate brokers began firmly differentiating the two." Definitely wouldn't want to mix up the two nowadays, right?