It was put off for a couple of weeks due to technical reasons, but the proposal to reinstate the historical names of six streets in Douglaston was approved Wednesday by the City Council.
Area historical and civic groups have been asking the city for the change for years. Former Councilman Tony Avella got the plan rolling two years ago and sitting Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Whitestone) followed up with a bill.
At issue are six streets in the Douglaston Hill historic district. The original names — Prospect, Hamilton, Orient, Church, Pine and Poplar — date back to 1853.
Bill Sievers of the Douglaston-Little Neck Historical Society has been pushing for the change, and said after the vote: “It’s a mission of the historical society to restore and protect the history of the community and that was acheived today by the restoration of the street names.”
Sievers indicated that Douglaston Hill residents overwhelmingly favored the return of the original street names.
Halloran’s representative as well as Sievers, Eliott Socci, president of the Douglaston Civic Association, and several members of Community Board 11 spoke in favor of the proposal at a meeting of the council’s Parks and Recreation Committee. The committee was expected to vote on Halloran’s bill on Feb. 29, but it was discovered there was a spelling error in the resolution.
The bill cleared the committee on Tuesday before the full City Council vote.
“This bill pays homage to the neighborhood’s history by restoring street names to the way they were,” Halloran said.
The street names were changed more than 100 years ago, when the city decided that numbering them was easier and more efficient, the councilman pointed out.
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