Bedford

Bedford is a community in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, centered approximately at the corner of modern-day Fulton Street and Franklin Avenue. Its name is better known today as part of the larger community of Bedford-Stuyvesant. See that entry for a description of the contemporary neighborhood. Bedford, in pre-American Revolutionary War times, was the first major settlement to the east of the then-Village of Brooklyn on the Brooklyn & Jamaica Turnpike to Jamaica, Queens and the rest of Long Island. It formed a major crossroads with roads to Williamsburg to the north and Bedford Road to Flatbush to the south. The advent of the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) in 1836 early established Bedford as a major railroad town as well and, in...