Q: Jacksonville has many community names, from Riverside and Five Points to Glynlea, Windy Hills and Sherwood Forest. Some, like Brooklyn, are names they’ve held for a century or longer.
Jacksonville Today reader Henri M. wonders why Brooklyn, nestled on McCoys Creek north of Riverside, has the same name as a New York City borough:
“It would properly be Riverside, or at most Riverside North, but Brooklyn never existed until I read about it in the last year or two,” he says.
A: Actually, Brooklyn has existed by that name for a century and a half, according to historical websites and local historians. It is a historic Black neighborhood that attracted freed slaves after the Civil War and later was destroyed through disinvestment and gentrification…