So, I have to face facts: my favorite book in the world, as in, what I’d want on a desert island is “History In Asphalt“, an encyclopedia of 
Bronx street names written by the late John McNamara. (All apologies to Shakespeare, Fitzgerald and Jesus Christ-Paul, John, etc. etc.) When you look at the Bronx around you, you see the Bronx around you. After spending time with this book, you can see the Bronx the way it is and the way it was.
(Buy it here from the Bronx Museum of The Arts.) (Shoutout to reader Miriam Tabb.)
Barnes Avenue
“This was an ancient Siwanoy Native American path (from Gun Hill Road to Bussing Avenue), which later was utilized by the early colonists. In pre-Revolutionary Days, it was called the Kingsbridge Road. Later, it was the main thoroughfare known as White Plains Road. When the town of Wakefield was laid out (1850) it became 4th St. In the 1870’s, the Burke Estate below Gun Hil Road was plotted, and that stretch of present-day Barnes Avenue was called Cedar Street. In Van Nest, the inhabitants had a liking for Presidential names, and Barnes Avenue from Morris Park Avenue to the railroad lines was called Madison Street, a name that remained in use until around 1899. A 1692 Westchester deed refers to Captain William Barnes, “High Sheriff of ye Burrough Town of Westchester,” and a 1720 sale was consumated by Thomas Barnes, so the name is an old one in our past. However, I believe the avenue refers specifically to Samual and Susan Barnes, who owned a farm alongside Kingsbridge Road (Barnes Avenue) in the 1840s. “-John McNamara
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