Linwood Playground

Linwood St. bet. New Lots Ave. and Hegeman Ave.

Brooklyn, 11208

This text is part of Parks’ Historical Signs Project and can be found posted within the park.

Beneath the elevated train tracks and under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Transit Authority, this playground shares the property with Elton Playground on the other side of the tracks.

To the Dutch settlers who first laid out village streets in East New York, this area was known as Ostwout, meaning “east woods.” In the 1670s, English farmers began to settle the area as well, intermingling with the Dutch and giving the land the name of New Lots. The area remained primarily rural until 1835, when John Pitkin, a merchant from Connecticut, bought the Ostwout land north of New Lots Avenue and named it East New York in a marketing effort intended to suggest a connection with the metropolis to the west. Linwood Street, formerly known as Monroe Street, was probably laid out in the early- to mid-1800s, and named for President James Monroe (1758-1831).