A few days ago I saw a truck advertising a business located
on Nereid Avenue in the Bronx, NY.
Alas, I no longer recall the business, because I was trying to make myself
remember to research how Nereid Avenue in the Bronx received its name. A
charming website called Forgotten New York tells it all:
East of the Bronx River Parkway, the road has yet another name: Nereid Avenue (the correct pronunciation is NEER-ee-id: the MTA gets it wrong on its taped station announcements). A nereid is a minor Greek water nymph; while some Bronxites believe the street was named for an N.E. Reid, it was actually named for a local fire company. Since firehouses and pumping wagons used a lot of water, they all had water-associated names, like Oceanus, Neptune, etc. This is the only street that recollects the old Bronx fire companies. Compare Coney Island’s numerous “water” names like Surf, Brightwater, Seabreeze et al. By the way, nereids had two legs: only the mermaids and mermen, which were not in Greek myths, had tails.
Nereid caught my interest, because a nereid in Greek mythology is a sea-nymph, a child of Nereus. When you encounter the word nereid, it is almost always in a context having to do with swimming, water sports, or some kind of watery environment, as in the Bronx. Here in New York it is still so cold and snowy that any nereids have certainly fled to warmer waters.
East of the Bronx River Parkway, the road has yet another name: Nereid Avenue (the correct pronunciation is NEER-ee-id: the MTA gets it wrong on its taped station announcements). A nereid is a minor Greek water nymph; while some Bronxites believe the street was named for an N.E. Reid, it was actually named for a local fire company. Since firehouses and pumping wagons used a lot of water, they all had water-associated names, like Oceanus, Neptune, etc. This is the only street that recollects the old Bronx fire companies. Compare Coney Island’s numerous “water” names like Surf, Brightwater, Seabreeze et al. By the way, nereids had two legs: only the mermaids and mermen, which were not in Greek myths, had tails.
Nereid caught my interest, because a nereid in Greek mythology is a sea-nymph, a child of Nereus. When you encounter the word nereid, it is almost always in a context having to do with swimming, water sports, or some kind of watery environment, as in the Bronx. Here in New York it is still so cold and snowy that any nereids have certainly fled to warmer waters.
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