I’ve heard High Ridge Avenue was long simply called High Ridge. If so, where did the “Avenue” come from? What other roads in town similarly do not have an ending like “road,” “street” or “place”?
Actually, all roads in town have ending names, but High Ridge’s wasn’t always “avenue.”
“High Ridge” — and “East Ridge” and “Prospect Ridge” — are locations in themselves, and the roads along them are sometimes informally referred to by the same, shorter names.
High Ridge is actually a very old name. The earliest map of the village, drawn by Town Clerk John Copp in 1710 to show plowland lots, labels the elevation west of the main street as “ye High Ridge.”
The name, “High Ridge Road,” first appears on the land records in 1833. Pre-1875 deed references always say “road,” never “avenue,” as modern maps label it. (If road and avenue are not enough, Beers’ atlas of 1867 called it High Ridge Street.)
Where did “avenue” come from? The word is French, referring to a tree-lined approach to a country house. It was not used in this country until Washington, D.C., was laid out in 1792. That led to New York City’s naming major north-south roads “avenues” when mid-town and uptown Manhattan were laid out in 1811.
The word arrived in Ridgefield in the 1870s, around the same time that High Ridge began to be marketed to wealthy New Yorkers as sites for their summer and weekend retreats.
Describing High Ridge in 1878, the Rev. Daniel W. Teller wrote in his History of Ridgefield: “J. Howard King Esq. of Albany has … remodeled and greatly improved his summer home. … He has also purchased the property on High Ridge and is greatly improving it. The street has been widened and adorned with young shade trees, in the same manner as Prospect Avenue, rustic gateways put up, and a pleasant observatory erected on the very top of the hill.”
Notice that “avenue” was also being applied to Prospect Street back then. The aim, no doubt, was to give a touch of class and sophistication to the farmland that was being promoted to the New Yorkers. (Mr. King and his friends could have also gone for “boulevard,” another French word for tree-lined streets that was gaining popularity in classy city neighborhoods.)
Today, High Ridge is no more tree-lined than any other road in town. To be historically accurate, its name probably should be returned to High Ridge Road, but that’s not likely to happen. —J.S.