Lord knows I should have made a stink about this before, but it’s been done: the people who run the subway have corrected their shameful mispronunciation of the neighborhood of Queens known as Newtown. They called it “Newton” (as in Sir Isaac). But even New Yorkers who have never been to the neighborhood have crossed over or seen the Newtown Creek on maps, and know it’s pronounced New Town.
It’s also the home of the Newtown Pippin, the local apple so praised by Jefferson. “They have no apples here,” he said, speaking of France, “to compare with our Newtown pippin.” More information about the original Big Apple here.
And if we bring back the proper outer-borough pronunciation of Kosciuzsko Street – KosskeeOSSko (with KozzeeOSSko an acceptable variant) – Peter Garrett has promised to come to New York and do his Kosciuzsko dance (seen at 2:53 in the video here – I think of this song every time I am at the station).
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