John McNamara, who knew every inch of beloved Bronx, dies at 92

By Douglas Martin
The New York Times

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Mr. McNamara roamed the globe on tramp steamers, as a hobo jumping freight trains and, mostly, as an indefatigable pedestrian.

His passion was his native Bronx, both the existing borough and the one of fading memory. He wrote books and newspaper columns, led walking tours and came to be a sought-after sage for questions about everything from Fink Avenue to long-gone silent-movie theaters to Rat Island, a nickname for South Brother Island from about 1900 to 1920.

Mr. McNamara never went to college and worked as a clerk for the New York City Housing Authority for 29 years. But the zeal and precision of his research recalled an ambitious doctoral candidate: he went to Albany, Amsterdam and other places worldwide to pore over records and relentlessly hunt down old-timers.

His 1978 book "History in Asphalt: The Origin of Bronx Street and Place Names," was published by the Bronx County Historical Society, which Mr. McNamara helped found. No other borough has a similar guide.

The book explains what the borough is and how it came to be. For instance, Melville Street in the West Farms section has nothing to do with Herman Melville, who is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. There are at least four possible explanations for Featherbed Lane, including "a sly allusion to the ladies of easy virtue" who lived in an 1840s red-light district.

A large section tells of what is no longer. The Cowboy Tree on what is now West 237th Street was used as a gallows. Duck Island in the East River was blotted out by landfill. Extra Street, Oink Square and Suicide Hill might be forgotten entirely were it not for Mr. McNamara.

The book also tells of what might have been. The Gold Star Mothers, whose bond was having sons who were killed in World War I, were unsuccessful in having the Grand Concourse named Memorial Parkway in honor of trees planted for the war dead.

John McNamara was born on Dec. 22, 1912, on East 156th Street in the Melrose section of the Bronx. His family rented a summer bungalow in Edgewater Park in 1916, which meant he had early experience with two very different areas of the Bronx.

"We lived in wooden-sided tents with canvas tops," Mr. McNamara said of Edgewater in a 1985 interview with The New York Times. "We had no electricity, just kerosene stoves. It was a real pioneer community."

Mr. McNamara told his friend Bill Twomy, who shared his passion for Bronx history, that an experience at 12 was influential. He was portaging a canoe over the small neck of land connecting Fort Schuyler to the mainland. Charlie Ferreira, the lighthouse keeper there, said, "You're doing exactly what the Indians did."
 
An interest in Indian history was born. Around the same time, city street signs were going up in the Bronx. Mr. McNamara became fascinated with connections between history and geography.

"I wondered where they came from, those names," he said in an interview with The Times in 1991.

This interest broadened. By the 1930s, Mr. McNamara was riding the rails with the hobos. He visited every state except Oklahoma.

"He was a restless man who had to find out what was going on," said John Robben, his friend for more than 60 years.

In 1956, Mr. McNamara began writing in The Bronx Press-Review and published some columns under the title "McNamara's Old Bronx." He later worked for The Bronx Times Reporter and wrote two books on the borough's history with Twomy, the self-published "Throggs Neck Memories" in 1994 and "Throggs Neck, Pelham Bay" (Arcadia Publishing) in 1998.

In addition to John, who lives in Yonkers, Mr. McNamara's survivors include his daughter, Betty McNamara of Palo Alto, Calif.; three grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. His wife, the former Pauline Ungerer, a Bronx native, died in 1969.

Mr. McNamara, who was a Cub Scout leader and volunteer firefighter, wanted to be remembered as a historian for the 20th century. So he stopped writing on Dec. 31, 1999, Twomy said.

In 1985, a square on the service road of the Cross Bronx Expressway Extension at Randall and Calhoun avenues was named for Mr. McNamara.