Named after Atlantic Avenue, whose oldest stretch was once called District Street.
The avenue runs from the Brooklyn waterfront on the East River to Jamaica in Queens. Its oldest part began in the 1700s as a path to Ralph Patchen’s farm on the waterfront; it was District Street by 1816 and Atlantic Street by 1855. Around 1870 it became Atlantic Avenue; by then Long Island Rail Road tracks ran east to Jamaica, and the railway’s route took on the name.