Named after the old village of Bedford, near today's Fulton Street.
Brooklyn's longest street took its name from the village of Bedford, roughly where Bedford Avenue now meets Fulton Street. What the village was named for is not clear: the market town of Bedford in England, the Duke of Bedford or, some argue, the Dutch Bestevaar, 'the place where old men meet'. Here in Williamsburg, the avenue was known as Fourth Street in the late 1800s.