Utica Avenue is named after the upstate city; Crown Heights was once ‘Crow Hill’.
Utica Avenue is one of seven Crown Heights avenues named after New York State cities, which NY1 reports were named in 1835 as a tribute to the Erie Canal. The neighbourhood, a series of ridges, was earlier sometimes known as Crow Hill; when Crown Street was cut through in 1916, the area became known as ‘the heights’.