Named after Russell Nevins, a Manhattan banker who developed land here.
Russell Hubbard Nevins (1785–1854), a banker and former president of the New York Stock Exchange, bought land in today’s Boerum Hill in 1833 with fellow developer Charles Hoyt. Both had streets named after them, says the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission. Forgotten New York speaks more broadly of the Hoyt and Nevins families, early-1800s landowners in the area.