Sex, Drugs and Violence: The Stories Behind 10 Brooklyn Streetnames
Choke on a chicken bone and you’ll get a street named after you too! That’s what happened to Kings County Surrogate Court’s chief clerk, John R. McDonald. He swallowed a chicken bone that punctured his intestine, died, and that was thatl. Other unusual deaths that are completely unrelated to this Borough Park story include Gouverneur Morris sticking a whale bone through his urinary tract to relieve blockage (1816), Franco Brun eating a Gideon’s Bible (1987), Sherwood Anderson swallowing a toothpick (1941), Tennessee Williams choking on an eyedrop bottle-cap (1983), and American sailor Jonathan Campos asphyxiating himself with toilet paper (2009).