CLINTON HILL — Brooklyn's most famous and notorious B.I.G. rapped "Live from Bedford-Stuyvestant, the livest one."
But many current-day maps put Biggie's home turf squarely in the heart of Clinton Hill — one of the many turf wars over emerging neighborhood names that pit longtime locals against newcomers.
Like neighborhoods across NYC, the battleground over where Fort Greene or Clinton Hill ends and where their eastern neighbor Bed-Stuy begins is ripe for debate in the area. Biggie Smalls lived on St. James between Fulton and Gates, worked at the Key Foods — formerly Met Foods — on Fulton and had his hair cut across the street at Respect For Life.
Real estate agents now categorize his block as the heart of Clinton Hill. But local resident Jojo, who's lived in the area for 56 years, said that's all bunk.
"Where Biggie was from, that's Bed-Stuy, but now they call it Clinton Hill," said Jojo, who declined to give his last name. "But it's originally Bed-Stuy. To me Bed-Stuy starts on Fulton and Washington, where Biggie's from, on down to Utica."
To JoJo and his coven of oldtimers, the only boundary that counts is Washington Avenue, where they say Fort Greene and Bed Stuy met.
Clinton Hill was just a blip on the map, they say.
"Clinton Hill is two f**king buildings," said a Bed Stuy local of more than six decades who would not give her name Monday. "That's what they was the whole time, the Clinton Hill co-ops."
So, you tell us: where do you think Fort Greene and Clinton Hill are located?