A long time ago, in a borough not so far away, I lived on 1055 Jerome Avenue near East 165th Street in the Bronx, a long fly ball away from the old Yankee Stadium.

I only lived there for about 18 months before moving to my father's native Staten Island, but my mother did all of her growing up at just blocks away on 1115 Jerome Avenue, attending nearby Taft High School.

I have always had a sense of curiosity about Jerome Avenue, one of the longest thoroughfares in the Bronx at more than five miles, running from the Major Deegan Expressway in Concourse, near Yankee Stadium, all the way to 233rd Street in Woodlawn, where it also meets up with the Deegan.

Technically, it keeps going as a service road for the Deegan until it becomes Central Park Avenue in Yonkers.

Angel Hernandez, President of the Huntington Free Library and Reading Room, which specializes in Bronx history, says Jerome Avenue was once called Central Avenue, because it was the approach to the Central Bridge, now the Macombs Dam Bridge.

"If you follow Jerome Avenue South, it would connect you to 5th Avenue. You would notice that Jerome Avenue splits the borough of the Bronx... just like Fifth Avenue does with the island of Manhattan," said Hernandez.

So for instance, at Kingsbridge Road, one side of Jerome is East Kingsbridge and the other side is West Kingsbridge.

Now, how about the name? It was named for financier Leonard W. Jerome, who among other things, was Winston Churchill's grandfather.

"He was an interesting guy, sportsman. He had a lot of friends, and he moved to the Bronx in the the 1860s, and he founded Jerome Park Racetrack in 1865," Hernandez said.

The track was the site of the very first Belmont Stakes, the oldest of thoroughbred horse racing's Triple Crown races. It was named for Jerome's friend, August Belmont Sr.

The racetrack closed in the 1890s to make way for the Jerome Park Reservoir. Naming Central Avenue Jerome Avenue wasn't the first choice of city officials, but Jerome's wife Kate Hall Jerome stepped in, according to Hernandez.

"From her own funds, and her own resources, she hired workers to fabricate these beautiful signs that said Jerome Avenue out of bronze, and had them installed on every corner along Central Avenue," Hernandez said.

Hernandez noted that the old Board of Alderman saw all the power and work that she was doing on her own, and they just stepped back, and let it be known as Jerome Avenue.