Most people know Bed-Stuy as the largest black neighborhood in New York City where you can find the Simmons Collection African Arts Museum, the Jackie Robinson Center for Physical Culture, the Billie Holiday Theater but soon, if a handful of dedicated arctophiles (teddy bear lovers and collectors) get their way, Bed-Stuy might also become synonymous with teddy bears.

Just last week the founder of the Doll and Toy Museum of New York City was out spreading the word about the roots of the Brooklyn teddy bear.

Marlene Hochman is a huge fan of teddy bears. Her museum, founded just last October, houses 25 bears, many from Hochman’s personal collection. While bears in the wild travel in packs, teddy bears are collected in a "hug," which can range from two or three bears to many thousands. Hochman’s museum has a big hug of bears.

Last Wednesday afternoon Hochman spoke at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, which was filled to the gills with bleary-eyed parents and rambunctious kids on Spring break. Twenty-five or so elementary school kids sat through her talk, titled “The Invention of the Teddy Bear,” and then were allowed to color in free, bear-shaped bookmarks which they brought to life with stick-on googly eyes. While the restless tots picked up markers and got into their creative zones, Hochman talked about her dream of making a special Brooklyn teddy bear day.

“I consider it important Brooklyn history. I know that people have made proposals for a Brooklyn bear day to Howie Golden but he just never jumped on it,” said Hochman referring to Brooklyn Borough President Howard Golden.

“Maybe the next Borough President will be more favorable to making an official teddy bear day. The Doll and Toy Museum will definitely mark the anniversary every year to commemorate this historic event,” she said.

Almost one hundred years ago a Russian Jewish immigrant couple living in the heart of Bed-Stuy stuffed and sewed the first cuddly creatures to be called Teddy’s Bears.

The story goes that in the fall of 1902, Teddy Roosevelt, then President of the United States, was bear hunting in Mississippi. He had no luck and concerned aides, eager to please him, trapped a bear cub and tied it to a tree so that he could shoot it. Roosevelt refused. An admiring cartoon was subsequently printed in The Washington Post that showed Roosevelt turning his back on the poor bear cub and thus sparing its life.

Morris Michtom, the owner of a stationary and cigar store on Tompkins Avenue saw the cartoon and asked his wife Rose to sew some stuffed bear toys to sell in their store. He then wrote President Roosevelt to ask permission to call the plush toys, made of short mohair and stuffed with straw, Teddy’s Bears. According to Roosevelt’s biographer The President responded with a letter saying he didn’t think the name would do much good but that Michtom was welcome to use it.

The name did help sell the bears. Teddy’s bears were an instant hit. There was soon so much demand for the bears that Morris and Rose abandoned the stationary store and set up the Ideal Novelty & Toy Company, building it into one of the most successful toy manufacturers in the United States until it was bought by CBS, Inc. in 1982.

The building where the teddy bear was born and first sold still stands at 404 Tompkins Avenue between Hancock and Jefferson streets in Bed-Stuy.

James Leary runs a classic toy, candy and stationary store next door. Virtually unchanged for decades, Jimmy’s Candy Shop looks much like Michtom’s store must have looked. The swivel stools have been removed but the old soda shop details remain: the tin roof, the long counter, the glass candy case, the private wooden telephone booths.

But shop-owner Leary doesn’t know boo about the bygone bears.

“I never heard anything about teddy bears,” he said when asked about the store next door. “It used to be a butcher shop and a barber.”

Michtom’s store now lies empty and will soon become a real estate agency. Where there should be a plaque commemorating the shop that launched thousands of teddy bear shipments, the sign reads simply “No Loitering and No Trespassing”.

Morris Michtom’s great granddaughter, Alisa Litwin of Summit, New Jersey, is herself a bear collector.