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From Celia Cruz to Eric Garner Way, 199 NYC Streets Get New Names

By

Danny Lewis

Published Dec 29, 2021

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By

Danny Lewis

Published Dec 29, 2021

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There are about 8,000 miles of streets criss-crossing New York City, and in its last vote of 2021, the City Council voted to rename or co-name 199 of them. But that doesn’t mean your map app is about to get a big upgrade: most only cover a block or a corner, and the process is often seen as a small way to memorialize a person or honor an institution, historical event, longtime business, or a community with a connection to the place.

To get a street renamed, you have to start with the bottom rung of the city’s bureaucracy: the community board. Each one has their own twists and variations to the process, but when it comes to renaming streets after people specifically, there are a couple of hard and fast rules.

“It has to be someone who's deceased, unfortunately, and they had to make some considerable contribution to the community,” said Queens Community Board 9 district manager James McClelland.

There are a couple of other considerations as well: for instance, at least 50 percent of people living on the block must sign a petition in favor of the renaming, and the location should have some personal or historical significance to the proposed name. If the community board is convinced, they can then propose the change to the local city councilmember, and from there, the legislative process takes over as with any other bill. It has to go through the Parks and Recreation Committee, pass a full council vote, and finally be signed by the mayor.

“You don’t want to name every street after every applicant that comes by, because it kinda loses its appeal,” McClelland said. “It gives people pause to think, maybe they go home, they Google that person if they’re interested.”

The full list can be found in the City Council’s bill, but here is a handful of the people, institutions, and communities being recognized with their own street names this year, and where you can find their signs:

THE BRONX

• Celia Cruz - the legendary Cuban-born salsa singer will be memorialized at the intersection of 195th Street and Reservoir Avenue, near the public high school named for her.
• Johnny Pacheco - Another salsa pioneer and the founder of Fania Records. His street sign will be installed at the corner of Jerome Avenue and Kingsbridge Road, next to the armory that could become home to the International Salsa Museum.
• Hetty Fox - A longtime housing activist and Fordham University professor who spent decades fighting to revitalize the Bronx, Hetty Fox Lane marks her old block, at the southwest corner of Lyman Place and Freeman Street in Morrisania.
• Conti’s Pastry Shoppe - the iconic Italian bakery in Morris Park has spent 2021 celebrating a full century of selling cakes, cookies, and Boston cream pies. The street outside the shop on Morris Park Avenue and Barnes Avenue now bears the name of this culinary institution.

BROOKLYN

• Nicholas Heyward, Sr. - Heyward became an outspoken critic of the NYPD and an activist for police reform after his son, Nicholas Jr., was killed in 1994 by an officer patrolling the Gowanus Houses, where the family lived. The intersection of Bond Street and Baltic Street will be named after him, and is just a short walk from a park that bears his son’s name.
• Elisa Torres - A fixture of the Williamsburg community, Torres fought to turn a grassy patch near the East River into the Roberto Clemente Ballfields. The corner of the park at Wythe Avenue and Division Avenue will now be named “Elisa Torres Way.”
• D.A. Kenneth Thompson - Brooklyn’s first Black district attorney, Thompson was elected to the office in 2013 after unseating longtime D.A. Charles Hynes. He died in 2016 at the age of 50, shortly after disclosing a long battle with cancer. The corner of Jay Street and Myrtle Avenue in front of the Brooklyn D.A.’s offices, has been renamed in his memory.

MANHATTAN

• Frances Perkins Place - West 46th Street, between 9th and 10th Avenue, will be renamed for Perkins, who became an outspoken advocate for workers’ rights after witnessing the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in 1911. She later served as President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s labor secretary and was the first woman to serve in the presidential cabinet. The newly-renamed street marks where she lived when she first came to New York City as a social worker at Hartley House.
• Tin Pan Alley - A stretch of 28th Street, between 5th and 6th Avenue, Tin Pan Alley was home to several music publishing houses that helped shape American culture during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Composers like Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, and Cole Porter became widely known for the music they produced for Tin Pan Alley, and in 2019, five buildings on the block became designated historic landmarks.
• Hector "Macho" Camacho - born in Puerto Rico and raised in Spanish Harlem, Camacho was a world champion boxer who scored titles in three weight classes: super featherweight, featherweight, and junior welterweight. He also struggled with drug addiction for much of his life. Lexington Avenue between 115th and 116th streets, will now be named after him.
• Quisqueya Plaza - located in Inwood on Dyckman Street, between Broadway and Seaman Avenue, it is one of the first pedestrian plazas created during the pandemic by New York City’s Open Streets program to become permanent.

QUEENS

• Stanley, Kathleen & Robert Rygor - Born and raised in Astoria, Robert Rygor spent most of his life as an activist and advocate for LGBT rights amid the height of the AIDS epidemic. He was the first openly gay man to run for office with the New York State Legislature, and led protests against the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in 1978 for excluding the gay community. The stretch of 34th Street between Broadway and 34th Avenue has been renamed for him and his parents.
• Little Bangladesh and Little Manila Avenues - two new street names for two of Queens’ immigrant communities. “Little Bangladesh Avenue” marks the heart of the borough’s Bangladeshi community at the intersection of Homelawn Avenue and Hillside Avenue, and the corner of 70th Street and Roosevelt Avenue in Woodside will be re-named "Little Manila Avenue” in honor of the local Filipino community.
• Prodigy Way - Albert Johnson, better known by his stage name, Prodigy, was a member of the legendary rap group Mobb Deep until his death in 2017. Now, the northeast corner of 41st Drive and 12th Street, by the Queensbridge Houses where he grew up, has been renamed in his memory.

STATEN ISLAND

• Eric Garner Way - The police killing of Eric Garner in 2014 sparked the Black Lives Matter movement, which has since become a driving force for social justice and police reform across the U.S. The southwest corner of Bay Street and Victory Boulevard, where Garner was killed, will now bear his name as a memorial.
• Little Liberia - located at the northwest corner of Sobel Court and Park Hill Avenue, “Little Liberia Way” recognizes Staten Island’s Liberian community, which is one of the largest in the world outside of the West African nation.

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Danny Lewis

Danny Lewis is a former Gothamist and WNYC reporter.

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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations

Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations

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