Emmett W. Bassett Way (Manhattan)
Present name:162nd Street
Location:Between Edgecomb Avenue and St. Nicholas Avenue
Honoree: Emmett W. Bassett (1921-2013), born in Virginia, studied at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama and won a scholarship enabling him to conduct research under George Washington Carver. After Army service in World War II, he attended the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. In 1955 he became the first African-American to earned a doctorate in dairy technology (from Ohio State University). He was on the medical school faculty of Columbia University and, later, of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, from which he retired as an Associate Professor in of Microbiology in 1987. He was one of the last living students trained by George Washington Carver. He was also active in civil rights, education and health and community affairs in Upper Manhattan and in Sullivan County, where he made his home in later years. (Rodriguez)
LL:2014/34