NYC Honorary Street Names

"A" Honorary Streets: Manhattan

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A. Philip Randolph Boulevard (Manhattan)
Present name:West 145th Street
Location:Between the western corner of Edgecombe Avenue and Riverside Drive
Honoree: A. Philip Randolph (1889-1979),organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and was a key figure in both the Harlem Renaissance and the Civil Rights movement. He took a stand against segregation in the Armed Forces, calling on blacks to refuse to register for the draft. This led to President Truman’s crucial 1948 Executive Order barring discrimination in the military.
LL:2008/64
Abe Lebewohl Park (Manhattan)
Present name:St. Mark's Park
Location:Park at northwest corner of East 10th Street and Second Avenue.
Honoree: Abe Lebewohl (1931-1996) came to the US after surviving World War II and years in a displaced-persons camp. In 1954 he opened a delicatessen at Second Avenue and 10th Street. It was patronized by actors and patrons of the Yiddish Theatre, then in its waning days, and later become a popular East Village dining spot, On March 4, 1996, at age 64, Abe Lebewohl was killed in a robbery.
LL:1997/52
Actors’ Equity Corner (Manhattan)
Present name:None
Location:Northeast corner of 46th Street and 7th Avenue
Honoree: The Actors’ Equity Association represents over 45,000 actors and stage manager in the United States.
LL:2006/23
Adolph S. Ochs Street (Manhattan)
Present name:W 43rd St
Location:Between Broadway and 8th Ave
Honoree: Adolph S. Ochs (1858-1935) began working at age 11 as a paper carrier and by 1878 was publisher of the Chattanooga (TN) Times. In 1896 he learned that the then-struggling New York Times might be for sale. He acquired controlling ownership that year and built the Times into one of the world's most respected newspapers. The paper is still controlled by his descendents. At the time of this naming the newspaper's offices were at 229 West 43rd Street, which was was built during Ochs' tenure.
LL:1996/76
African Burial Ground Way (Manhattan)
Present name:Elk Street
Location:between Duane Street and Chambers Street
Honoree: Marks the location of the largest colonial-era cemetery for enslaved Africans in America. It was unearthed in 1991 during construction o f a Federal building at 290 Broadway.
LL:2004/63
Al Jolson Way (Manhattan)
Present name:Broadway
Location:Between West 51st Street and West 52nd Street
Honoree: Al Jolson (1886-1950) was a popular singer and actor, in film and on Broadway, for nearly 30 years. Although sometimes labeled a racist because of his use of “Blackface,” a stage convention in the early 20th Century, he was popular among African-Americans. He was known as an outspoken supporter of equal rights and opportunity for black performers in the entertainment industry.
LL:2006/50
Albert and Dorothy Rose Blumberg Way (Manhattan)
Present name:None
Location:At the intersection of 168th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue
Honoree: Albert Blumberg (1906-1997), a philosophy professor, was an official of the Communist Party for several years before joining the Democratic Party and becoming a a district leader. His wife, Dorothy Rose Blumberg was an author best known for her works, “Whose What” and “Florence Kelly.” Together, they helped change the cultural and political landscape of Northern Manhattan. They helped lead the creation of various senior centers and organizations advocating for senior citizens, including Seniors Helping Seniors. They were also instrumental in helping organized the 1199 Union Retirees. In the political arena, they brought together the coalition that spearheaded political change in Northern Manhattan and led to the creation of the 10th Council District in the City Council, resulting in the election of the first elected official in the United States of Dominican decent. (Rodriguez)
LL:2017/110
Albert Blumburg Way (Manhattan)
Present name:None
Location:At the intersection of 168th Street and Broadway
Honoree: Albert Blumberg (1906-1997) was a philosopher, associated with the movement known as logical positivism, as well as a political activist. He was chairman of the Philosophy Department at Rutgers University and author of the widely used textbook, “Logic: A First Course.” Before teaching at Rutgers, he had been a Communist Party member and was cited for contempt in 1940 for refusing to name party members to House and Senate committees. In his later years he became a Democratic party leader in upper Manhattan and an advisor to officials including Councilman Stanley E. Michels, Assemblyman Herman D. Farrell Jr., State Senator Franz S. Leichter and Mayor David N. Dinkins. In 1977 he was elected leader of the 71st Assembly District. He is also remembered as having fought to give the growing Dominican population of Manhattan a chance to enter politics. (Rodriguez)
LL:2015/76
Alejandro Cordero Way (Manhattan)
Present name:164th Street
Location:Between Broadway and Fort Washington Avenue
Honoree: Alejandro Cordero worked at Marsh & McLennan in the World Trade Center. He was killed in the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001.
LL:2003/62
Alexander Felix Place (Manhattan)
Present name:None
Location:At the intersection of West 161st Street and Riverside Drive
Honoree: Alexander Felix (1976-2007), a long-time resident of Washington Heights, was an Auxiliary Officer for the 30th Precinct from 1996 until 2004. In June 2004, he joined the NYPD. In 2007, he was accepted into the elite Manhattan North Grand Larceny Unit. He was killed by a drunk driver on the morning he was supposed to start with his new unit.
LL:2009/46
Alfredo “Chocolate” Armenteros Way (Manhattan)
Present name:None
Location:At the northeast corner of East 122nd Street and 3rd Avenue
Honoree: Alfredo Armenteros (1928-2016), or “Chocolate” as he was affectionately known, was a renowned Afro-Cuban trumpeter. He was born in Cuba, where he established a reputation and made his first recordings. After the Cuban Revolution he moved to New York where he continued his career as a performer, composer and arranger. "Chocalate" played with the likes of Arsenio Rodriguez, Cachao Lopez, Beny More, Machito, Eddie Palmieri, Tito Puente, Larry Harlow, Tito Rodriguez, as well as Machito & His Afro-Cubans. He delivered dynamically rich and lyrically vibrant music to the Latino community for seven decades. (Mark-Viverito)
LL:2016/92
Alice Kornegay Way (Manhattan)
Present name:Lexington Avenue
Location:Between East 124th Street and East 131st Street
Honoree: Alice Grace Wragg Kornegay (1930-1996) was President of the Community Association of the East Harlem Triangle, Inc. which, under her direction, was responsible for the creation of many units of housing in the area bounded by Fifth Avenue, the East River, East 124th and East 132nd Streets.
LL:2001/ 60
Altagracia Diloné Levat Way (Manhattan)
Present name:166th Street
Location:Between St. Nicholas Avenue and Audubon Avenue
Honoree: Altagracia Diloné Levat (1957-2014) was the director of the Alianza Dominicana Cultural Center, where she initiated and oversaw programs of classical and folkloric music, dance and art reaching more than 1,000 children. She also held positions at the Women's Project Theater in Manhattan, and the Clay Arts Center in Port Chester. She served as vice president for communications and marketing at Legal Momentum, a legal defense and education organization focused on women's rights; as associate dean of New York Law School, the first Dominican-American of that rank in the United States; and as assistant dean at Pace University Law School. She wass a consultant at the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute, a board member of the Alliance of Dominican Classical Artists, and a pro bono advisor to the printmaking collective Dominican York Proyecto Gráfica. (Rodriguez)
LL:2014/34
Althea Gibson Street (Manhattan)
Present name:None
Location:At the intersection of West 143rd Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr Boulevard and Malcolm X Boulevard
Honoree: Althea Gibson (1927-2003) was an American tennis player who dominated women’s competition in the late 1950s. She was the first African American player to win the French, Wimbledon and U.S. Open singles championships. She grew up in New York City, where she began playing tennis at an early age under the auspices of the New York Police Athletic League. In 1942, she won her first tournament, which was sponsored by the American Tennis Association (ATA), an organization founded by African American players. In 1947, she captured the ATA’s women’s singles championship, which she would hold for 10 consecutive years. While attending Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (B.S., 1953) in Tallahassee, she continued to play in tournaments around the country and in 1950 became the first African American tennis player to enter the national grass-court championship tournament at Forest Hills in Queens. The next year she entered the Wimbledon tournament, again as the first African American player ever invited. In 1956, she won a number of tournaments in Asia and Europe, including the French and Italian singles titles and the women’s doubles title at Wimbledon. In 1957–58 she won the Wimbledon women’s singles and doubles titles and took the U.S. women’s singles championship at Forest Hills. She also won the U.S. mixed doubles and the Australian women’s doubles in 1957. That year, she was voted Female Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press, becoming the first African American to receive the honor; she also won the award the following year. She turned professional following her 1958 Forest Hills win. However, there being few tournaments and prizes for women in tennis at that time, she took up professional golf in 1964 and was the first African-American member of the Ladies Professional Golf Association. From 1973 to 1992, she was active in sports administration, mainly for the state of New Jersey. In 1971, she was elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame. (Perkins)
LL:2022/54
Alvin Ailey Place (Manhattan)
Present name:None
Location:Northwest corner of 55th Street and 9th Avenue
Honoree: Alvin Ailey (1931-1989) was a major American choreographer and founder of the world-renowned Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. He danced in film and in several Broadway productions before founding the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1958. It has performed around the world and continues to be one of America's leading dance companies. Its studios are located at 405 West 55th Street. This name was originally applied in 1993 to West 61st Street between Amsterdam and West End Avenues, the previous location of the company's studios.
LL:2007/28
Angelo Del Toro Place (Manhattan)
Present name:East 106th Street
Location:Between Lexington Avenue and Park Avenue
Honoree: Angelo Del Toro (1947-1994) was elected to the NYS Assembly in 1974 and represented his East Harlem community for the next 20 years. He was instrumental in the creation of Hostos Community College in the Bronx, the renovation of Boricua College in Manhattan and the establishment of Touro College in East Harlem.
LL:2003/14
Ann Petry Place (Manhattan)
Present name:None
Location:At the southeast corner of East 129th Street and 5th Avenue
Honoree: Ann Petry (1908-1997) was a ground-breaking African-American novelist, journalist, and biographer. She began her career as a journalist, writing for the Amsterdam News from 1938 until 1941 and the Peoples’ Voice of Harlem from 1941 until 1944, and then studied creative writing at Columbia University. Her first novel, The Street became a best-seller and was critically acclaimed for its portrayal of a working-class black woman, Lutie Johnson, who dreams of getting out of Harlem but is inevitably thwarted by the pressures of poverty and racism. It was one of the first novels by an African-American woman to receive widespread acclaim. Country Place depicts the disillusionment and corruption among a group of white people in a small town in Connecticut. Her third novel, The Narrows is the story of Link Williams, a Dartmouth-educated African American who tends bar in the black section of Monmouth, Connecticut, and of his tragic love affair with a rich white woman. Although often criticized for its melodramatic plot, it has been lauded for its supple style and its sympathetic characterizations. Petry’s short stories were collected in Miss Muriel and Other Stories. She also published several historical biographies for children, including Harriet Tubman, Conductor on the Underground Railroad and Tituba of Salem Village. (Perkins)
LL:2022/54
Anna Sokolow Way (Manhattan)
Present name:Christopher Street
Location:Between 6th Avenue and Greenwich Avenue
Honoree: Anna Sokolow (1910-2000) had a long and illustrious career as a modern dancer and choreographer She taught dance in Greenwich Village and was on the faculty of the Juilliard School of Music. Anna Sokolow lived on this block at 1 Christopher Street for about 50 years.
LL:2003/62
Anthony T. Dwyer Street (Manhattan)
Present name:West 35th Street
Location:between 8th Avenue and 9th Avenue
Honoree: On October 17, 1989 Police Officer Dwyer and two fellow officers responded to a burglary at a McDonald’s on Seventh Avenue. Officer Dwyer pursued one of the suspects to the roof, where the suspect pushed him over a small ledge into a 40-foot deep airshaft. He was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he died.
LL:2004/63
Apostle William Brown Way (Manhattan)
Present name:None
Location:Northeast corner of 116th Street and Lenox Avenue
Honoree:  Apostle William Brown (1933-2009) founded Salvation and Deliverance Churches Worldwide, a non-denominational, multicultural ministry in 1975. It is now located at 37 West 116th Street, a six-story building that has been the church’s home since 1978. Apostle William Brown was called to the ministry in the late 1960s after evangelizing for a number of years and leaving a highly successful career as a corporate executive. Since the establishment of the church in 1975, he had over 250 churches in the United States and across the world. The Salvation and Deliverance Churches operate day care centers, clinics, Christian schools, one of the largest Christian resorts on the east coast, Bible Colleges and a transportation enterprise. Its outreach ministry that feeds and clothes the hungry and homeless. Apostle Brown was a member of Larry Jones Feed the Children program and launched 'Christ Not Crack' and 'Hope Not Dope' campaigns when drug addiction was at its highest in Harlem, and hosted revivals in the park preaching the Word of God. His ministry built hospitals and medical clinics in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Zambia, Liberia, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Argentina, Jamaica and Haiti. (Perkins)
LL:2018/139
Ari Halberstam Memorial Ramp (Manhattan)
Present name:None
Location:The southerly entrance ramp to the Bklyn Bridge, beginning at the merger of FDR Dr and Pearl St at Gold St and continuing to the merger with the Park Row entrance to the Bklyn Bridge
Honoree: Aaron "Ari" Halberstam (b. May 6, 1977) and three other Hasidic students were shot on March 1, 1994 traveling with 15 oher Hasidic youths in a van returning from a prayer vigil for the late Lubavicher Rebbe, Menachem Scneerson, who was then in a coma. Ari died four days later from a wound to his brain. Three other students were also shot but survived.
LL:1995/27
Ariel Russo Place (4 Years Old) (Manhattan)
Present name:West 97th Street
Location:Between Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway
Honoree: Ariel Russo was 4 years-old when she was killed on a sidewalk in June 2013 when an unlicensed teen driver jumped the curb while fleeing from the police and struck her. Records indicated a four-minute delay between the time EMS received the 9-1-1 call and the time an ambulance was dispatched. Her death led to the enactment of new procedures in the tracking of emergency response times. Her death was also a factor in the redesign of Amsterdam Avenue into a safer street.
LL:2013/154
Arlington “Ollie” Edinboro Playground (Manhattan)
Present name:none
Location:Playground within St. Nicholas Park at 140th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue
Honoree: Ollie Edinboro (1916-1990, a World War II veteran and an outstanding basketball coach, served for over 40 years as a Recreation Director for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.
LL:2004/63
Armando Perez Place (Manhattan)
Present name:East 9th Street
Location:Between Avenues B and C
Honoree: Armando Perez (1948-1999) was the co-founder, with Carlos Garcia, of the Real Great Society, a gang outreach and community empowerment organization. It organized over 30,000 youths around the country to stop fighting and to work on addressing the needs of their communities..
LL:2006/13
Art Kane: Harlem 1958 Place (Manhattan)
Present name:East 126th Street
Location:Between Madison Avenue and Fifth Avenue
Honoree: This co-naming commemorates the 60th Anniversary of a black-and-white photograph that has become an iconic image in the history of jazz and of Harlem. Titled 'Harlem 1958,' it shows 57 musicians, including nearly all of the most famous jazz figures of that era, gathered in front of 17 West 126th Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues. It was taken on August 12, 1958 by freelance photographer Art Kane (1925-1995) for Esquire magazine, which published the photo in its January 1959 issue. The image has come to be called A Great Day in Harlem, which is actually the name of the 1994 Oscar-nominated documentary about the photo. (Perkins)
LL:2019/158
Arturo "Chico" O'Farrill Place (Manhattan)
Present name:none
Location:the intersection of West 88th Street and West End Avenue
Honoree: Cuban-born Arturo “Chico” O’Farrill (1921-2001) was a classically trained composer, who in the 1950s pioneered the musical art forms known as Afro-Cuban Jazz and Afro-Latin Jazz. Mr. O’Farrill lived at 574 West End Avenue for nearly 40 years.
LL:2004/63
Assemblywoman Geraldine L. Daniels Way (Manhattan)
Present name:None
Location:At the northeast corner of 132nd Street and Lenox Avenue
Honoree: Geraldine Daniels (1938-2012) was a member of the New Era Democratic Club, executive member of the Martin Luther King Jr. Democratic Club, and later represented Harlem's 70th Assembly District for 12 years. During her tenure, she secured funding for Harlem schools, chaired the Sub-Committee on Preventative Health Care and ensured that Harlem Hospital received its own licensing. She was the first African-American woman to chair a standing committee in the Assembly and chair the Majority Steering Committee. These accomplishments made her the first African-American woman to be significantly incorporated into the Majority Leadership. She was also a member of the New York Branch NAACP, the National Association of Negro and Business Professional Women, and the Eastern Star Prince Hall Temple. (Perkins)
LL:2017/237
Audre Lorde Way (Manhattan)
Present name:None
Location:At the intersection of 68th Street and Lexington Avenue
Honoree: Audre Lorde (1934-1992) described herself as “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet”—which only begins to describe her work, her writing, and the many aspects of her lifelong battle for social justice. She was also a preeminent advocate for civil rights, LGBTQ rights, women’s rights, and disability rights. She exerted tremendous influence on generations of activists while cementing her own reputation as a poet and author of great originality and distinction. Celebrated for defending the marginalized and oppressed, she famously urged her students and activists to fight for justice by reminding them: “Your silence does not protect you.” “I am deliberate,” she wrote inspiringly, “and afraid of nothing.” Born in New York, she graduated from Hunter College High School (while attending poetry workshops sponsored by the Harlem Writers Guild) and received her BA from Hunter College in 1959. During her student days, she published her poetry professionally for the first time in Seventeen Magazine. Following graduate study at Columbia, she was poet-in-residence at Tougaloo College in Mississippi, where she focused on feminist theory, race studies, and LGBTQ rights. Later, after teaching stints at CUNY’s Lehman College and John Jay College, she returned to her alma mater, Hunter College, in 1981 as Distinguished Thomas Hunter professor. Meanwhile, this activist-author who refused to be categorized published several collections of her acclaimed poems in the 1960s and 70s. Her 1984 book of essays and speeches, Sister Outsider, not only cemented her reputation as a major cultural and political voice, but also defined her future crusades for equality. In 1988, she won the National Book Award for her essays Burst of Light. Earlier in the decade, she co-founded Kitchen Table Press, dedicated to publishing the work of black feminist authors. Governor Mario M. Cuomo named her the 1991 Poet Laureate of New York State. She has inspired much critical praise and several biographical films—and her reputation has soared since her death. (Powers)
LL:2022/54
Aux P.O. Eugene Marshalik Corner (Manhattan)
Present name:None
Location:At the southwest corner of Sullivan Street and Bleecker Street
Honoree: Eugene Marshalik was tragically killed in the line of duty on March 14, 2007. He was an Auxiliary Police Officer in the Sixth Precinct for just over a year. A native of Russia, he was attending New York University while aspiring to attend law school and be a prosecutor or an F.B.I. Agent.
LL:2008/48
Aux P.O. Nicholas Pekearo Corner (Manhattan)
Present name:None
Location:At the northeast corner of Sullivan Street and Bleecker Street
Honoree: Nicholas Pekearo was tragically killed in the line of duty on March 14, 2007. He was an Auxiliary Police Officer in the Sixth Precinct for 4 years.
LL:2008/48
Avenue of the Immigrants (Manhattan)
Present name:Allen and Pike Streets
Location:between Houston Street and South Street
Honoree: Allen and Pike Streets, and the neighborhoods that overlap across it, Chinatown and the Lower East Side, have been an important corridor for immigrant settlement from the early 1800s through the 1960s.
LL:2004/08
Avenue of the Strongest (Manhattan)
Present name:Worth St
Location:Between Broadway and Centre Street.
Honoree: This 1996 naming honored the employees of the NYC Department of Sanitation, whose headquarters was then at 125 Worth Street. It was in appreciation of their work in clearing snow and ice from city's streets during the record-breaking winter of 1995 in which the city experienced 16 snowstorms that left a total of 7.5 feet of snow.
LL:1996/61
Avenues for Justice Way (Manhattan)
Present name:Avenue B
Location:Between 6th Street and 7th Street
Honoree: Avenues for Justice, formerly known as the Andrew Glover Youth Program, has served the Lower East Side for over 40 years having been founded in the 1970's. The organization was originally named in honor of police officer Andrew Glover of the 9th precinct who was killed in the line of duty near the Community Center at 100 Avenue B. Angel Rodriguez, who co-founded the organization and remains its Executive Director is a lifelong resident of the Lower East Side. Avenues for Justice was one of the first Alternative to Incarceration Programs in the country. Such programs serve to assist young people in getting second chances in life. Avenues for Justicet offers a safe space for young people and families at its community center on Avenue B, as well as provide activities such as work readiness, tutoring, and arts for the young people. (Rivera)
LL:2022/54


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