Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

Beastie Boys Street Naming Back on Community Board's Agenda

By Gustavo Solis | February 7, 2014 9:22am
 LeRoy McCarthy, who is proposing a Lower East Street corner be renamed after the hip-hop group the Beastie Boys, has already gotten a street sign made. 
LeRoy McCarthy, who is proposing a Lower East Street corner be renamed after the hip-hop group the Beastie Boys, has already gotten a street sign made. 
View Full Caption
DNAinfo/Serena Solomon

MANHATTAN — Beastie Boys Square is back on the agenda.

After an application to name the intersection of Ludlow and Rivington streets for the Beastie Boys was rejected by Community Board 3, the man who applied will have another shot to make his case in March — even though the board previously said he couldn't try again for five years.

“I feel confident that I have the community support,” said LeRoy McCarthy, who has collected more than 200 signatures in support of the street naming.

McCarthy previously withdrew his application for Beastie Boys Square at a Jan. 14 meeting of CB3's transportation committee, so that he could spend time gathering more community support.

A few days later, the application was introduced as “pending” before the full community board, which denied the street renaming with a vote of 24 to 1 with one abstention. Based on the board's policy on street namings, a rejected applicant cannot return to the board for five years.

The lone board member who voted in favor of the co-naming, Chad Marlow, thought the rejection was unfair and took it up with Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer's office, which manages community boards.

“At this time, although I support the upcoming application, it matters little to me whether Beastie Boys Square is ultimately approved or not,” Marlow wrote in a letter to CB3 and Brewer’s office. “Rather, I am focused on making sure every group that seeks to appear before our board or one of its committees is provided adequate due process and given a full opportunity to be heard.”

CB3 chairwoman Gigi Li confirmed that the borough president’s office contacted the community board but said CB3 had already decided to give the application another chance before hearing from Brewer's office.

“David Crane [chairman of the transportation committee] and myself took a look at how the process happened and felt that there may have been some confusion with the status of the application,” Li told DNAinfo New York.