UPPER WEST SIDE — A man who filled the role of absent fathers, who helped kids feel good about themselves and who watched over a local school for decades, should be honored with a street renaming, residents and local leaders said.
John L. Nelson managed school safety at P.S. 84 on West 92nd Street for 34 years, and he spent most of his afternoons, evenings and weekends at the adjacent Sol Bloom Playground teaching sports in an informal capacity, his wife Fran Nelson said at a Community Board 7 transportation committee meeting Tuesday.
During the 1970s and 80s, at the height of the drug epidemic, "[Nelson] excelled as a father figure to many," said his wife. He died in 2015 at the age of 68.
To honor his "vigilance" keeping "neighborhood children on the right path" and his role as "a fixture within the school and the surrounding neighborhood around the Upper West Side," the northeast corner of West 91st Street and Columbus Avenue should be renamed John L. Nelson Way, said Fran Nelson.
In her campaign for the street renaming, Fran Nelson collected 5,000 signatures from residents and people who knew her husband, who was also known as Jay.
She amassed a bound book of recommendations — from elected officials like State Sen. Bill Perkins, leaders of neighborhood organizations and nonprofits, P.S. 84's current principal and former students whose lives he touched, among others — that she distributed to board members Tuesday.
"He was a father figure," said Margaret Myers, a former parent at P.S. 84 who spoke in support of the renaming at the meeting.
As a single working mother, Myers faced a childcare dilemma in the mornings because she had to get to work earlier but had nowhere to send her kids, she said. Nelson came up with a solution.
"He would promptly arrive at the school at 7 a.m., just so that the children would be supervised and I could go to work without worry," she wrote in a letter of support, noting that he was never compensated for that extra time, but instead saw it as his duty to the community.
When people see the secondary street sign, "everybody would recognize the name, from 86th [Street] all the way up to Douglass at [West] 104," said Myers.
In the past, the board has been wary of approving certain street renamings, for fear that they will confuse people and that there are too many. The board rejected a proposal to rename West 67th Street after political consultant David Garth.
"We’ve wrestled with street naming before… to me all the kids are still around [that knew him] that it’s nice for people in the area to be able to point and say 'this was my teacher,'" when they see the street sign, said board member Roberta Semer.
The renaming shouldn't be forever, said Nelson's wife.
"In 30 years, his name should be removed and there should be another mentor. Someone else should take over. There are so many good people. There are wonderful people in this community," she said.
The committee approved the renaming, which will next go before the full board for its approval at the May meeting.
