CROWN HEIGHTS — A quarter century after the Crown Heights riots, the mayor thinks what the neighborhood has accomplished is “a miracle,” he said — and should be celebrated, even though the family of one of the riot's victims decried an anniversary celebration.
On Thursday, a day before the 25th anniversary of the riots that began on August 19, 1991, the mayor addressed the uproar over a “neighborhood festival” planned to commemorate the three days of violence.
The event was harshly criticized earlier this week by the family of Yankel Rosenbaum, a 29-year-old Jewish student fatally stabbed during the violence, who described it as “a disgrace” and “an insult.” Soon afterwards, a New York Post editorial warned residents to not let the "bizarre festival" bury the truth of "one of the deadliest outbreaks of racial violence in city history."
Speaking about the event at an unrelated press conference in The Bronx Thursday, Mayor Bill de Blasio defended the festival, saying that Crown Heights “has achieved a miracle in terms of binding a community back together” since the 1991 riots.
“If people want to celebrate their unity, and how they’ve accomplished a coming together after so much pain was felt all around, I think we should respect that their choice is their own choice,” he said.
He praised the neighborhood for their “extraordinary” efforts over the last 25 years.
“If you go back to 1991, I think it would be very hard to believe the kind of communication and respect and sense of everyone being in it together that you find typically in Crown Heights today,” he said. “Let’s honor what they’ve achieved.”
Sunday’s commemorative One Crown Heights event will include a two-hour memorial for all victims of the riots, a public march and a family-friendly festival at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum and Brower Park, organizers said.
The event will include fun activities such as musical performances, jump-roping and free admission to the childrens’ museum, but organizers said the memory of the riots victims are the “absolute first concern,” said Devorah Halberstam, one of the leaders who helped plan the day-long commemoration.
“It was probably the saddest day I could remember that has ever happened to our community,” she told DNAinfo, speaking of the day the riots began. “Tragic and sad. And we have to remember it as such.”
The One Crown Heights anniversary event will begin at 11 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 21, at the Jewish Children’s Museum at 792 Eastern Parkway. The neighborhood festival will begin at 1 p.m. in Brower Park, according to the Facebook event page.
