MASPETH — The city on Saturday renamed a public stairwell in honor of Ireland's Easter Rising of 1916, with hundreds gathering in Queens to commemorate the deadly revolution that helped bring about the country's independence from Great Britain.
Irish leaders, including political leader Gerry Adams and Consul General of Ireland Barbara Jones, gathered at the staircase near 53rd Avenue and 64th Street at the Maspeth Plateau to rename it "Easter Rising Way."
The ceremony was a celebration of the Irish immigrant's influence in Queens, and the borough's own support for the rebellion, during which Irish rebels took over several buildings in Dublin to protest British rule.
It led to six days of bloody fighting before it was quashed by the British, who put the country under martial law and imprisoned thousands of Irish. Years later, the country gained its independence.
"We're getting better at remembering," Jones said. "What we choose to remember is really, really vital now in this uncertain world, where our principals and assumptions and expectations sometimes seem to be very challenged, and devalued."
Both she and Adams, the president of the political group Sinn Fein, urged those in attendance to work with president-elect Donald Trump on protecting the undocumented — both from Ireland and other countries.
"We need to stand up for the undocumented, we need to stand up for those people who are contributing to society here," he said.
The co-naming was sponsored in the City Council by Elizabeth Crowley, after a petition from the community and local groups, including the New York Irish Center in Queens and the Winged Fist Organization.
"Maspeth is a community that has Irish-Americans for generations, and other residents born in Ireland," Crowley said. Her grandparents settled in Queens from Ireland, not far from the street renaming, and she said honoring Irish culture was "personal and important" to her.
The stairwell was selected due to Maspeth's Irish population, and its proximity to Calvary Cemetery, a burial ground for thousands of Irish since it opened in the mid-1800s.
There's also a monument to the 69th Regiment, the group of "Fighting Irish" that fought in the Army during the Civil War.
Crowley said the steep climb — adorned with "Easter Rising Way" signs at the top and bottom — is symbolic of the struggle for freedom, and the Irish journey to independence.
The 1916 Proclamation, which announced Ireland's independence, was read and posted at the stairwell along with William Butler Yeats' poem, "Easter, 1916."
Notable Irish immigrants and Irish-Americans from throughout Queens spoke at the ceremony, including Councilman Danny Dromm, the head of the council's Irish caucus, and Ian McGowan, of the Winged Fist Organization.
He said it was the Irish immigrants who settled in Queens in the late 1800s and early 1900s who played a big role in funding and arming the rebels that fought in 1916.
Leaders of the movement, including James Connolly, Tom Clarke and Patrick Pearse, spoke at Celtic Park in Sunnyside to gather support. And members of the park's athletic club raised money to send back home.
Adams thanked the United States' influence and political involvement in both the 1916 uprising, and the agreement to bring peace to the country in the 1990s.
"The bridge between Ireland and the policy makers has been and historically remains Irish-Americans," Adams said.
