Co-Named Streets Commemorate Local Heroes

We’ve all seen them: signs installed under the actual names of local streets, recognizing a neighborhood notable with a “way,” “place,” or “corner.” While we sometimes know the honorees, more often than not the people on these “co-named” street signs are unknown to most passers-by. A New York City agency recently released the means for everyone to better know these local heroes.

Earlier this month, the city’s Department of Records and Information Services launched an interactive map, accessible on desktop and mobile devices, to help people connect with the stories behind nearly 2,500 co-named streets, intersections, parks, and other locations across the five boroughs. Our own communities feature a number of spots co-named for those who lived, worked, or made art in our midst, each with fascinating stories behind them.

Joey Ramone Place

One of the better-known designees is legendary punk rocker Joey Ramone, the front man for America’s premier punk band, the Ramones, who died in 2001 at the age of 49. Born Jeffrey Ross Hyman in 1951 in Forest Hills, the gawky geek founded the Ramones in 1974 with friends Johnny, Dee Dee and Tommy. Each adopted the surname Ramone, after a stage name Paul McCartney used as a young Beatle. Best known for such short and to-the-point anthems as “I Wanna Be Sedated,” “Blitzkrieg Bop,” “Rockaway Beach,” and “Teenage Lobotomy,” the Ramones helped launch the musical force known as punk rock.

The style became intertwined with the group and with one of their earliest and most frequent concert venues, CBGB. The band’s first performance at the Bowery club was on August 16, 1974, and the band went on to play some 70 more concerts that year alone and hundreds more over the next few decades. The Ramones helped lead the way for punk and other like-minded acts such as Richard Hell, Patti Smith, and Television, all of whom also called CBGB home.

Joey Ramone died of lymphatic cancer on April 15, 2001, which he had been battling for some seven years. He died in his hospital bed, and is said to have passed when U2’s “A Little While” concluded. He was the frontman for his band and for a generation of punk rockers, as well as an inspiration for many groups to follow. 

The corner of Bowery and East 2nd Street was co-named Joey Ramone Place in 2003, a short walk from CBGB’s, which closed three years later. Within a few short years, the street sign became the most stolen sign in the city, according to Billboard. 

Nicholas Figueroa Way and Moises Locon Way

Tragedy struck the corner of Second Avenue and East 7th Street on March 26, 2015, as a massive explosion and seven-alarm fire engulfed three buildings (119, 121, and 123 Second Avenue) that eventually collapsed. Two people were killed in the incident: 23-year-old Nicholas Figueroa, who was on a lunch date with a co-worker at Sushi Park in No. 121; and 27-year-old Moises Ismael Locón Yac, a 27-year-old Guatemalan immigrant who was a busboy at the restaurant. More than 20 others were injured.

Five years later, the building owner, a contractor, and an unlicensed plumber were sentenced to prison for illegally tapping into a gas line from the restaurant to service another building out of greed: according to prosecutors, the owner had newly renovated apartments to lease but no gas to service them, and she didn’t want to miss out on the rent.

In 2017, the portion of Second Avenue between East 7th Street and St. Marks Place was co-named Nicholas Figueroa Way, while East 7th between Second and Third Avenues was designated Moises Locon Way. Four years later, the victims’ relatives and neighbors participated in a plaque installation honoring Figueroa and Locon at a new residential building on the site.

Police Officer Brian Murray Way

On September 11, 1976, Brian Murray, a member of the Police Department’s Bomb Squad, was killed in the line of duty when a terrorist bomb he was trying to deactivate exploded. 

Terrorists attempting to win Croatian independence planted a bomb in a locker at Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan before they hijacked a TWA jet. Officers from the Bomb Squad found the device and brought it to the department range at Rodman’s Neck in the Bronx, where Officer Murray, along with three colleagues, attempted to defuse it by remote control. They were unsuccessful in defusing the bomb remotely; they began to approach the device when it suddenly exploded, killing Murray and seriously injuring the other three officers. 

The five terrorists were arrested when the plane they hijacked landed in Paris. The suspects were returned to the United States, where they were charged with air piracy by the federal government and murder by the state. All five were convicted of the federal count, but only two were convicted of murder.

The southwest corner of Bleeker and Charles Streets was co-named Police Officer Brian Murray Way in 2014. The West Village intersection is near the former headquarters for the Bomb Squad.

Explore more secondary street name origins in our neighborhoods and throughout New York City on this new interactive map. Explore the stories behind more (primary) street names in our neighborhood here.