"I am petitioning the St. Albans and Addisleigh Park communities to have a park named after James Brown. To further commemorate the James Brown legacy, I am proposing the park and playground bordering Linden Boulevard to the south, Merrick Boulevard to the west, Marne Place to the east and 111th Road to the north be renamed after one of the country's most enterprising performers. Mr. Brown resided at 175-19 Linden Boulevard and 175th Place.I have spoken with members of the St. Albans and Addisleigh Park communities, and thus far, everyone agrees a park near his home is an excellent idea. I will, with pleasure, position a commemorative inscription plaque and collage of him in the park.
Assets for the St. Albans and Addisleigh Park communities include the wide spread discovery of past Queens personalities such as Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Milt Hinton, Lena Horne, Joe Louis, and Jackie Robinson to name a few. As you well know, these legends are less than half of the past-celebrated populace of St. Albans and Addisleigh Park and the home of many celebrities of today. Nearby businesses would benefit from local enthusiast and tourist. Please consider this endeavor. St Albans will not be a forgotten neighborhood any longer."
Most sincerely,
Johnnie Barton
jamesbrownpark@aol.com
5 comments:
Some may say this is a bad idea considering James Brown had a checkered past. But considering some of the political hacks that some Queens parks are named after, it would be more than appropriate. At least James Brown had talent.
I am sick and tired of naming places to satisfy political ends.
After WWI, everything that moved was named after soldiers, often at the request of a family that was in the community only a few years.
Why does Queens always feel the neeed to have historic or unique community landmarks get glossed over with political agendas?
It reminds me of streets and cities in the former Communist block, renamed every few decades after the latest fearless leader.
Keep the original names!
Queens is wonderful enough on it own quirkiness without an overlay of politics on every aspect of its idenity.
Queens, as a whole, is often perceived as a dull forgotten borough way off somewhere in the boonies!
Look at the tourism statistics for Queens......they're laughable!
No amount of promotion etc, will ever steer a large body of visitors away from Manhattan's exciting central tourist corridor. That's what everybody came to NYC in the first place to see!
Our borough's paltry "features" are no match for the attraction of places like the Empire State Building etc!
Whoever is promoting tourism to Queens is pulling our leg and drawing BIG salaries to do so. Maybe that's what it's all about......a nice fat patronage job for a director of a Queens Council on Tourism?
Too much of NYC's real history is buried under an artifial history that satisfies political agendas.
Years ago, when WWI was big in the public's memory, a host of places were named after veterans by their families, even if the families only lived in the area for a few years.
Now we are stuck with dozens of obscure squares and triangles remembering the forgotten when the real history of a community remains eclipsed.
Yes, Interboro should have stayed, as East River Drive, Blackwells Island and even perhaps Idelwild Airport.
And God forbid bringing back Queen Catherine, who zombie-like, keeps arising from the dead.
We should push for the real history. The unique quirkiness of each place should be remembered, treasured, celebrated.
Is that portrait of the slave mistress Queen Catherine still hanging in Borough Hall?
Her hair-do is as ugly as Marshal's!
As a person of color, our Borough President should insist upon its removal and denounce the pseudo history of Queens being named for Catherine as bunk!
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