Dedicating Frances Goldin Way

This past Thursday, the community came together to dedicate the stretch of Fourth Street between Cooper Square and Second Avenue as Frances Goldin Way...

Here's more about Goldin from the Cooper Square Committee: 

Frances Goldin was one of the Lower East Side's most noteworthy and accomplished activists, civic leaders, and advocates for affordable housing. She was a leader in the establishment of the Cooper Square Committee, its affiliates, and the Metropolitan Council on Housing while fighting tirelessly for more than 50 years for the racially just integration of the Seward Park Urban Renewal area. She was dedicated to gay rights and was once honored on the lead float in the annual Gay Pride Parade in NYC. She was also a distinguished literary agent and founded her own firm representing many Pulitzer Prize-winning authors.

The East Village resident died in 2020 at age 95. 

And here's the moment of the unveiling...

 

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A campaign to co-name part of 6th Street after Donald Suggs Jr.

Donald Suggs, a longtime resident of Sixth Street, died in October 2012 from an apparent heart attack. He was 51.

His friends and loved ones have a campaign underway to petition the city to co-name the southwest corner of Sixth Street and Avenue B Donald Suggs Jr. Way. (There was a similar campaign in late 2012, though those plans didn't materialize.)

Suggs lived for years at 526 E. Sixth St. There are petitions up along the block here between Avenue A and Avenue B for people to sign...



Some background on him from a Donald Suggs Jr. Street Naming Project website:

Donald was a senior editor at The Village Voice, a former associate director of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), and a program director at Harlem United Community AIDS Center.

His work as an organizer included an early campaign against homophobia in the music industry that was the basis for the British Broadcasting Company film by Isaac Julien, "A Darker Shade of Black."

Through numerous appearances on "The Ricki Lake Show," he became nationally known for his witty commentary as a relationship expert and for his scathing critiques and rigorous insight into modern white backlash against people of color and LGBTQ communities’ decades before “Alt-Right” rebranding and Trumpism.

He penned the first major article about the transgender Harlem Ballroom Scene in New York for The Village Voice and his writings from The Advocate to The New York Times and his activism, which began as a pro-feminist undergraduate at Yale University, led to ground breaking discourse on black LGBTQ people around the world.

Donald was former board chairman for the public access cable network Manhattan Neighborhood Network (MNN). In 2001, he founded People Using Media to do Prevention, or the PUMP project, which taught young people from neighborhoods decimated by HIV how to produce HIV prevention videos to combat the spread of HIV within their communities ... His work continues to be cited for changing the landscape of American HIV messaging campaigns.

The petitions will be imp through tomorrow (Monday) on Sixth Street.

Street co-naming set for Public Theater founder Joseph Papp and community activist Mary Spink

There are two street co-naming ceremonies to note...

Tomorrow morning at 8:30, the intersection of Lafayette and Astor Place will officially be co-named Joseph Papp Way, in honor of late Public Theater founder Joseph Papp ...


[Image via Playbill]

The ceremony takes place on the Astor Place plaza. Playbill has more on the story here.

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Saturday at noon, the southeast corner of Avenue A and Second Street will be co-named in honor of community activist Mary Spink...



Spink, a local business owner and member of CB3, later served as executive director of Lower East Side People’s Mutual Housing Association. She died in January 2012 at age 64.

Dedicating Moises Locón Way and Nicholas Figueroa Way on 2nd Avenue at 7th Street

City officials this morning unveiled the new street blades that co-name the northwest corner of Second Avenue and Seventh Street after Moises Locón, 27, and Nicholas Figueroa, 23, who died in the gas explosion here on March 26, 2015.

Ana and Nixon, parents of Nicholas Figueroa, and Alfredo Locón, brother of Moises Locón, were at the dedication as well as several local elected officials and first responders at the time of the explosion.

This was a healing moment for all. #eastvillage Photo: Cora Cofield pic.twitter.com/rmpHCitVr5

— Rosie Mendez (@RosieMendez) October 14, 2017

Officials say that illegal gas tampering caused the explosion.

Photos by Steven

Previously on EV Grieve:
RIP Nicholas Figueroa

RIP Moises Ismael Locón Yac

A proposal to co-name part of 2nd Avenue and 7th Street after the victims of the 2015 gas explosion

Street co-naming ceremony Saturday for the 2 victims of the 2nd Avenue gas explosion

Street co-naming ceremony Saturday for the 2 victims of the 2nd Avenue gas explosion

Last spring, City Council approved co-naming the northwest corner of Seventh Street and Second Avenue Moises Locón and Nicholas Figueroa Way.

Locón, 27, and Figueroa, 23, were killed in the gas explosion here on March 26, 2015, that also destroyed three buildings, 119-123 Second Ave.

This Saturday morning at 11, city officials will be on-hand on this corner for the official co-name ceremony ...



Organizers who were behind the co-naming hope that the street sign bearing the names of the two men will both help commemorate their loss and serve as a warning against unscrupulous landlords.

In a story at DNAinfo on the co-naming proposal this past May, Ana Lanza, Figueroa's mother, said, "It's not going to bring him back — nothing is going to bring him back. But at least this brings a little bit of comfort, that he's going to be remembered somewhere, somehow. That his life wasn't taken in vain. That he meant something."

Authorities have said that illegally siphoned gas at 121 Second Ave. was to blame for the explosion. In February 2016, Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance's office charged landlord Maria Hrynenko and her son Michael Hrynenko Jr. along with contractor Dilber Kukic and plumber Jerry Ioannidis with manslaughter in the second degree, criminally negligent homicide and assault in the second degree, among other charges.

According to an obituary, Michael Jr. died on Aug. 25 at age 31.

The criminal case has yet to go to trial while the multiple civil actions are still making their way through the courts.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Updated: 2nd Ave. explosion — landlord, 3 others charged with 2nd degree manslaughter; showed 'a blatant and callous disregard for human life'

Memorial for Mary Spink tomorrow

RIP Nicholas Figueroa

RIP Moises Ismael Locón Yac

A proposal to co-name part of 2nd Avenue and 7th Street after the victims of the 2015 gas explosion

Michael Hrynenko, Jr., awaiting trial for his role in the 2nd Avenue gas explosion, dies at 31

City approves co-naming the northwest corner of 7th Street and 2nd Avenue Moises Locón and Nicholas Figueroa Way

The northwest corner of Seventh Street and Second Avenue will be co-named Moises Locón and Nicholas Figueroa Way for the two victims of the gas explosion here on March 26, 2015.

A volunteer who helped with the co-naming efforts told us that City Council approved the bill on May 24. As we understand it, there will not be a mayoral signing ceremony for the legislation, and it will go into law on June 23. It then usually takes the Department of Transportation six weeks to prepare the new street blades.

Members of CB3's Transportation & Public Safety/Environment Committee and the full CB3 board signed off on the proposal last month.

Organizers behind the co-naming hope that the street sign bearing the names of the two men will both help commemorate their loss and serve as a warning against unscrupulous landlords.

In February 2016, the DA charged landlord Maria Hrynenko and her son, Michael Hrynenko Jr., with involuntary manslaughter ... as well as contractor Dilber Kukic and an unlicensed plumber, Athanasios Ioannidis. (A fifth person, Andrew Trombettas, faces charges for supplying his license to Ioannidis.) All pleaded not guilty.

Authorities have said that siphoned gas at the Hrynenko-owned 121 Second Ave. was to blame for the explosion, which killed Locón and Figueroa, and injured two dozen other people. The blast also destroyed three buildings.

Figueroa, 23, a recent graduate of SUNY Buffalo State, was at Sushi Park with a co-worker. Locón, an employee at Sushi Park, was 27.

In a story at DNAinfo last month on the co-naming proposal, Ana Lanza, Figueroa's mother, said, "It's not going to bring him back — nothing is going to bring him back. But at least this brings a little bit of comfort, that he's going to be remembered somewhere, somehow. That his life wasn't taken in vain. That he meant something."

Previously on EV Grieve:
Updated: 2nd Ave. explosion — landlord, 3 others charged with 2nd degree manslaughter; showed 'a blatant and callous disregard for human life'

Memorial for Mary Spink tomorrow

RIP Nicholas Figueroa

RIP Moises Ismael Locón Yac

A proposal to co-name part of 2nd Avenue and 7th Street after the victims of the 2015 gas explosion

Members of CB3's Transportation & Public Safety/Environment Committee will hear a proposal this month to co-name Second Avenue between Seventh Street and St. Mark's Place after the two men who died in the gas explosion here on March 26, 2015.

Authorities have said that siphoned gas at 121 Second Ave. was to blame for the explosion, which killed Moises Ismael Locón Yac and Nicholas Figueroa, and injured two dozen other people.

Figueroa, 23, a recent graduate of SUNY Buffalo State, was at Sushi Park with a co-worker. Locón, an employee at Sushi Park, was 27. Locón sent most of his paycheck back to his family in Guatemala, where he worked as a school teacher before moving to the United States in 2008.

Here's more information about the street co-naming proposal via a petition:

In memory of these young men, we ask that our community honor their lives and demonstrate to their families who their loss was also our loss and that we share in their sorrow by co-naming these blocks.

The petition must be signed by a minimum 75 percent of the total number of residential units and 75 percent of the total number of businesses on these blocks. (We appreciate the support, but do not need signatures from elsewhere in the neighborhood. The petitions will be available at neighboring businesses.)

If approved, then City Council will vote on this in May or June. If passed in the City Council, we will set a date with the Department of Transportation for a street blade installation and have a street co-naming event.

Here's a document (PDF) with more information on CB3's guidelines for co-naming a street. (If you have any questions or want to get more involved, then please email nicholasandmoises [at] gmail [dot] com.)

The committee meeting is May 9 at 6:45 p.m. at Downtown Art, 1st Floor Theater, 70 E. Fourth St. between the Bowery and Second Avenue.

The committee is also expected to hear a request to co-name Second Street between Avenue A and Avenue B for Mary Spink.

Spink, a local business owner and member of CB3, was a community activist and later served as executive director of Lower East Side People’s Mutual Housing Association. She died in January 2012 at age 64.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Updated: 2nd Ave. explosion — landlord, 3 others charged with 2nd degree manslaughter; showed 'a blatant and callous disregard for human life'

Memorial for Mary Spink tomorrow

RIP Nicholas Figueroa

RIP Moises Ismael Locón Yac