Claire Levenson

Sterling Place and Seventh Avenue in Park Slope is co-named for former City Planning Commisioner Ed Rogowsky.

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Brooklyn Heights’ community board, citing a rash of requests, is poised to make it tougher to co-name streets after everyday people.

At a meeting last month, Community Board 2’s transportation committee voted unanimously in favor of new application criteria: Co-naming requests will only be accepted three years after the person’s death and the board will review name changes every five years.

Committee Chairman John Dew said that in recent years, the board has received too many demands to co-name streets for people whose impact on the community seemed limited.

“There is a sense that it has gotten out of hand,” said Dew, during the June 19 meeting at St. Francis College on Remsen (and, for now, only Remsen) Street. “We get so many names (of people) that people don’t know.”

The board gets around 10 applications a year, up from just one or two a year, according to Dew.

Last year, 127 streets were co-named in the five boroughs and 29 of them were in Brooklyn, according to the City Council.

District Manager Rob Perris called the proposed three-year waiting time a “cooling period for the emotions” that could allow applicants to really think their decision through.

And that, some critics say, is exactly the goal of a “cooling-off” period.

“The whole idea of a street co-naming is to honor someone while he or she is still in people’s memories,” said one Park Sloper, who supported the co-naming of the corner of Seventh Avenue and Carroll Street after late great rabble-rousing activist Jackie Connor.

“If we wait three years, everyone will have moved on and there’ll be no physical memory of so many good people.”

In years past, councilmembers typically approved the few requests they got, but they have become more selective recently, said Sam Rockwell, a spokesperson for Councilman David Yassky (D–Brooklyn Heights).

Relatives of the deceased can be taken aback by refusals, added Perris. “Co-naming is a very emotional issue,” he said.

It’s also expensive and time-consuming. The signs themselves cost $58 to make, according to a DOT spokesperson. But there’s thousands of dollars in hidden labor costs on the day of the street co-naming ceremony.

Many people would argue that the expense pales by comparison to the honor bestowed on worthy New Yorkers. So far, over 400 streets have been co-named for victims of the 9-11 terror attacks, a Parks Department official said. And there are dozens of street signs honoring everyone from Señor Wences to John FitzGerald, the horse-racing writer who first dubbed New York City “the Big Apple.”

In Brooklyn, streets were recently co-named after abolitionist Harriet Tubman, book illustrator Tom Feelings, reggae star Bob Marley and Frederick I. Ergang, a 49-year veteran of Brooklyn’s public schools.

Some requests spark off intense controversies. Earlier this month, the City Council was consumed by debate over whether to co-name a portion of Fulton Street after civil rights agitator Sonny Carson. After the Council voted against the sign, activists had an unofficial ceremony and put it up anyway.

©2007 The Brooklyn Paper

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