A community panel sacked a plan to rename a Sheepshead Bay street after a native son: scandal-scarred Penn State coach Joe Paterno.
Fans of Paterno, who died of lung cancer in January, proposed renaming E. 23rd Street between Avenues S and T — the block where he grew up — after the gridiron great, but Community Board 15 blind-sided the request on Tuesday.
Chairwoman Theresa Scavo said the late icon’s legacy fell short of the goal line: street renamings only go to residents who leave a lasting impact on their communities, she explained.
Paterno may have done great things in Pennsylvania, but he did nothing in Brooklyn, Scavo claimed.
“What kind of impact did he have here?” Scavo said. “His career was at Penn State. The street renaming should take place in Pennsylvania.”
But the Hall of Famer affectionately known as “JoePa” wasn’t the only person who got snubbed.
The community board also unanimously rejected proposals to rename streets after Rabbi Samuel Fink, the longtime leader of Young Israel of Bedford Bay on Brown Street, and Daniel Sabatino — a former governor of the Kiwanis Club’s Brooklyn chapter, Elks Lodge member and owner of Sabatino Funeral Home on Avenue U in Gravesend.
More than 400 streets in the city were renamed after 9-11 victims and heroes — including a portion of Richards Street in Red Hook that was renamed “Seven in Heaven Way” in honor of a team of firefighters who died while responding to the terrorist attack — a decision that drew the ire of city Atheists.
But the practice stirred other controversies: Councilmembers were vilified for rejecting a proposal to rename a portion of Gates Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant after black activist Sonny Carson in 2007. Since then, the city has accepted fewer and fewer street-renaming nominations from community boards, Scavo said, claiming that all three of the recommendations the Board proposed last year were rejected.
Paterno went to Good Shepherd School in Marine Park and worked as an usher at Ebbets Field.
He won a record 409 college football games over 46 seasons with the Pen State Nittany Lions before the 85-year-old was forced to retire in the wake of a child sex scandal involving one of his longtime coaches.
Reach reporter Daniel Bush at dbush@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-8310. Follow him at twitter.com/dan_bush.
