Friday, November 21st, 2008
He Is I, And I Am Him, Slim With The Tilted Brim
Community Boards across the city deal now facing Snoop Dogg quandary:
Local residents should expect to see fewer blocks named in honor of their late friends and neighbors now that the city has instituted new guidelines regulating the practice.
Just a few weeks ago, the city approved 85 new street designations throughout the five boroughs — 13 of them right here in Brooklyn. But that’s the last big batch of honors the borough is likely to see for some time.
Community Board 11 Chair Bill Guarinello recently explained the new criteria his board will now be following, saying that “street namings have been run like the Old West” and that in the past the designations were partly granted on the basis of “who you know.”
“Community Board 11 has new standards,” Guarinello said. “There are going to be times now when we are going to be rejecting people.”
Under the new criteria, candidates put up for consideration must have been “New Yorkers of a significance to New York City.”
This greater emphasis on citywide rather than local appeal significantly raises the threshold that prospective honorees now have to achieve before a street is designated in their honor.
The latest group of Brooklynites to have streets named after them includes victims of violent crime, a successful realtor and members of Coney Island’s Polar Bear Club.
According to Guarinello, Community Board 11 committees charged with considering new street dedication applications will immediately begin using the city’s revamped criteria.