BP Adams Announces Street Co-Namings Honoring Journalist Pete Hamill And Slain Black Teenager Yusuf Hawkins

Press release from the Office of the Brooklyn Borough President:

February 3 2021

Brooklyn, NY – Today, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, Council Member Brad Lander, and Council Member Robert Cornegy announced two street co-namings, passed by the Council last month and enacted Sunday, January 17th, which recognize two historically significant figures in New York City. The co-namings, which come a day after the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) voted to designate an important site in abolitionist history at 227 Duffield Street as a landmark, are yet another proactive step to honor and preserve Brooklyn’s history. One, in Park Slope, will honor Pete Hamill, a legendary newspaper columnist, editor, and famed author who memorably chronicled the tumult of New York City for decades. The other, in Bedford-Stuyvesant, will commemorate Yusuf Hawkins, a Black teenager from East New York who was shot and killed by a white mob in Bensonhurst in 1989.

“Although Pete Hamill and Yusuf Hawkins came from different worlds and left different marks on history, they were both Brooklynites who contributed immeasurably to the borough they called home. These co-namings will enshrine their memories for generations to come, so Brooklynites and New Yorkers know who they were and why they mattered. As we face another pivotal moment in our borough and city’s history, it is important to recognize those who came before us, and these dedications will ensure their legacies live on,” said Borough President Adams, Council Member Lander, and Council Member Cornegy.

Pete Hamill was born in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn on June 24, 1935, the son of Irish immigrants. He dropped out of high school at 15 to work as a sheet metal worker at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and joined the US Navy before returning to New York in 1957. After spending three years as a graphic designer, he got an opportunity to write for the New York Post despite having no journalistic experience. He spent the next several decades working in journalism in a variety of roles at the New York Post, New York Daily News, and Newsday. In addition, he was a celebrated and prolific author of fiction, nonfiction, essays, and screenplays. Hamill received numerous accolades for his writing, including a Grammy Award in 1976 for his notes on Bob Dylan’s album “Blood on the Tracks” and a George Polk Career Award. He passed away at the age of 85 in Brooklyn in August of last year.

Yusuf Kirriem Hawkins was born in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn on March 19, 1973. His name became a national rallying cry after he was shot and killed at the age of 16 while visiting with three of his friends the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bensonhurst, where they were set upon by a white mob. In the wake of his killing, which came in the same year as the racially-charged Central Park Five case, racial tensions erupted between Black and White New Yorkers. The Reverend Al Sharpton led a series of marches through Bensonhurst demanding justice for Hawkins. Five convictions were handed down for the men involved in Hawkins’ killing. Though Hawkins did not live to see the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement, which sprung up in the wake of the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, many see his tragic murder and the wave of activism it catalyzed, which brought greater awareness about racist violence against people of color, as a precursor to the movement.

This press release was produced by the Office of the Brooklyn Borough President. The views expressed here are the author’s own.