City Honors Jimmy Breslin With Midtown Street Renaming

MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, NY — To honor the late, great newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin, who died in March at the age of 88, the city has temporarily dedicated a stretch of 42nd Street to the Pulitzer Prize winner, the mayor's office announced Tuesday.

For the next week, 42nd street between Second and Third avenues will be known as "Jimmy Breslin Way." It's a fitting tribute for the Queens native who left his mark on New York City.

"No other city in world would have a tough writer from Richmond Hill, Queens up on a lamppost next to the names Nelson Mandela and Yitzhak Rabin," Kevin Breslin, Jimmy Breslin's son, said during a dedication ceremony. "May his spirit inspire many generations of journalists to come."

Read Patch's full obituary for Jimmy Breslin here.

The particular stretch of 42nd Street was chosen because it bears significance to Breslin's career. The block houses the Daily News building, the organization where Breslin worked the longest. During his storied career, Breslin also wrote for the Herald Tribune, Newsday and authored more than a dozen books.

It was at the Daily News, where Breslin worked for 18 years, that he won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary and the George Polk Award, two of journalism's most prestigious honors.

The renaming of 42nd Street is temporary, but the Mayor's administration and City Council is working to create a permanent honor for Breslin's legacy.

"Jimmy Breslin told stories with a vivid eye for detail and in the inimitable voice of a true New Yorker," Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement. "For decades, from the Kennedy assassination to the Son of Sam and beyond, his writing provided must-read accounts that helped to define seminal news events in our collective memory. His gritty and real columns underscored a serious and deep concern for the most downtrodden amongst us, helping to define modern journalism."

Photo by David Shankbone