Manhattan Community Board to Vote on ‘Beastie Boys Square’
This Tuesday evening, a community board in lower Manhattan will vote on whether or not the corner of Rivington and Ludlow Street in the Lower East Side will be renamed “Beastie Boys Square.” The location would pay homage to the iconic rap trio’s second album Paul’s Boutique. (Rivington and Ludlow is the intersection shown on the Paul’s Boutique album cover.) The move comes as a result of Beastie’s superfan LeRoy McCarthy, who last fall set up an online petition and Facebook page to get the street’s name changed.
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The first step is to get the measure passed by the Community Board, followed by the City Council. And McCarthy is cautiously optimistic about his chances. “They [City Council] are knowledgeable of hip-hop, a lot of them were raised on hip-hop — at their Sweet Sixteen parties and bar mitzvahs — so you don’t have to explain to them who Biggie Smalls was,” McCarthy told the New York Post. “They don’t necessarily have the preconceived negative approach to all hip-hop.” Should the location be renamed “Beastie Boys Square,” it would be the second time in under a year that the city has officially honored the rap trio with a landmark — last May, Adam Yauch Park was dedicated in Brooklyn.
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Recently, the Beastie Boys have been tangled up in a legal back-and-forth with toymaker Goldieblox, who used their Licensed to Ill track “Girls” in a parody commercial that went viral.