By Gus Saltonstall
A train station along the edge of Central Park has a new name.
This weekend, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation to rename the 110th Street-Central Park North Station as the 110 Street-Malcolm X Plaza Station.
Hochul signed the legislation to honor the Civil Rights icon in unison with the 51st Harlem Week Festival. She also signed legislation this weekend to create the Harlem Renaissance Cultural District, which will stretch from 110th to 155th streets, from Fifth Avenue to the Hudson River.
“One of the best ways to celebrate the rich history and community of Harlem is to recognize the contributions of Malcolm X and the Harlem Renaissance to New York and to the world,” Hochul said in a news release.”
The train station is located at the intersection of Central Park North and Malcolm X Boulevard [Lenox Avenue] on 110th Street, which is too far east to be considered the Upper West Side, but does hug the border of Central Park, and also now is the closest station to the revamped Davis Center at the Harlem Meer.
This renaming of the station has no effect on the train routes, but just as a reminder to riders, the newly named 110th Street-Malcolm X Plaza Station sits between 96th Street and 116th Street on the 2 and 3 lines.
Malcolm X lived in Harlem for over a decade, first in 1943, and then from 1954 until his assassination in 1965 at the Audubon Ballroom on 165th Street.
“Renaming this subway station as Malcolm X Plaza is more than symbolic, it’s a powerful, permanent reminder that Harlem remembers its heroes,” Yusef Salaam, Councilmember and one of the exonerated Central Park 5, said in a news release. “Every rider who passes through will encounter the name of a man who dared to speak truth to power, who demanded dignity for the oppressed, and who inspired generations to rise above adversity.”
You can read more about the legislation — HERE.
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Wonderful to see. Hopefully the next piece of legislation will be to rename Harlem “Georgefloydville.”
For real. His views on Jews, women and the LGBT community are anything but “Progressive “. Let’s do better.
How unfortunate:
A number of organizations and academics consider the Nation of Islam (NOI) to be antisemitic.[1][2][3] The NOI has engaged in Holocaust denial, and exaggerates the role of Jews in the African slave trade; mainstream historians, such as Saul S. Friedman, have said Jews had a negligible role.[4][5][6] The NOI has repeatedly rejected charges made against it as false and politically motivated.[7]
Except they are utterly true.
Good thing that Malcolm X broke ties with the National of Islam back in 1964.
That’s what got him killed, no?
Did he disavow all his hate speech? Tough to clean him up as hard as yall try.
Hey y’all it’s your favorite girl DJ here…. Why is the community wasting money on things like this sign? We could use more mouse traps we could also use more flowers and trees! Thanks!
Soooooo many more-deserving Civil Rights icons than Malcolm X.
Not really.
The Ballot or the Bullet
All good and well, but the rate that subway stations and streets are being re-named with a vanity name is getting out of hand.
With the cost of printing new signs and all the pomp ceremony taking time from real problems, it has a bread and circuses feel. Just rename the plaza above and call it a day. This is why we have a grid system for our streets — no one is ever going to say I live by the “Malcolm X Plaza* stop.
It is not okay
Right on. Makes about as much sense as Marcus Garvey park in Harlem. As a long time UWS liberal, enough is enough.
You all get that Harlem is not your neighborhood, right? Let Harlem be Harlem
I thought the Democrats had learned to stop obsessing over identity politics.
I guess I was wrong.
Exactly. These are the types of things that motivate people to turn out to vote Republican. Was this really necessary?
Yeah remember that same energy when they name a street after a firefighter or a politician
Firefighters and politicians are not race-based figures.
Or a Confederate general
Is there a single street in NYC named after a Confederate general?
My question should be more future tense. What streets are they now renaming after Confederate generals that we could object to?
What NYC streets are named after Confederate generals?
I applaud the honoring of 110th st station, which I used for decades to and from my nearby work as a learning disabilities teacher. But could Hochul’s stroke of a pen added a subway elevator to make it accessible? Subway elevators support equitable transportation for people with disablies,parents with strollers, seniors, people with. packages, deliveries,ELEVATORS FOR EVERYONE
Progressives are much better at virtue signaling (eg renaming subway stations) than fixing actual problems (eg installing an elevator)
Nobody’s perfect. Malcolm X was a remarkable, brilliant, inspiring person. He was tenacious but had the strength to modify his views over time. He himself probably would have preferred the money to be spent otherwise. But he deserves to be remembered and honored.
Really another station named after a former leader we need more job opportunities, better housing improvements, better payment options and African businesses and market places, and a modern subway paint it again, more cameras, more help information and charger stations, more bathrooms and better and bigger elevators those matter now with respect to Malcolm’s if he was alive he would complain this a another waste of funds make it make sense subway outliving all of us really
Is it Bloomsday again already?
How about actually clean up the station, help the dozens homeless around that area, and police the crime? You know, do things that actually help African Americans in the community as opposed to posturing and pretending you care? This is the pinnacle of liberalism.
Usually I would respond to the epithet, “liberalism” just by saying that, no – it isn’t “liberalism” – it is simply asinine. But even naming, for example, “Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard(s” for example, has continuously proven that neighborhoods and communities deep-six with that address – I’m sure that is true of other names – but this is guaranteed failure – expensive – asinine – pandering – and to whom? – discrediting black Americans for not being savvy enough to know when they are being pandered for political profit. This should never have happened, and maybe can still be undone. ?
Would prefer money be spent/wasted on improvements instead of renaming (s)
Terrible. Spend the money renovating the station.
Uh an entire boulevard wasn’t enough?
He already has two boulevards in the city named after him. Let’s honor someone else.
But it IS Central Park. Will people think they are going to his gravesite?
Wow! Wow! Wow! These comments and complaints are unbelievable.
Typical WSR crowd. Would like to know how many of them opining on the worthiness of Malcolm X are African American.
What difference does that make?
Lotta folks who’d happily vote for Trump (again) or have voted for George Wallace or Giuliani in the comments here.
Malcom was a man of peace, why are all his namesakes in high crime areas?
I would like to commend the graphic designer who fit all those letters in, they often have stringent guidelines about ADA-compliant font-sizing, spacing, bleed from the edges, etc, and they fit that all in and it looks good, and it’s about time this happened!