By Brendan Rose
Hundreds of friends, family, and neighbors of the late writer and actor Malachy McCourt gathered on Saturday to celebrate the official renaming of a section of West 93rd Street as Malachy McCourt Lane, an homage to the legacy of a giant in the Irish American community who called the Upper West Side home for many years.
“Of all the honors this great city can bestow on its citizens, to name a street after you is just about the greatest one of all,” said actress Kate Mulgrew, addressing the crowd.
“And for those who don’t know who he was – and there are very few – but there will be strangers, there will be foreigners crossing from there to there, and they’ll look up, Malachy McCourt Lane, and they’ll carry on,” said Mulgrew. “And as they carry on, they’ll carry on with him. So he’ll go with them wherever they go. And that’s the legacy of this great man.”
Malachy McCourt was born in Brooklyn in 1931, but when he was 3 years old, his family returned to Ireland, where he endured a tumultuous and melancholy childhood, which was famously captured in his brother Frank McCourt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiographical work “Angela’s Ashes.” He returned to New York City in 1952 and built a career as a writer, actor, and bar owner. He appeared in soap operas, off-Broadway plays, and occasionally as a guest on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.” He was a mentor to many in the New York City Irish writer scene and published multiple memoirs recounting the tragedies of his youth and stories of grand adventures.
McCourt raised his family in an apartment on West 93rd Street, where he lived for 59 years and became a mainstay in the neighborhood. He ran for governor of New York in 2006, representing the Green Party ticket, claiming one percent of the vote.
Siobhán McCourt, Malachy’s daughter, said that even as her father became less mobile in his final years, he still attended a whole roster of community events. “He’d get so vibrant,” she said. “And he goes, ‘I just love it. And I love them.’”
Hundreds of spectators turned up to the street renaming ceremony, including local representatives from Community Board 7, Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal and City Councilmember Gale Brewer. The arrival of a horse drawn carriage and a bagpipe player marching down West 93rd Street marked the start of the ceremony. A poster of a smiling McCourt looked out at the crowd from a lectern set up for speakers.
Friends and family remembered McCourt as a funny and joyful force, describing his deep love for his community and New York City. Some speakers joked that McCourt had always dreamed of being a gangster and called the renaming ceremony his “public hanging.”
By all accounts, McCourt had lived a remarkably full life.
Siobhán McCourt described the complicated process of having a street renamed, which begins with collecting signatures on the block, presenting the change to the local community board, and ultimately to the City Council. The effort for Malachy McCourt Lane hit a snag when the rules around the street renaming procedure were changed in the midst of the process; new rules now stipulate that the namesake of a street must have died a decade or more in the past to be approved. McCourt, who died in 2024 at the age of 92, would not qualify, said his daughter.
But the rules made exceptions for exceptional individuals, and with the shepherding and support of councilmember Brewer, Malachy McCourt Lane was approved.
“I was very close to Malachy, as are many people here, and loved him to death,” Brewer told the Rag..
After the speeches, the McCourt family gathered underneath the street sign on the corner of the block. The crowd counted down, and the new metal street sign was revealed. The event ended with the crowd singing “Wild Mountain Thyme,” a traditional Irish folk song that had become a signature song McCourt would close performances with.
When asked what McCourt would have thought about the street renaming, his long-time friend Peter Quinn joked, “I think he would have preferred an Avenue. Maybe Fifth. He might have settled for Third.”
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No disrespect to any individual but we passed regulations to stop the massive proliferation of vanity street renaming, only to have Gale Brewer circumvent these limitations?
The point of the 10 year waiting period is to make sure community feeling persists past someone’s demise.
From the sheer number of people coming out to celebrate to the countless stories written about and profiling MM…you have quite the nerve to posit a sour comment here.
When you write “no disrespect to any individual,” you do realize you’re doing it anyway, right?
Gale needs to show that she is doing something. Everything she does is purely for a photo op.
I was Glad to’ve met The Glorious Lad at a book-signing gathering in Manhattan some years ago while visiting from home in Utah. Happy to’ve been able to Gift him with a video disc I’d made of Frank McCourt’s performance in the Shrine of The Ages at Grand Canyon’s South Rim, where I lived and worked as a Tour Bus Driver Guide for 5 years. Will definitely be planning a stroll down Malachy McCourt Lane during my next go-round…
I had the pleasure of working with Malachy when he joined the cast of “Search for Tomorrow” in the mid 1980s. The Executive Producer had previously worked at “Ryan’s Hope” where he played a charming Irish bartender. She was vigilantly trying to reimagine the ratings-challenged SFT into a new version of RH by bringing in former cast members and even created an Irish bar called “Bigelowes,” owned and operated by Malachy’s character, “Big Bigelowe.” He was larger than life and a jolly team player we all remembered fondly. (Unfortunately, when a new EP eventually came in, a huge flood hit the fictional town of Henderson USA and Bigelowe’s was washed away and, presumably, so was Big!)
Nice article, but it would be good to know which “section of West 93rd Street” has been designated Malachy McCourt Lane. Apologies if I missed it, but I read through the article twice and didn’t see anything more specific.
Could you let us know which block or part of block of W 93rd was renamed?
Looks like between Broadway and West End from
the photos
This was a lovely event and a celebration not only of Malachy McCourt but the Upper West Side. A big dense happy crowd. Inexplicably, however, when I walked behind one of of the parked cars along the curb, it suddenly backed up, knocking me off my feet and leaving a big bruise on my hip. Bystanders helped me up and brought paper towels for my bleeding hands — but the driver never even got out of the car. I can’t imagine where the driver was planning to go, because as you can see from the photo, the street was packed with people. Accidents happen but it was egregious of the driver not to make sure I was okay. A photographer was in the car with him and must have seen what happened.
How petty 72RSD. Aside from his public persona Malachy was a lovely man. Back in the 90s he’d cuddle and play with my infant son while his wife Diana and I tried to have business meetings at their apartment.
Does anyone know what building address he lived at?
I met, Frank McCourt.
Alplhie was another brother who use to work, at the Penn South Coop Management office part time.
One of the most pleaseant, well mannered, easy going person.
The McCourt brothers, seemed to be very good men.
May they reest in Peace.