Centre St – Black Lives Matter Boulevard

From Gale Brewer’s Tuesday 7-7 COVID update (pictured above, a work in progress photo from last week @ Centre St. in Foley Square) –

You’ll recall that last week, young Black artists Tijay Mohammed (“BLACK”), Sophia Dawson (“LIVES”), and Patrice Payne (“MATTER”), in what may be their first public art commissions, implemented custom designs within the lettering of “Black Lives Matter” painted on the asphalt of Centre Street in Foley Square (realized with the help of TATS CRU and Thrive Collective).

This Thursday (7/9) at 9:30 am– which is the 152nd anniversary of the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment establishing equal protection under the law– I’ll be unveiling the official co-naming of Centre St as “Black Lives Matter Boulevard” downstairs from my office at 1 Centre Street.

Invited to speak are Hawk Newsome of Black Lives Matter of Greater New York, Commissioner Gonzalo Casals of the Dept. of Cultural Affairs, and Commissioner Polly Trottenberg of the Dept. of Transportation. (Council Member Margaret Chin, whose district this is, was the co-sponsor of the co-naming.)

The artists will provide tours of their designs after the 9:30 am naming ceremony, just to the north of the new street sign (at Chambers and Centre).

Here are our photos from last week too.