Brooklyn Street Officially Renamed Christopher Wallace Way In Honor Of Notorious B.I.G.

June 10, 2019, 5:13 p.m.

After over five years of starts, stops and community board infighting, the corner of St. James Place and Fulton Street in Brooklyn was re-named in honor of The Notorious B.I.G. today.

After over five years of starts, stops and community board infighting, the corner of St. James Place and Fulton Street in Brooklyn was re-named in honor of The Notorious B.I.G. on Monday. Despite the rain, dozens of New Yorkers (including Councilwoman Laurie Cumbo) and hip-hop aficionados made their way to Bedford-Stuyvesant this afternoon for the official naming ceremony for "Christopher “Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace Way."

"I always knew this day was gonna come," Lil Kim, who was discovered by the rapper in 1994, said during the ceremony. “I used to dream about a street being named after Biggie, because it was only right."

This particular block was chosen because it's where the Notorious B.I.G.—also known as Biggie Smalls—grew up. There have been numerous tributes to him there, including the basketball courts located nearby at Fulton Street and Classon Avewhich were renamed Christopher Wallace Basketball Courts in 2017, and a new graffiti piece that was just put up in honor of the occasion:

The effort to rename the area for Wallace started back in 2013, when cultural advocate LeRoy McCarthy first proposed it. McCarthy has been involved in multiple projects to get the city to pay tribute to local musicians, from Aretha Franklin to the Wu-Tang Clan. But the Biggie effort was initially rejected by Community Board 2 due to objections over his lyrics (one person even argued he was too fat to be honored). Toward the end of 2018, the street sign was brought back up and passed.

Cumbo alluded to those efforts when she spoke today, saying that gentrifiers "want to erase the history, they want to put up new cafes and boutiques and push us out of our community. That’s why this sign is important today — so that the history of this place is told to our children and our children’s children," she said.

Earlier this year, McCarthy told us he was "happy that NYC officials are finally giving the city's indigenous 'Hip Hop' music the respect and recognition that it deserves. It took a long time and lots of hard-work to advance the Christopher Wallace Way & Wu-Tang Clan District street co-naming, but ya know what, Hip Hop Don't Stop."

Wallace's mother and son also commented on the event and some of the trepidation around the naming in the video below: