The corner of Ludlow Street and Rivington Street, the Lower East Side intersection immortalized as the album cover of 1989 Beastie Boys record Paul’s Boutique, will forever be known as “Beastie Boys Square.” On Saturday, Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz and Michael “Mike D” Diamond, the two living members of the pioneering hip-hop trio, joined local government officials and hundreds of fans in unveiling the official street sign, bringing a decade-long campaign to a celebratory conclusion.
The process of getting the street corner renamed in honor of Ad-Rock, Mike D, and the late Adam “MCA” Yauch has been in the works since 2013. A group of fans initially made the request to the New York City Council, but that and other previous attempts were unsuccessful. The request was finally approved on Thursday, July 14th, 2022, nine years after it was initially submitted.
The fight for the right to party rename the square for the Beastie Boys hinged on whether the group met the city’s guidelines, which include a “demonstrated and consistent voluntary commitment to the area,” according to Susan Stetzer of Manhattan’s Community Board 3, who voted not to approve the measure in 2019.
One of the campaign’s main proponents was former Bad Boy Records representative LeRoy McCarthy, who also worked on the city’s recent The Notorious B.I.G. and Wu-Tang Clan street dedications. As McCarthy told the New York Post when the measure was passed last summer, “It has been a long road to get Beastie Boys Square accomplished, but I am happy to see New York government formally embracing the indigenous arts and culture of hip hop, and the street sign is very appropriate because hip-hop is from the NYC streets.”
The speakers at Saturday’s ceremony, including Mike D and Ad-Rock, praised McCarthy for his efforts, and “Le-Roy, Le-Roy” chants echoed across the block as neighborhood officials spoke to the crowd in the lead-up to the sign’s unveiling. McCarthy, who long ago made a prototype Beastie Boys Square sign and began bringing it around to local clubs, concerts, and events, beamed as he looked on from a fire escape overhead.
During his brief remarks, Ad-Rock reflected on the nature of street signs. “We walk around these streets and we don’t really think about who they’re named after, like Ludlow Street, Irving Street, Father Demo Square. But it makes me really happy to know that some kid on their way to school 50 years from now is gonna pass by this and look up and be like, ‘What the f— is a Beastie Boy? And why the f— do they have a square?’”
While the Beasties grew up further uptown, Mike D explained, the Lower East Side was always the “cool place that we wanted to go and hang out. … The second we heard rap music, it was so revolutionary and so exciting, the fact that we somehow got to go from being literally kids listening to every hip-hop record, mixtape, song we could possibly try to memorize every word, thinking that we’d be able to actually make a rap record, and go on to make those rap records, and now here we are all those years later, thank you so much for everything.”
Of course, Ad-Rock and Mike D also saved plenty of words of love and gratitude for Adam “MCA” Yauch, the third piece of the Beastie Boys triad, who died of parotid cancer in 2012 at age 47. As Mike D gave his thanks, the crowd packing the street erupted into bedlam, each and every attendee chanting MCA’s name.
When it finally came time for the big reveal, Diamond and Horovitz led the crowd in a countdown before a cover was slipped off the green Beastie Boys Square street sign, which sat just below the Ludlow Street sign and above a stop sign (appropriately slapped with a Beastie Boys sticker) and a poster sporting the Paul’s Boutique sign from the album cover.
The unveiling of Beastie Boys Square comes during hip-hop’s 50th anniversary year, which has been celebrated via various events and initiatives in its native New York City throughout the summer.
Below, watch a full livestream of the ceremony and check out a selection of photos and video clips of the Beastie Boys Square sign’s unveiling in New York.
Beastie Boys Square Unveiling Ceremony Livestream – 9/8/23
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