Beastie Boys fans trying to get New York park named after Adam Yauch

By Sean O'Neal | May 22, 2012 | 8:51pm

Aux Features Music

While the numerous homages that have poured in since the death of Adam "MCA" Yauch have been lovely and all, a more lasting tribute is currently being lobbied for in New York, where Brooklyn residents have launched a campaign to have a local park renamed in Yauch's honor. Billboard calls attention to this Facebook petition seeking to transform Brooklyn Heights' Squibb Park—already undergoing renovations to become a skateboarding facility—into Adam Yauch Park, which would then be located near another park named for fellow songwriter and former Brooklyn resident Harry Chapin. Unfortunately, while it would be a nice way to immortalize Yauch, it would be kind of a slap in the face to its current namesake, Dr. Edward Robinson Squibb—an important 19th-century pharmaceutical innovator who definitely never thought it was time to get ill.

So, as posted on the petition's page (and picked up by Pitchfork), Bikini Kill/Le Tigre frontwoman Kathleen Hanna has alerted everyone to the fact that her husband, Adam "Adrock" Horowitz, " has already begun working with the Parks Commissioner to fix up and rename State Street Park where Yauch actually played as a kid to 'Adam Yauch Park'." Supporting this other movement, she says, would be a more fitting way to pay respects, "as it won't hurt the Squibb family and it would be awesome to fix up the bball court there as a tribute." Indeed, either would be fine. Give the man his park, then we can all move on to petitioning Switzerland to rename one of the Alps "Nathaniel Hornblower Peak."