June 14–20, 2019 Brooklyn Paper • www.BrooklynPaper.com • (718) 260-2500 AWP 3
Spreading love
Biggie fans celebrate street co-naming
Photos by Trey Pentecost
Bed-Stuy shooters sentenced
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
It’s the Brooklyn way.
Devotees of the late rapper
Christopher “Biggie Smalls”
Wallace braved the Monday
morning downpour to celebrate
the long-awaited conaming
of a Clinton Hill
street in honor of the hip
hop legend.
The rapper’s family, his
fans, and several local pols
honored the Brooklyn native
at the June 10 christening of
the block on St. James Place
where he grew up, between
Gates Avenue and Fulton
Street, as “Christoper ‘Notorious
B.I.G.’ Wallace Way,”
which one far-flung follower
said showed Kings County’s
love for one of its most famous
sons.
“It was really heartfelt. I
could feel the Brooklyn love
for him,” said Dawn Welty,
who made the 900-mile journey
from Milwaukee, Wisc.,
with her sister Xochilth Rueda
for a long weekend to pay tribute
to the wordsmith. “It was
amazing, even though it was
raining — but I didn’t care,
it was great.”
The event’s speakers reminisced
about the musician’s influence
on the neighborhood,
including one local pol who
said Wallace — who was fatally
shot in 1997 at the age
of 24 — continues to inspire
Kings Countians through his
art to this day.
Crown Heights resident
Ruth Connell braved the
downpour to celebrate
the street co-naming for
the late rapper Christopher
“Biggie Smalls”
Wallace in Clinton Hill on
June 10. The new street
sign pays homage to the
block of St. James Place,
between Gates Avenue
and Fulton Street, where
Wallace grew up.
“Biggie Smalls created the
soundtrack of inspiration that
gave us the growth and ability
to create success in Brooklyn,”
said Councilwoman Laurie
Cumbo (D-Clinton Hill),
who hosted the ceremony together
with the Christopher
Wallace Memorial Foundation,
the foundation founded
by Wallace’s mother Voletta
after her son’s death.
The legislator was joined
by several other politicos
and Wallace’s family, who
spoke touchingly about him
against the backdrop of his
classic tracks, according to
Welty.
“Once his music was playing,
it was just love,” the Midwesterner
said. “And then his
mom was talking and I got
choked up because I could
tell that it was emotional for
her as well.”
Cumbo has advocated for
the city to honor Wallace’s
block, where he grew up at
226 St James Pl., despite resistance
by some locals over
the last six years to honoring
the rapper, saying that his misogynistic
and violent lyrics
should disqualify him from
receiving a tribute, reported
DNAInfo at the time.
In 2017 , Bedford-Stuyvesant
legislator Robert Cornegy
proposed to name Clinton Hill
basketball courts after the musician,
after the first street conaming
in 2013 fizzled.
Last fall, Brooklyn artist
LeRoy McCarthy — who also
worked to honor the late soul
singer Aretha Franklin with
signs at Crown Heights’s
Franklin Avenue subway station
— resubmitted his proposal
to Community Board 2,
whose members overwhelmingly
voted to approve the new
street sign last November .
One Brooklyn pol who recently
advanced to city-wide
office said that it was important
to honor Wallace and his
impact on the community and
hip hop.
“We have a right to look up
to our hip-hop heroes. We’re
celebrating Biggie, we’re celebrating
hip hop and we’re
celebrating ourselves,” said
Public Advocate Jumaane
Williams.
By Aidan Graham
Brooklyn Paper
Two men will spend 50
years to life in prison for the
2017 cold-blooded killing of
two innocent women in Bedford
Stuyvesant, the District
Attorney’s office announced
on Monday.
Nazir Saunders, 22, and
Anthony Alexander, 19, were
each handed the lengthy sentence
by Brooklyn Supreme
Court Evelyn Laporte on
June 10.
According to the investigation,
Saunders and Alexander
opened fire into a crowd of
people who were gathered in
the courtyard of the Stuyvesant
Gardens Houses — located
at 750 Gates Avenue —
in the Summer of 2017.
The gunmen fired a total
of 10 bullets, striking 21-yearold
Chynna Battle in the head
and 29-year-old Shaqwanda
Staley in the back, prosecutors
said.
The shooters had been aiming
at a specific target, who
got away unharmed, according
to investigators.
Police caught up with the
killers and arrested them in
South Carolina three months
after the shooting, according
to the District Attorney
Eric Gonzalez, who called
the senseless killing particularly
brutal because both victims
were mothers to young
children.
The killers were sentenced
to a minimum of 50 years in
prison following their conviction
of second-degree murder
and second-degree criminal
possession of a weapon at a
jury trial in May, according
Gonzalez.
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