Cha-CHUNK at the Corner of 53rd and 8th

All politics is local, so the saying goes. This is doubly true to the family members of the late Jerry Orbach, who were recently denied a request to rename the corner of 53rd Street and 8th Avenue in New York City for the famed character actor, best known for playing the acerbic NYPD homicide detective Lennie Briscoe on the long-running NBC-TV series Law & Order. It was on the corner of 53rd and 8th where Orbach and his wife, Elaine, lived for a quarter-century until he died in December 2004.

In a close vote, the city’s Community Board 5 failed to approve the renaming request--which would have only been advisory anyway, since such map changes are apparently the province of the New York City Council. The Orbach family has also pursued a request with Community Board 4, which evidently has advisory jurisdiction over the other side of that particular intersection.

The recent board hearing was star-studded, with not only the Orbachs, but also L&O star Sam Waterston in attendance, supporting the proposal to create Jerry Orbach Corner.

Community Board 5 member Vikki Barbero explained her “no” vote--and perhaps her utter cluelessness as well--by remarking that Orbach’s 45-year-old son, Tony, looks like his father. Barbero was quoted in The New York Times as saying, “It’s like he’s here.”

I don’t live in New York, nor do I live in an area named in honor of a celebrity, but it’s hard to see this situation as anything other than the work of some self-appointed busybodies who are drunk with way too much self-importance.

Read the Times story here.

READ MORE: “Getting a Street Named After Jerry Orbach Is Hard,” by Jen Chung (The Gothamist).