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Lucy and Lenny Street Co-Naming Unveiled!



Village Preservation Exec. Dir. Andrew Berman speaking at the Cecere Street Co-Naming Ceremony, with City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and Assemblymember Deborah Glick to the right.

 

A little rain didn’t dampen the spirits last Thursday when dozens gathered for the long-awaited unveiling of the official co-naming of MacDougal Street between Houston and King Streets as “Lucy and Lenny Cecere Way.”  Village Preservation, the Cecere family, Speaker Corey Johnson, Community Board #2, State Senator Brad Hoylman and Assemblymember Deborah Glick and many friends, neighbors, and admirers were there to honor and celebrate the memory of these two quintessential South Village community leaders.

 


Lucy and Lenny (2nd and 3rd from right) and their family in 2010 at Village Preservation’s Annual Village Awards, at which Lucy was an awardee.

 

 

Village Preservation first proposed the street co-naming in 2017, launching a campaign to secure the honor in their memory. Lucy co-founded the Caring Community, helped save the Village Nursing Home from closure, was a founding member of Village Preservation’s South Village Historic Preservation Advisory board, and an indefatigable advocate for her community.  Her husband Lenny owned and operated the business “Something Special” on the ground floor of the home they owned at 51 MacDougal Street starting in 1962, providing a variety of services to the local community, became more or less an extension of the homes of many neighbors who came to depend upon it. Lucy and Lenny were both the children of Italian immigrants, Lucy living nearly her entire life within a few blocks of their MacDougal Street home, with Lenny moving there in 1949. Lucy passed away in 2011, and Lenny in 2015.

 


The street sign is unveiled.  Photo courtesy of The Villager/Gabe Herman.

 

Read more about the unveiling in The Villager. Read more about Village Preservation’s efforts to preserve and celebrate the history and heritage of the South Village here.





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