Brooklyn officially has a basketball court honoring The Notorious B.I.G. The Crispus Attucks Playground now contains Christopher “Biggie” Wallace Courts thanks to the efforts of City Councilman Robert Cornegy.
Cornegy was smiling at Wednesday’s (August 2) opening ceremony after fulfilling a promise to Biggie’s mother Voletta Wallace. The councilman told her that he would ensure the late MC’s presence remained in Bedford–Stuyvesant in the midst of major change.
“This community is under siege, as it relates to gentrification,” Cornegy said, according to the Bed-Stuy Patch. “I don’t care who lives here, you come in this park, you’re gonna have to know who Biggie Smalls was.”
Junior M.A.F.I.A. member Lil Cease and Biggie’s daughter T’yanna Wallace were also on hand for Wednesday’s ceremony. The Christopher “Biggie” Wallace Courts were part of $2.5 million playground renovation by the New York Parks Department, according to the New York Daily News.
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Check out footage of children enjoying Biggie’s namesake below.
(The original version of this article was published on July 19, 2017 and can found below.)
For City Councilman Robert Cornegy, who was a neighbor of The Notorious B.I.G.’s in his youth, a feat involving the late rapper has finally been accomplished.
The New York Daily News reports that after years of work, Cornegy has organized for a basketball court located inside a Brooklyn playground to be renamed after Biggie.
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“This honor is very personal to me,” City Councilman Cornegy told the New York Daily News. “Twenty years later, this comes full circle, this renaming of the basketball courts in his honor.”
And in a tweet made Tuesday (July 18), Cornegy revealed he was “[h]appy to finally be getting this done for Ms. Wallace.”
The basketball court will be located in the Crispus Attucks Playground in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
This week’s good news comes years after Cornegy attempted to have a portion of St. James Place, a street that runs through what is now considered Clinton Hill, named after Biggie.
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Residents of the newly gentrified Brooklyn neighborhood reportedly shot down the idea because of the content of Biggie’s music and his drug-dealing past.
The renaming ceremony is scheduled to take place on August 1 or 2.
