RAMONES To Have Street Named After Them Unveiled This Month

An intersection in Forest Hills, New York will be officially renamed “The Ramones Way” as a memorial to the legendary punk band. It the intersection of 67th Avenue and 110th Street, right in front of Forest Hills High School, where the band’s original lineup met and would later become inductees into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.

The street will officially be unveiled on October 23, following a proposal passed by the City Council July 14, according to councilwoman Karen Koslowitz (D-Forest Hills).

Koslowitz sponsored the co-naming after speaking with Mitchell Leigh Hyman, the brother of Joey Ramone, at the opening of the “Hey! Ho! Let’s Go: Ramones And The Birth Of Punk” exhibit at the Queens Museum in April.

“Our community of Forest Hills has been the home of many famous artists,” Koslowitz said. “Many legendary musicians also attended Forest Hills High School including Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel, Burt Bacharach, as well as the members of the famous punk rock group the RAMONES. The RAMONES played well in the 1990s and received numerous accolades and awards including an induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Working with Joey Ramone‘s brother and Forest Hills resident Mickey Leigh and fans of the band, I am so very pleased to honor our hometown musical heroes by renaming 67th Avenue and 110th Street in front of Forest Hills High School, right where it all started as ‘The Ramones Way’.”

Mickey Leigh, brother of Joey Ramone and a longtime Forest Hills resident, added: “I’m just so proud that this is actually going to happen. My efforts have culminated into something great happening for the RAMONES and RAMONES fans everywhere.”

This isn’t the first time a street has been named for the RAMONES: After Joey Ramone‘s death in 2001, the corner of East 2nd Street and the Bowery — just up the block from CBGB, where the band regularly performed back in the ’70s — was renamed “Joey Ramone Place”.

The RAMONES‘ place in rock and roll history was already assured by 1978, with their first three albums — “Ramones”, “Leave Home” and “Rocket To Russia” — all made in the span of 18 months, between February 1976 and the fall of ’77. When it was time to make records, Tommy said, “Our art was complete.” The art was the combined product of four strangely aligned personalities — all living within shouting distance of each other in the conservative, middleclass enclave of Forest Hills, where their mutual needs as fledgling musicians and bored delinquents far outweighed the mess of differences and civil wars that could never quite bust them apart.