NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- A Brooklyn park has officially been renamed for late transgender activist Marsha P. Johnson — and the green space will soon house an art installation celebrating her life, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday.
Cuomo in February directed the State Parks Commissioner to rename East River State Park, a seven-acre waterfront park in Williamsburg, for Johnson, a Black pioneer of the LGBTQ rights movement.
On Monday, which would have been Johnson’s 75th birthday, the governor officially renamed the park “Martha P. Johnson State Park.”
“Marsha P. Johnson was one of the early leaders of the LGBTQ movement, and is only now getting the acknowledgement she deserves,” Cuomo said in a statement. “Dedicating this state park for her, and installing public art telling her story, will ensure her memory and her work fighting for equality lives on.”
“Too often, the marginalized voices that have pushed progress forward in New York and across the country go unrecognized, making up just a fraction of our public memorials and monuments,” he added.
The public park is now the first park in New York to honor an LGBTQ person and transgender woman of color, Cuomo said in a release.
As part of the dedication, the state will install a “natural outdoor gallery” at the park, with “artwork and interpretive materials” that celebrate Johnson’s life, as well as materials focused on the LGBTQ rights movement, the release said.
The green space will also be getting a new, 1,200-square-foot facility that will house classroom space and public bathrooms, as well as “parkwide infrastructure upgrades,” the release added.
The upgrades, as well as the outdoor gallery, are expected to be completed by next summer, according to the release.