Miles Davis now officially has his own street in New York City. A block where the legendary jazz trumpeter lived on Manhattan’s Upper West Side got new signage in his honor during a ceremony earlier this week, as Billboard reports. From Riverside Drive to West End Avenue, 77th Street will now be known as “Miles Davis Way.”
The unveiling came on what would’ve been Miles Davis’ 88th birthday, on May 26. He died in 1991. Davis’ ex-wife Cicely Tyson was among the dignitaries on hand for a block party celebrating the new sign.
Davis lived in an apartment building at 312 West 77th Street for 25 years, through the mid-’80s. Shirley Zafirau, a local resident and former Davis neighbor who led the push for the street name, told The New York Times last year the music great really enjoyed being part of the community there. In December, then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg approved a bill for the street renaming.
Finding out that the artist behind In a Silent Way has his own “Way” makes us feel some type of way. And as fun as it’d be to see a “Beastie Boys Square” or Notorious B.I.G.-honoring “Christopher Wallace Way” in the five boroughs, it stands to reason Davis would get his first, especially given the account of his neighborhood involvement. Notable fact: Davis’ time by this corner included the release of 1972’s divisive jazz-funk landmark On the Corner.
