Mayor Bill de Blasio has approved the renaming of the Brooklyn Municipal Building after Brooklyn-born Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, telling reporters Tuesday morning "we want to make sure that we honor her in every conceivable way, and especially in the borough that she came from, that gave her so much of her strength and spirit, the borough of Brooklyn... Here’s one of your own who changed the world."
The announcement comes two years after Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams launched a petition urging de Blasio to rename it, noting that the mayor would simply need to issue an executive action to make the name change at the building, located at 210 Joralemon Street in Downtown Brooklyn. At the time, the mayor's office responded with a statement saying, "There’s no question that Justice Ginsburg’s life and her legacy of public service epitomizes the very best of what makes New York great. We’ve received Borough President Adams’ letter and are reviewing his request." (A year later, Adams celebrated Ginsburg's 86th birthday with another press conference calling for the name change.)
Completed in 1924, the Brooklyn Municipal Building currently houses a number of city offices, including the Departments of Buildings, Probation, Finance, and Environmental Protection.
Over the weekend, following Ginsburg's death, Governor Andrew Cuomo had announced a statue in her honor. During a call with reporters on Monday, Cuomo offered this update: "I'm going to announce a commission that will work on the statue and exactly how we want it depicted. I'll be doing that this week. We're looking at possible locations. We're considering Brooklyn Bridge Park on a site that would overlook the Statue of Liberty so we're considering that."
The statue of Ginsburg could be the 7th female historical statue in all of New York City, to the 105 male historical statues. Meanwhile, someone has placed an RBG collar on the Fearless Girl statue:
