Now that Christine Quinn's got some more time on her hands, she can turn her attention to the things that really matter, like naming streets after Yankees all stars. There's been a recent push to rename a Bronx Avenue after famed, retiring Yankees reliever Mariano Rivera, and the City Council Speaker says she'll consider making the change if the legislation makes it onto her desk. Because it's never too early to start wrangling those Bronx voters, right?
Rivera's final season is winding down, and fans have floated around a rename of River Ave in the Bronx as a fitting tribute to him. "River Avenue connects where the old Stadium was and where the new one is. Mariano for his entire career has been a Yankee, connecting the old Yankees with the new Yankees," Tom Ferrera, a Yankees fan and Westchester resident who initially suggested the rename, said on WFAN yesterday morning. "And if you have ties into The Bronx and you have an emotional attachment to the team, as literally hundreds of thousands if not more fans do, River Avenue., not unlike Mariano, is that connection.”
And Quinn, a noted Yankees fan/Mets traitor said she'd be down with the rename, at least for consideration. "I know many New Yorkers and many Council Members would enthusiastically support renaming River Avenue in his honor,” she said in a statement yesterday. “If a member does propose a bill, it will undergo the same review as all bills do, and I look forward to considering it."
Ferrera and fellow Rivera Ave proponents need to get a move on if they want Quinn to take a look at the bill; an election to replace her as Speaker will take place in January, and we hear Jumaane Williams is more of a basketball fan, anyway.
