Sorry, New Yorkers: There won't be a "Beastie Boy Square" in the city.
A Manhattan community board shot down Brooklyn resident LeRoy McCarthy's request to rename the Lower East Side intersection of Rivington and Ludlow streets in honor of the band. The site is where the cover photo of the Beastie Boys' sophomore album, "Paul's Boutique" was taken in 1989.
A Community Board 3 meeting voted 24 to 1 with 1 abstention to McCarthy's application on Jan. 28. Officials told him he will not be eligible to reapply with a similar proposal for five years, DNAinfo reports.
"I was blindsided," McCarthy, 46, who first suggested the idea in 2013, told the outlet. "Once again I was blindsided and not given the opportunity to present the full material they [CB3] requested. They did not given me a chance to be heard at the committee, which was the arrangement that had been made."
To meet the board’s qualifications for street co-naming, the application must include a deceased honoree and show that the group or individual being honored has contributed 15 years of community service. McCarthy’s application met the deceased requirement -- Beastie Boy’s member Adam "MCA" Yauch died of cancer in 2012 -- but allegedly did not meet the other.
Apparently, McCarthy initially felt the trio's cross-cultural impact on music in New York City was enough to meet the board's criteria.
"Aside for spanning genres of music over their 30+ year career, Beastie Boys, along with RUN DMC, were pioneers in expanding exchanges culturally in NYC, and worldwide,” he wrote on his Change.org petition page, which he first launched to gather support for the square.
After being dealt a preliminary rejection on Jan. 14, McCarthy said he was led to believe he had until the February board meeting to gather more support for his cause, Rolling Stone reports. However, he was later sent an email from the board's district manager, Susan Stetzer, who explained the board voted early so that "You [McCarthy] not put in many hours of work and then have the board deny in February."
Despite the proposal's rejection, it's evident many align themselves with McCarthy's cause. Dozens showed support on the petition page and reflected on the rap trio's cultural impact.
“The Beastie Boys, especially in their late work, are supporters of conservation, tolerance, and diversity. All things that go straight to the heart of what NYC is. They are and were (RIP MCA) true New Yorkers and should have a monument here,” Peter Senna, a supporter of the proposal, wrote on the petition’s page earlier this month.