43rd Street Now Stan Brooks Way

For 50 years, he gave us the world.  Now veteran radio reporter Stan Brooks has a New York City corner named in his honor.

Dozens of friends, neighbors, and colleagues gathered Friday afternoon at 43rd Street and 10th Avenue on Manhattan’s west side, where Brooks had lived with his late wife Lynn for 28 years, to officially rename the street “Stan Brooks Way.”

“He was loved by his colleagues. He was honest. He had integrity,” said Corey Johnson, the local Council member who sponsored the bill to rename the street, adding, “He may be over the course of many decades the most popular person consistently in City Hall.”

Brooks worked in the news business for more than 60 years and spent over 50 of them at WINS, where he served as the first news director at the country’s first 24-hours news station. He covered seven mayors and every major news story in New York City over the last five decades. He was still working just weeks before he died last December of lung cancer.

His three sons, Rick, Bennett and George, offered their tributes in word and music at Friday's ceremony.

George Brooks, one of Stan Brooks' sons, playing My Fair Lady's "On the Street Where You Live." (Brigid Bergin/WNYC)

“My dad referred to his work, and the privilege of being a reporter, as having a seat on the 50-yard line of history,” said Rick Brooks, adding that “Stan Brooks ‘way’ as a reporter was paved with tenacity, sincerity and clarity.”

Bennett Brooks brought a letter from longtime friend and colleague, CBS Newsradio reporter Rich Lamb, who could not attend the ceremony. It read, in part:

“Stan doesn’t need a street sign to live in our memories. I dare say his voice was heard in every borough, in every street and on every block in the city for decades. It’s fitting that a city he loved so completely should name one corner of that city, one he knew so well, to honor him.”