I pass by the corner of 38th Street and Lexington on a regular basis. I know the area pretty well, but just recently looked up and saw something I hadn’t noticed.
There are a lot of streets in NYC that have two names. It will be a street number and an honorary name on a blue sign. I hadn’t noticed this one because I don’t really read them anymore, but this time I did. This one is relatively unique in that it isn’t a honorary street name, but a corner name: “Brothers to the Rescue Corner” or “Equisna Al Hermanos Rescate”.
If you step back, you’ll notice that there is another unusual feature to this corner: a police box.
Once again, you see these around, but it isn’t a random placement. The cop is there in response to one of the block’s residents: the Cuban mission to the United Nations.
The “tweak”? Brothers to the Rescue is a group of Cuban exiles that used to fly near Cuba searching for Cubans fleeing by raft. Later, they engaged in a leaflet dropping operation that would go near, and sometimes inside, Cuban airspace to drop leaflets to be blown onto Cuban soil. If you read the Wikipedia link, you’ll see all sorts of governmental machinations including a probable Cuban infiltrator of the group and a host of different sources saying opposite things. During its rescue/leaflet flights, the government of Cuba protested the actions until, in 1996, they shot down two of the group’s airplanes.
The point of naming the corner after the group is simply to remind Cuba that they are viewed as barbarians willing to kill unarmed leaflet droppers rather than to let them speak their minds.
I suppose Cuba has retaliated in some similar diplomatic fashion.
-H
Famous Ankles 