Beloved Harlem Community Activist Honored With Street Renaming

HARLEM, NY - A longtime community activist, New York City employee and Harlemite was honored Monday with a street co-named after her in Hamilton Heights.

Genevieve “Jenny” Eason, a longtime activist who vocally fought for residents during the construction of the North River Water Treatment Plant in the 1980s, is now memorialized on the northeast corner of Riverside Drive and West 139th Street, officials said.

"I am filled with immense pride that Jenny’s name will emblazon our streets and guide our lives for generations to come because her work must continue," Council Member Shaun Abreu said Monday. "We must continue her fight for environmental justice, for the right to clean water and air, and for basic respect and dignity for tenants. The people of West Harlem deserve nothing less."

Eason joined state and federal voices around 1985 advocating for area residents' wellbeing during the planning and construction of the sewage treatment plant along the Hudson River. As a member of Community Planning Board 9 and the Riverbank Study Committee, the Riverside Drive resident was "instrumental" in hiring a minority firm to plan and manage the design of the park, according to a biography provided by Abreu's office.

"An agreement was reached that a percentage of jobs would go to West Harlem residents," the biography reads. "Jenny told anyone who asked [to] "go over to the park and get a job! Tell them where you live and let us know the results."

Eason was born the youngest of 14 in a small North Carolina town and moved to the Big Apple following her graduation from Virginia State College with a bachelor's degree in English literature, per Abreu's office. With her husband and two young children in tow, Eason took up residence in Convent Avenue in Harlem, taking available jobs and saved what money she could before passing a civil service test and becoming a social worker for the city.

Eason was also a longtime member of the Convent Avenue Baptist Church for over 50 years and was a board member of the church's Yes We Care ministry, Abreu's office said.

The Monday co-naming ceremony was attended by council members Shaun Abreu and Gale Brewer, as well as Sen. Cordell Cleare and former state Assemblyman Keith Wright.

The co-naming was approved by the City Council in 2021, alongside 15 others. You can view them all here.