A Brooklyn street has a new name courtesy of one of the city’s most esteemed rappers: Wu-Tang Clan’s Ol’ Dirty Bastard. During a ceremony held today (July 26) with the late MCs friends, family, and a group of local officials, Putnam Avenue in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood was co-named ODB Jones Way in honor of the influential group’s co-founder.
Although Ol’ Dirty Bastard, real name Russell Tyrone Jones, was born and raised in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighborhood, his connection to Bed-Stuy runs deep. At the ceremony, the rapper’s eldest brother, Ramsay Jones, told New York photographer Howie Weiss that the street sign went up at the corner of a block their grandmother still lives on today. The same block is also home to a well-known mural depicting the cover of Jones’ first solo album, Return To The 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version.
The street renaming arrives over two decades after Jones died from an overdose in 2004 at the age of 35. Since then, two documentaries about his life and legacy have been released: an unauthorized 2013 film, which Jones’ estate attempted to block, and a 2023 movie released on A&E with his family’s blessing.
Read Sheldon Pearce’s Sunday Review of Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version.