Malachy McCourt at his home on the Upper West Side, 2007. David Shankbone via Wikimedia Commons.
Free Upper West Side News, Delivered To Your Inbox
The corner of 93rd Street and West End Avenue will soon bear the name of Malachy McCourt, the Irish-American writer, actor, and activist who made the neighborhood his own and helped make it a better place for nearly six decades. McCourt died in March 2024 at the age of 92. At a street review meeting of Community Board 7 in April 2025, his co-naming application was already front and center and approved shortly thereafter.
Advertisement
The ceremony is scheduled for Saturday, September 27 at 3 p.m. at the northeast corner of the intersection, where McCourt lived nearby with his family. Posters around the neighborhood tout the event as “The Hanging of Malachy McCourt: Author, Storyteller, Actor, Raconteur,” featuring a McCourt landmark line, “I Love Ya New York.”
“He was Irish but he was a mensch,” said longtime neighbor Jeff Baron, recalling McCourt as generous with his time and advice. Door attendants at the building echoed that sentiment, describing him as warm, funny, and always smiling.
McCourt was widely known for his New York Times best-selling memoir A Monk Swimming (1998), which chronicled his colorful life in the city. He acted in television and film, appearing in Ryan’s Hope, The Bonfire of the Vanities, and Reversal of Fortune. With his brother Frank, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Angela’s Ashes, he co-wrote and performed the play A Couple of Blaguards, a comedic reflection on their childhood in Ireland.
Advertisement
Born in Brooklyn in 1931, McCourt was raised in Limerick, Ireland, before returning to New York at 20. In 1958 he opened Malachy’s, a popular Upper East Side bar considered one of the city’s first singles bars. He built a career as a raconteur, radio host, and political activist, and in 2006 ran for governor of New York as a Green Party candidate.In his later years, McCourt reflected on life and mortality in his memoir Death Be Not Fatal (2018), which combined humor and candor about aging. His family says they hope the new street sign will serve as a lasting tribute to the man who loved the Upper West Side and actively made it a better place for everyone around him.
Have a news tip? Send it to us here!
