Manhattan street has a name: U2 Way
(From left) New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is joined by members of the band U2, Adam Clayton, Bono, The Edge and Larry Mullen during a ceremony on March 3 in New York.
This street does have a name -- U2 Way.
To celebrate U2's weeklong gig on CBS' "Late Show With David Letterman," a block-long stretch of West 53rd Street was temporarily renamed after the veteran Irish rockers on Tuesday.
"Somewhere south of Duke Ellington Way and north of Joey Ramone Place we find ourselves," said lead singer Bono. "And we're the band where the streets have no name."
The four band members joined Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn in unveiling the "U2 Way" street sign on Broadway across West 53rd Street from the Ed Sullivan Theater, where Letterman's show is taped.
Scores of fans cheered from behind police barricades as Bloomberg presented each U2 member with his own copy of the sign.
"Edge just said this is the first time he's been seen with a street sign and not been arrested," quipped Bono, referring to guitarist The Edge.
U2 is on "Letterman" all week to promote their new album, "No Line on the Horizon."
"The boys are in town for a weeklong stint with the king of late night, David Letterman," Bloomberg said. "And it's a historic event for late-night television right here in the capital of late-night television."
U2 has sold tens of millions of records, and Bono has become a leading crusader against poverty and disease in the developing world. Tuesday's event at least temporarily adds the band to a musical map that includes Duke Ellington Boulevard in Morningside Heights and Joey Ramone Place in the East Village.
Bloomberg thanked all the band members for their humanitarian work and added, "No wonder everyone in the city including me considers these four Dubliners honorary New Yorkers.”
Band members posed for photos in the frigid sunshine and said they considered New York their second home.
Comments