Nina Simone honored with street renaming near Mount Vernon home
MOUNT VERNON, N.Y. -- The city of Mount Vernon is remembering iconic musician and civil rights activist Nina Simone.
The Westchester County city was her home for more than a decade. Now, Nuber Avenue, where she lived, bears her name.
The house where she lived from 1961 to '73 with her daughter, Lisa, still stands and longtime residents still recall the thrill of hearing Simone rehearsing.
"In her house, with her band, or in the garage area where her maid stayed at, they performed music back there. That's what it was!" resident John Jones said.
Simone's music defied easy categorization. A classically trained prodigy on the piano, she recorded everything from Bach to the Bee Gees and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018.
In the Civil Rights era, Simone sang of grave injustice but also great promise.
"To Be Young, Gifted, and Black," written with Weldon Irvine, resonated with generations of Black youth.
"To hear it on that song, and hear that somebody outside is singing that, "I'm young, gifted, and Black," it was beautiful," resident Nola Dahling said.
"Her music not only spoke to the pain and the passion and the pride, it also spoke to the hope, the joy, the love, the celebration of who we are as a Black people," Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard said.
In 2018, a massive tree fell onto the home. Owners Ian and Paige Sharps consulted with engineers.
"And they wanted to actually destroy it, and we said no. We wanted to preserve the legacy," Paige Sharps said.
Simone's legacy, which is valued around the world, is now commemorated on this Mount Vernon corner.