Fifty Years on One Block: How Virginia Burroughs Became a Street

The corner of Linwood Street and Hegeman Avenue has a new name.

On Saturday, August 8, family, friends, elected officials and neighbors gathered on a well-manicured plot of grass under Chris Banks branded tents. A large smiling banner of Virginia Burroughs stood at the front of the crowd. People walked up to it one at a time. Some stared. Some touched it. Some raised phones to take pictures of the woman who ran the Essex Terrace Tenants Association for fifty years.

By the end of the afternoon, the corner had a new name. Virginia Burroughs Way.

A fifty-year tenure

Ms. Burroughs served as president of the Essex Terrace Tenants Association for approximately 50 years, according to her family and remarks delivered at the ceremony. She lived at the Mitchell-Lama development for 53 years, according to the family tribute read from the podium.

That tenure spans nearly the entire life of the building. Essex Terrace opened for initial occupancy in May 1970.

No public agency in New York City keeps a length-of-service ranking for tenant association presidents. Neither the New York City Housing Authority, HPD, nor state Homes and Community Renewal publishes such a list. East New York Times cannot state as fact that hers was the longest tenure in the city.

The context still matters. NYCHA caps its resident council terms of office at three years, per the housing authority’s Resident Councils page. Miguel Acevedo of Fulton Houses has held office for 14 years as of 2025, according to City Limits. Daniel Barber, chair of the Citywide Council of Presidents, has served roughly 22 years as president of the Jackson Houses Resident Association, according to The NYCHA Journal.

Mitchell-Lama Tenants Associations operate under different HPD rules that recognize a duly constituted association but set no fixed term limit.

Ms. Burroughs held her seat for fifty years.

The ceremony

Donna White, a friend of Ms. Burroughs, served as emcee of the ceremony and delivered the opening prayer. Council Deputy Leader Chris Banks called her “the amazing Donna White” and described her as “a driving force in making this happen.”

White prayed first over the corner. “We ask that You will bless this corner in a special way, because we are representing a special woman,” she said. She then led the crowd through the first stanza of Lift Every Voice and Sing.

Then she yielded to family.

Adrianna Burroughs spoke first. “My mother’s probably on the moon right now,” she said, “but she would never expect this.”

Amanda Torres opened her remarks with a thank you to White and to Council Member Banks’s office. Then she paused. She had a written tribute ready, but she could not get through it. Family members moved to her side at the podium. Her teenage son, Anthony, stepped up and finished reading the message for his mother.

The passage Anthony read named the corner’s meaning in plain terms. “Everyone who passes the street will see her name and know that it belongs to someone who made a meaningful difference within this community.”

The family recalled 53 years of cookouts, holiday celebrations, bus rides, birthday parties, sleepovers and community-room movie nights inside Essex Terrace. Ms. Burroughs, they said, “was always a helping hand for those in need. Spoke her mind, and it wasn’t always nice, but the respect towards her always remained.”

A granddaughter followed. “Growing up and my whole life, she was one of the strongest women role models in my life that I could look up to. She was like my best friend. We did everything together.”

“Virginia was a pain”

The line of the day belonged to Dr. DeCosta Headley Sr., former District Leader for the 40th Assembly District. Headley has known the Burroughs family for nearly five decades. His own history runs through the same Mitchell-Lama complex.

“Virginia was a pain. And I’m saying a pain. Let me say that again. A pain. Because she was determined to get something done.”

Headley told the crowd he used to visit Ms. Burroughs’s apartment. She would sit him down, feed him, then dictate what she wanted done for the development. “This development was one of the most powerful developments in East New York because of Virginia,” he said. He credited her with helping build a “family union” inside Essex Terrace, and named Shinda Management Corporation, the site’s Mitchell-Lama managing agent, as one of the parties residents held to account.

He also thanked former Congressman Ed Towns for allocating what he described as “over 42 million dollars in this whole entire area” over the years. That figure was Dr. Headley’s attribution at the podium. East New York Times has not independently verified the amount.

The petitions

Former U.S. Rep. Edolphus “Ed” Towns followed Headley to the mic. Towns represented Brooklyn in Congress for thirty years, from 1983 to 2013, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.

“Virginia was a political person,” Towns said. “There’s a lot of folks where they are today because Virginia worked to make it happen. If you wanted some good petitions, you had to get Virginia to help you get it.”

Petitions are one of the plainest tools of New York politics. They are the mechanism by which anyone reaches a primary ballot. Towns’s point on the block was that a candidate who wanted a clean petition sheet went to Ms. Burroughs. She went door to door until the sheet was clean. “She was committed to this community,” he said. “She was dedicated to this community.”

He closed by wishing more people carried her level of commitment. “I’m certain that this world would be in a different place.”

The citation

Kim Gill, representing Assemblymember Nikki Lucas, presented the family with a New York State Assembly citation.

“Assemblywoman Nikki Lucas hereby honors the life and legacy of Virginia Burroughs with deep appreciation, heartfelt remembrance, and recognition of her extraordinary commitment to public service, community leadership, and unwavering devotion to her family,” Gill read. “This citation is presented as a lasting tribute to a woman whose compassion, generosity, and selfless spirit enriched the lives of countless individuals.”

Gill also thanked Council Member Banks for a co-naming practice that, she said, ensures “our kids see the people who made this community what it was.”

The sign

The co-naming was enacted through Int. No. 1501-2025. That bill became Local Law 48 of 2026 on January 17, 2026, sponsored by Council Deputy Leader Chris Banks and 50 of his City Council colleagues, per the Council’s Legistar record and confirmed at intro.nyc. The bill co-named 77 thoroughfares and public places across the five boroughs. Ms. Burroughs’s designation is located, per the law’s text, “at the intersection of Linwood Street and Hegeman Avenue.”

When it was time for the presentation, Banks addressed the family directly.

“For more than 50 years, she called Essex Terrace home. But she was more than just a resident. She was a leader here. She was a mentor, an advocate for many, a friend.”

“She never sought recognition. She wasn’t interested in praise. But whether she was organizing food drives, creating opportunities for young people, supporting seniors, or simply lending a listening ear, she did it because she genuinely cared about her community.”

Banks recognized his staff, Kyle and Michael among them. He also recognized Alice Lowman, chairwoman of Brooklyn Community Board 5, and the neighbors who had circulated the paperwork that eventually reached the Council floor. Then, together with members of the Burroughs family, he pulled the cover from the sign.

Family cheered. Some shed tears. Then, one by one, they took turns underneath Virginia Burroughs Way. A woman who had spent fifty years working this corner is now permanently posted above it.

What the sign is for

The Council’s Legistar record lists Ms. Burroughs’s name alongside 76 others. Pastors. Artists. Block leaders. Firefighters. Elders. A hip-hop group. The city’s street co-naming process, described on NYC 311, begins with a local nomination. It moves to a community board’s advisory opinion. It requires sponsorship by the district’s Council member. It ends with a mayoral signature and a Department of Transportation installation. The 36-character sign is a plaque built out of paperwork.

Paperwork is not what fills a lawn on a Saturday afternoon.

What filled that lawn was the smiling banner touched by hand, the tents, the teenage grandson finishing his mother’s speech, and the neighbor who called herself Miss Virginia’s “other daughter from another mother.” That is the record of what fifty years of showing up on one block can produce. A community that, the moment the sign was unveiled, could name every reason it went up.