Fellow Supporters

Please Join Jason Strickland & Ephraim Benton of Beyond Influencing Da Hood, Residents of Tompkins Houses & Seniors in a supportive effort to Honorary co-name MYRTLE Ave from (Tompkins Ave to Throop Ave) into Mae Miller Way. She was the beloved Tenant Association President of Tompkins Houses from the 50's through out the 80's. In 1977 she rallied residents in her complex to scrape together their scarce resources to purchase, with the help of city funds, a video surveillance system for the development's eight high-rise buildings. Miller's group commandeered unused storage space to create a tenant patrol room from which three volunteers on six-hour shifts observed the activities of building residents on twelve closed-circuit monitors. She had renamed her project's community facility the Tompkins African Liberation Center and painted it (to the consternation of the complex's Puerto Rican residents) in red, black and green strips popularized by black pride movements since the days of Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association. She was highly respected by all residents including the local residents up to no good. They even wrote about her in a book called "The Last Neighborhood Cop: The rise and fall of community policing in NY Public Housing". Alot of major NYC political figures during her reign supported her including former Mayor John Lindsay. There are so many legendary stories that's embedded in the hearts of so many Tompkins residents of different generations from her brave activism and revolutionary thinking, relationship with the 79th precinct, leader of the girl scouts & brownies, protective grass areas or knowing all residents names that lived in the complex, etc. Stories of her gathering residents to rally to reinstate the funding of Fire House Engine Co 230 from closing in Bed-Stuy or shutting down Tompkins Ave and making all traffic detour because her complex had no water. But mainly about how she was the back bone who fought for and uplifted the community in a positive way and really cared about her residents. This lady deserves her due diligence so our goal is to get signatures online and physically, file paperwork and get Myrtle Ave co-named MAE MILLER WAY next summer on the 51st celebration of Tompkins Houses. TOMPKINS! THE  HOUSES MRS. MAE MILLER BUILT!!!