Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times A street in Lower Manhattan is named after Samuel Dickstein, a former United States representative and State Supreme court judge, who was secretly on the payroll of the Soviet Union. When Susan LaRosa became director of marketing for the Henry Street Settlement a few years ago, she peered out her window at the plaza below and wondered about its namesake: Who was Samuel Dickstein?
Once she found out through her own research, she was angry. And since The New York Times reported last month that the congressman for whom the Lower East Side plaza had been named had also been a spy for the Soviet Union, her effort to rename the block has gotten a new lease on life.
Ms. LaRosa now hopes to persuade the city to name the block Lillian Wald Way, in honor of the nurse who founded the Henry Street settlement house 120 years ago.
“I can see that sign from my office window, and when I first arrived here decided to find out who Samuel Dickstein was,†she said. “What a shocker. Why retain the name of a greedy spy when saintly Lillian can grace the plaza.â€
In 1963, a one block extension of Pitt Street between Grand and East Broadway was named by the City Council for Mr. Dickstein, a former congressman and State Supreme Court justice, who became famous in the 1930s for pursuing radicals as vice chairman of a House subcommittee on un-American activities and later turning his attention to Nazi sympathizers.
According to “The Haunted Wood,†published in 1999, Mr. Dickstein was also paid $1,250 monthly by the Russian intelligence services for information.
Ms. LaRosa said she planned to petition the local community board, Community Board 3, and the City Council to change the name. The community board would have to approve her petition for the measure to be considered by the City Council.
